~|Charge|~ Thomas

Chapter 14: Welcome to the Glade

"It's basically the same story for all of us," Linnea explained to the new Greenie as he stared at the walls of the maze, and Linnea and Chuck got his hammock and other things ready. "We wake up in the box, I'll give you the tour. . .  Then, here we are, I guess."

"What happened when you came here?" The Green bean asked, looking away from the walls, and traveling his whiskey colored eyes over to the smaller girl that stood before him. "You said you gave the tours, so no one gave you one?"

"Well," Linnea shifted her position, stopping what she was doing, almost as if uncomfortable answering the question. "I was the first person in this shucking place. No one's been here before me. But I already said that to you."

The boy nodded, uncomfortably, sneaking a quick glance back at Linnea, before turning away again, staring back at the place that he was supposed to call home, and yet it was not a place he felt safe in, but it felt so familiar somehow. Like he'd been there before. The only thing in the so-called 'glade' that felt even more familiar to him was Linnea. Something about her was so familiar. He didn't know what, but he did. It was everything about her. Her voice, her body, her face, her personality, the way she looked at him, the way she looked at everyone else. It was so familiar he almost wanted to just tell her it, but he couldn't because that could perk up some unwanted conversation and he didn't exactly need that.

"Don't worry," Chuck reassured him, securing the new Greenie's hammock. "You're already doing better than I did. I klunked my pants three times before they got me out of the pit." They snickered at the memory of the poor little boy sitting in the pit, shitting his pants. Her laugh just reminded the Greenie once again of something that he felt so familiar about. Her laugh. Another thing that he already loved about the girl that he seemed to have just met.

But, when Chuck and Linnea turned around, the Greenie wasn't there, instead, he was strutting off, towards the doors leading into the maze. "Shucking slinthead," Linnea murmured under her breath as she and the curly haired boy next to her jogged off to meet him, the female teenager much faster than the short, pudgy boy.

"Dude," Linnea started, putting a hand out, but the Greenie kept walking into it. "Where are you going?"

"I just wanna see," He responded, looking at her, then he shook his head and headed forward to the doors.

"You can look around all you want," Linnea started. She wasn't exactly allowed to tell him about the maze yet. It would be a lot to take in if they had just been sent up into an unfamiliar place in some kind of moving box and then they find out that they are in the middle of a deadly maze infested with some mechanical, slimy creatures called Grievers? That would be a whole hell of a lot to take in. "But you better not go out there."

"Why not?" the Greenie pressured. "What's through there?"

Linnea stayed quiet. She couldn't tell him anything. She had been inside the premises of the maze before and it was not something some overly curious Greenie would want to know.

When the brown haired newbie realized she wasn't going to say anything, he looked to Chuck for reassurance, hoping that the thirteen-year-old would give something up. Luckily, he didn't. "I don't know," Chuck said, looking to Linnea, showing that he won't give up her job in the glade and what was inside of it. "I just know what I'm told. And we're not supposed to leave."

They looked back out, stopping their walking as two Runners came out of the maze. Minho and Ben. Smiling, Linnea approached them, and jumped up on Minho's back, forcing him to carry her. Him being so strong, did not mind at all, and kept running.

The strong-bodied newbie watched Linnea with this boy, and jealousy filled inside him. He didn't even know this girl so he didn't have any reason to be jealous, but he was, because maybe, just maybe, he did know this girl, from those three years before, when she entered into the glade.