II. The Glade

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Eventually, my eyes begin to adjust to the light, allowing me to catch small glimpses of what surrounds me. As the immediate shock begins to fade, I begin to notice....voices? I look up when I see shadows shifting over head. I squint against the sun. People. People laughing? Why are they laughing? I think as endless possibilities race through my mind. My eyes fully adjust to the light and I realize all the people standing above me are teenagers. Which strikes me as strange, though I really have no context for the situation. Suddenly, I realize I don't even know how old I am. I assume I must be a teenager like the rest, but there was no way I could be sure. As I look around, I realize that most of them are boys, and as far as I can see there are only a few girls.  Two actually.

Suddenly a rope descends,  snapping me out of my thoughts. What am I supposed to do? climb out? Then I realize there's a loop in the bottom.
Well, I can't stay down here forever. Here goes nothing, I think as a put one hand on my knife and put my foot in the loop. Before I know it, I've shot up out of the box and am being pulled over the edge. People reach for me, dragging me out of the box and onto the ground. I shake them off as quickly as I can, standing quickly to look around, and brushing the dirt off of my clothes. I'm surrounded by a group of -like I thought- teenagers. I was right again, they are mostly boys, and still I only count two other girls, besides me. They laugh and point but do nothing to actually harm me. The group doesn't talk directly to me or move closer, they just stand there, pointing and laughing. Why does nothing here make any sense? Some shout things like "it's another shank girl" or "she'll be a slopper for sure." Shank, slopper? It feels like parts of my language have been stolen. All this at once makes my head hurt.

I ignore the laughter and look past the group, and I soon discover I am standing in a massive field surrounded by thick, ivy covered, stone walls. The walls tower over the field like skyscrapers from ancient city. Ok so I'm in some sort of walled city? Well not a city per se, seeing that there are only a few buildings scattered about, but some sort of living area. Still, the magnitude of the walls blows my mind, dwarfing everything around them.

This time my thinking is interrupted by a voice. "Hey greenie, welcome to the glade" I turn around and find that the voice belongs to a tall boy with shaggy blond hair, that falls just above his warm brown eyes. He looks at me without expression.

"The names Newt, and this here is Alby" He says, jerking his thumb towards the boy standing next to him. The boy, Alby, is a large, dark skinned boy with short black hair and brown eyes. Alby looks like there's  any number of other things he'd rather be doing right now. You and me both, I think to myself.

"why am I here, and where is here?" I start to ask, wanting answers to at least some of my rapidly multiplying questions. "and why can't I remember anything, and who are you and...."

"Wow, slow down there greenie," says Alby, cutting me off. "We call this place you're standing in the glade. And we don't know why any of us got sent to the maze. We remember just as much from before as you do."

"Wait maze? You just said maze?" I question, my curiosity peaked despite my uneasiness. Alby doesn't respond. It takes me a minute to figure out what he means, but as I look out into the openings in the giant stone walls it all clicks. I can see small corridors turning this way and that. It looks like...well it looks like a maze.

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