Honestly, if you jumped into James Dashner's prequel expecting more teenage banter and glader-style camaraderie, you probably got a massive reality check. It’s brutal. Most people who pick up The Maze Runner: The Kill Order think they’re getting a light backstory on how WICKED (or WCKD, depending on if you're a book purist or a movie fan) came to be. Instead, Dashner hands us a post-apocalyptic nightmare that feels more like The Road than a YA dystopia.
It starts with the sun. Not the nice, warm kind that gives you a tan, but the kind that literally cooks the planet. The solar flares are the real catalyst here. While Thomas and the others were eventually fighting Grievers in a high-tech maze, the characters in this prequel—Mark and Trina—are just trying to breathe in a world that’s turned into a giant oven.
What actually happened in The Maze Runner: The Kill Order
The story kicks off thirteen years before Thomas pops up in the Box. This isn't some slow-burn political drama about government oversight. It’s chaos. We meet Mark and Trina, who survived the initial sun flares in New York City. They’re living in the Appalachian Mountains, just trying to exist, when a Berg—those massive flying ships we see later in the series—shows up.
But it’s not a rescue mission.
The people on the Berg start shooting darts at the survivors. These aren't tranquilizers. They’re loaded with the Flare virus. This is the moment the "science" of the series gets incredibly dark. The virus wasn't some accidental leak from a lab where a scientist tripped and dropped a beaker. It was a deliberate, cold-blooded move by the Post-Flares Coalition to reduce the population because resources were non-existent.
Imagine that for a second. The government decided the "merciful" way to handle a dying planet was to kill off half the population with a virus that rots your brain. Except, the virus mutated. It didn't just kill people quickly; it turned them into "Cranks."
📖 Related: Daniel Silva Gabriel Allon Novels: Why You Might Be Reading Them Wrong
The Flare wasn't supposed to be this way
One thing readers often miss is that the original strain of the Flare was designed to be a quick shutdown. It was supposed to target the brain and end life almost instantly. But nature—or biology—doesn't like being told what to do. The virus moved into the nervous system and stayed there, simmering. It turned humans into shells of themselves, driven by madness and a weird, primal aggression.
Mark's journey through this is harrowing. He isn't a "Chosen One." He doesn't have telepathic powers or a special destiny yet. He’s just a kid watching his friends lose their minds. The pacing in The Maze Runner: The Kill Order is erratic, reflecting the mental state of the characters. One minute they’re hiking through the woods, the next they’re in a full-blown cult settlement where people are worshipping the virus as a god. It’s unsettling.
The WICKED connection you might have missed
You’ve got to look at the character of Deedee. If you’ve finished the book, you know she’s the lynchpin. She gets bitten by a dart, but she doesn't get sick. She’s the first "Immune."
Later, we find out Deedee is actually Teresa.
This changes the entire context of the original trilogy. When you see Teresa in the first book, she’s often viewed as the traitor or the girl who made the "wrong" choices. But after reading her origin in this prequel, you realize she was a five-year-old girl abandoned by her village and then basically adopted by a paramilitary organization that told her she was the only hope for humanity. It adds a layer of empathy that the movies totally skipped over.
Why this book is the "Black Sheep" of the series
A lot of fans struggle with this one. It’s different. It’s grittier. There are no Mazes. There are no Grievers. It’s just human beings being absolutely terrible to each other while the world ends.
James Dashner wrote this as the fourth book (the first prequel), and it feels like he wanted to strip away the sci-fi gadgets and focus on the horror. The scenes in New York City—depicted in flashbacks—are some of the most vivid in the entire franchise. The "Tsunami" of heat that hits the city is described with a visceral intensity that makes the later Maze trials look like a summer camp.
- The Sun Flares: They happened in seconds, killing billions.
- The PFC (Post-Flares Coalition): They are the true villains, even more than WICKED.
- The Mutation: The virus was never meant to create Cranks; that was a catastrophic biological failure.
Some critics, like those at Kirkus Reviews, noted that the book can feel excessively bleak. And they aren't wrong. There isn't a "win" at the end of this story. There’s only survival and the hand-off to the next generation of kids who will be poked and prodded in the name of science.
The harsh reality of the ending
The finale of The Maze Runner: The Kill Order doesn't offer a sunset to walk into. Mark and Alec (the hardened veteran who is easily the best character in the book) have to make a choice. They know they’re infected. They know the madness is coming. Their final act isn't about saving themselves; it’s about getting Deedee to the Flat Trans—a teleportation device—so she can reach the WICKED headquarters.
It’s a selfless, devastating ending. It highlights the theme that runs through all the books: What are you willing to sacrifice to save a species that might not even deserve saving?
How to approach the series now
If you’re looking to dive back into this world, don't just re-read the main trilogy. The context of the solar flares changes everything.
- Read in Chronological Order: If you want a fresh perspective, start with The Kill Order, then The Fever Code, then the main trilogy. It makes the transition from "end of the world" to "lab experiment" feel much more calculated.
- Watch for the "Old Man" references: Alec’s military background hints at how the world’s governments collapsed. He’s a bridge between our world and the world of the Maze.
- Analyze the Virus: Pay attention to how the symptoms in Mark mirror the symptoms we see in Newt later on. It’s a slow, agonizing descent that Dashner maps out perfectly.
The biggest takeaway from The Maze Runner: The Kill Order is that the Maze wasn't the start of the nightmare. It was a desperate, flawed attempt to wake up from one. The book is a brutal reminder that sometimes, the "cure" is just as terrifying as the disease.
For those interested in the lore, tracking the timeline of the Flare's mutation is the best way to understand why WICKED became so desperate. The virus was evolving faster than their research could keep up. This pressure explains—though doesn't justify—the unethical trials they put Thomas and his friends through. It was a race against a biological clock that had already struck midnight for the rest of the world.
To get the most out of your next read, compare the "Cranks" in this book to the ones in The Scorch Trials. You'll notice the ones in the prequel still have flickers of humanity, which actually makes them much scarier. They know they are losing themselves. By the time Thomas meets them years later, they are mostly just monsters. That loss of the "human" element is the real tragedy of the series.