

He kept repeating that "they" were going to eat at his head until nothing was left. Their friend started saying that "they" were in his brain and eating it away. Increasingly sick, he had started having hallucinations, apparently from the virus, and begged Trina and Lana to lock him up, which they did. Trina and Lana take Mark and Alec to a locked room in which one of their other friends, Darnell, is confined. Mark and Alec explain that the darts were filled with a virus, and the group suspects that the virus is mutating. Lana and Trina explain that after the initial death toll, people started living a little longer before they die, and symptoms of infection also changed. Three days later, they reach the town to find that the virus had killed most of the infected. They discover that the darts contained a deadly virus, and they start their long journey back to their town. Alec and Mark manage to subdue and take over a Berg, but its pilot crashes the vehicle in order to avoid answering their questions. The crew showers their settlement with darts that kill many townies. Huge helicopter-like vehicles, called Bergs, arrive and attack the people in the towns. The story resumes one year after the tsunami near Asheville, a small North Carolina town in which Mark, Trina, Alec, and Lana now live. Alec manages to overcome their captors, and they take the yacht as their own and pilot the boat to the Appalachian Beaches. They camp out in the building for weeks until a yacht arrives, but the yacht's crew takes them hostage and kills one of them in order to persuade them to give up all the food in the Lincoln building. The Tsunami ends up being made of searing hot water due to the solar flare, killing most of the survivors in New York and giving Mark PTSD. The group flees to the fictional Lincoln Building to avoid an impending tsunami. Mark and Trina form an alliance with Alec, Lana, and others, who rescue them from a group of street urchins. Set thirteen years before the prologue and the events of The Maze Runner, the main story of the novel begins in New York City, when the world is hit by catastrophic solar flares.

Thomas is then sent into the Maze with Teresa, setting the events of The Maze Runner in motion. He is told that Teresa will get the Swipe as well.

In the prologue, Thomas goes through the Swipe and is put in the Box, as he is one of the candidates who is needed inside. The book is set prior to the events of The Fever Code and 13 years before The Maze Runner book. It is the first prequel book in The Maze Runner series and the fourth installment overall. The Kill Order is a 2012 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American author James Dashner and published on August 14, 2012, by Delacorte Press. Print ( hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book
