Things We Lost In The Fire

Into The Maze

I sat like I usually did at my desk, awaiting to be rescued from my shift. There was hardly anyone left in The Hive, everyone was either eating dinner or getting ready for bed. Only Aris, Hannah, and another girl I didn't recognize were accompanying me in my torturous night shift. Most of the gladers were asleep by now, the maze doors had long been closed. I heard Newt and Alby conversing quietly over Chuck.

"What do we do with the greenbean?" Newt asked his superior.

Alby just shrugged nonchalantly. "There's nothing we can do. He's going to have to stick it out like the rest of us. Just because he's 13-"

12,actually.

"— doesn't mean he gets special treatment. We all went through the same thing he did."

"Yeah," Newt agreed, "But I literally saw the greenbean have a bloody breakdown in the bathrooms."

Alby placed his muscley hands on his wide hips. "He'll find his niche. In the meantime I want you to stop worrying about greenies and start worrying about how the shuck we're going to fix that hole in the side of the homestead."

Newt let out an almost inaudible sigh. "I told you Gally," one of the builders, "was going to take care of it."

Alby frowned, pivoting on his heel to exit Newt's room.

"Well hurry," he called out, "don't want the shucking grievers crawling in."

I shivered at the name. Here at WICKED we had no names for them. They were just referred to as creature A1 or creature A5.

My mind started to wander back to Chuck.

I felt bad for the poor boy. He had been there for almost a week now. When he first arrived, I felt like crying. He was so scared, so frightened of the unknown. He called out for his mom, who had long been gone by now. He wanted comfort, and the other gladers just laughed in his chubby face. The only one who seemed to give a crap was Newt and another boy, Sigmund, who was close to his age. Being the youngest boy in the glade, he hadn't made many friends. I almost wanted to launch Thomas up that elevator right now, just to comfort our previous roomie, even if they didn't remember each other.

"You're free to go;" a voice interrupted my train of thought.

I flinched in my chair, sitting up to see Hannah. She gave me a small nod, and I politely returned it, shutting off my work pad desk. The room went dim as Hannah switched off a light, the only light emitting from The Brain now where a few workers were starting their graveyard shift.

"Goodnight Aris." I dismissed, momentarily locking my brown eyes with his blue ones. He shrugged off his headpiece, placing it on his glass desk which caused it to make a 'ting' noise.

"Goodnight Florence," he retorted with a small, close lipped smile.

I patted the older boy's back, passing him as I headed to the opposite door.

I yawned; sending cold shivers through my body as I tiredly trudged towards my bedroom.
I unlocked the door, via hand scanner, and sauntered toward the small, sliding closet that the three of us shared. We all wore the same uniform, day in, day out, which consisted of white scrubs and WICKED's logo. So to sum up, there was no use for a big closet considering our wardrobe was the same, the only difference being Thomas's medium size, and Teresa and I's small.

Speaking of Tom, I could hear his light snore as I changed into my pajamas behind the pull out curtain. I climbed up to the top bunk, trying not to disturb Teresa as I crawled into my sleeping bag, and faced opposite of the wall, towards Thomas. I found it somewhat soothing that he slept on the top bunk since Chuck's departure. I let out a shaky laugh as my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw Thomas, half slung over the side of the wooden bed. His arm lopped over the edge, as well as his leg, and his mouth hung open while his face squished comfortably alongside his pillow.