Cover

Other Titles

BOOKS BY JAMES DASHNER

THE MORTALITY DOCTRINE SERIES

The Eye of Minds

The Rule of Thoughts

The Game of Lives

THE MAZE RUNNER SERIES

The Maze Runner

The Scorch Trials

The Death Cure

The Kill Order

THE 13TH REALITY SERIES

The Journal of Curious Letters

The Hunt for Dark Infinity

The Blade of Shattered Hope

The Void of Mist and Thunder

Title Page

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by James Dashner

Cover art copyright © 2015 by Richard Jones

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-385-74143-9 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-375-99003-8 (lib. bdg.)

ISBN 978-0-375-98465-5 (ebook) — ISBN 978-1-101-93433-3 (intl. tr. pbk.)

eBook ISBN 9780375984655

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Dedication

For Lynette

PROLOGUE

Michael welcomed sleep. The small bumps of the road and the hum of tires on asphalt relaxed him for the first time in days, and his eyes grew heavy. He was an expert at dealing with reality—or unreality—but after what he’d been through lately, if he could pass a little time unconscious, he would be eternally grateful. There had been a lot to digest. Any chance to escape the world and its many ills—he’d take it. Though, fat chance he’d be slipping inside a Coffin anytime soon.

Michael’s head bobbed. He caught himself and sank back into the seat. He knew it was a dream because he was no longer sitting in Sarah’s dad’s car. He was at his kitchen counter before it all began, where his nanny, Helga, had served him breakfast hundreds of times. If not thousands. He thought about the man who’d visited him in prison, his strange speech about dreams within dreams, how the looping logic applied to the VirtNet as well. Things that could drive you crazy if you thought about them too much.

“These are some great waffles,” Michael said. He was surprised at how real they tasted. Warm, buttery goodness. He swallowed a bite and smiled.