~|Charge|~ Thomas

Chapter 7: Skinny as a Green Bean

About a month of being in the glade, Linnea had pretty much made a whole world for herself. She had her routines. She woke up, and made some food. After a while she had planted many different fruits and vegetables so she would eat those. Some days she would go into the maze, but so far, she hadn't found anything. Nothing was giving her any sense of a clue.

Some things were different though. She had dreams. She had dreams of a boy, and every night, he was in her head. He had caramel brown eyes and dark brown hair with pale skin, like her own. He was taller than her by a few inches, and by what happened in her dreams, Linnea knew that the boy meant a lot to her. But she didn't even know his name. She didn't even really know what he looked like and by what she thought, he was just a dream. A figment of her imagination to keep her sane. To keep her going. To keep her alive.

One day, though, she was woken up by a familiar sound. An alarm. The same alarm she heard when she was sent to the glade. Hopping up and grabbing the jacket she had so mysteriously found laid on her about a month ago, Linnea ran over to what she knew was the source of the sound. The box.

Sure enough, the same as it had for her, the box doors lifted up and out of each other, revealing the cage that she had been held in that past month. In it, there was a boy. He had his face buried into his knees that were held up to his body. He was shivering and was muttering words. It was almost a shock that there was another person there with Linnea. 

She opened the door and saw the boy's appearance for the first time. He had dirty blonde hair with greyish blue eyes that were covered with red from his tears. His skin, like her own, was pale, but unlike Linnea's when she came up in the maze, his was clean, with no cuts or bruises.

The brunette hopped down into the box and held out her hand for the boy to take it. "Hi," she greeted, trying to sound as friendly as possible. She didn't want to freak him out more than he already was. "My name is Linnea. Can you tell me yours?"

Cautiously, the boy shook his head, and stuttered as he said his first few words. "I-I don't, I don't remember. Why can't I remember?"

He couldn't remember anything either. Just like she had. Or hadn't. It was strange. "It's okay," the girl comforted. "I couldn't remember when I came here too. I still don't. I still came here just like you did."

The boy looked up at her brown eyes and nodded, before taking her hand as she helped him up and out of the lift. When he got out, like Linnea, he stood out and looked at his surroundings in awe. When he realized that no one else was there, he looked to the girl and said, "You're here alone?"

Linnea nodded, "This is my home. The glade." the stubborn girl held out her arms as if showing her proudest possession. "Welcome to your new home."

When she got a real look at him, she realized just how skinny the boy was, almost skinnier than her. "Well shuck," she used her slang. She had developed other words she used as the glader slang as well. "You really are just as skinny as a green bean."

The boy blushed.

"I think that's what I'll call you." Linnea smiled at her new nickname. "Newbie, you are now a greenie."

The blue eyed boy smiled a little, but focused back in to his surroundings. "Why are we here?"

"I wish I knew," Linnea answered. "I just woke up one day in the box, no memory of anything. My name, who I was, why I was there. Nothing."

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. "Then how do you know your name is Linnea?"

"I hit my head," Linnea stated. "One hell of a way to remember your name, huh?"

Then, Chewie came up and jumped on top of the boy. He must've been excited to see someone other than Linnea. The boy was startled at the Labradoodle's movement and was easily pushed to the ground, with the dog on top of him. His eyes dilated quickly as something came to his mind. "Nick," he said.

"What?"

"Nick," the boy repeated. "That's my name. Nick."

"Well," Linnea shook his hand. "Welcome to the glade, Nick." She smiled at him, but of course, had to add one more comment. "Just so you know, I will still be calling you Greenie." Nick, as he was to be called, smiled and Linnea led the seeming older boy around her, and what was to be his, home.

"This is my shack," she showed him her poor excuse for shelter. "It's not much, but it keeps the rain away. This," she led him over to her fire. "is a bonfire, as you may have observed. And this is the deadheads." She had named the forest that after Chewie accidentally killed a squirrel and the two of them buried it there. "And this," she stopped at what was to be their last destination. "is the maze." From the look on Nick's face, Linnea could tell something was off with him and the maze, and he didn't even know what lurked in it. "I wouldn't go in there without me," she told him. "if even at all."

Nick looked at her, his facial expression showing that he probably wouldn't anyway. "Believe me, I won't."

Linnea smiled at him. Now she had one more glader. One more friend. A friend. She wouldn't have to spend her time slowly losing her mind as she talked to a dog. There was only one thing she had to do to make him a true glader. She handed him the machete that was gripped in her hand. When the greenie gave her a confused look on his pale face she pointed with a nod of her head to the wall that stood before them. The one that had her name engraved in it. 

Nick's mouth went wide, almost in surprise, but Linnea didn't know what quite for. The fourteen-year-old boy had a right to put his name on that wall. Slowly, he carved his name into the stone wall. Nick. The second glader. Nick. The first Greenie. Nick.

"Well Greenie," Linnea patted him on the back, as he stepped back, looking at the what seemed to be a work of art on that wall. "Welcome to the glade. You are officially a glader."

Author's note:

Okay, so I don't know if I like this too much. Do you think it's good? I don't know. But. . . Nick is in the glade. Linnea finally has a friend. What do you think Thomas is thinking about this? With another boy being with his girlfriend trapped in a maze? Crazy shit. Nick, as I said in the last chapter, and in the characters chapter, is played by Cody Christian. I will place a picture down below. Please tell me what you think of this. I just don't really know. There will be a lot of time switching up until Thomas gets into the maze and as you can see, there already has been some. I hope you like this!

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Toodles!

Voidlinnea