Scorched | Newt

Chapter One: The Beginning

I woke up with a gasp, clutching my chest. And then I immediately regretted it. It was dark, and loud, and I had no idea how I got here. Oh my god I have no idea how i got here-Where is here? Where am I?

Holy shit.

Who am I?

Before I could ponder that thought for very long, I started sliding to the side before I ran into what must have been a wall, because it was very hard and it hurt- a lot.

But at least the pain was able to bring me out of the panic that I seemed to be in. I finally began to take notice of my surroundings.

I seemed to be in some kind of box traveling upwards-towards what, I couldn't say- but I couldn't see much more than that, other than the outlines of a few boxes.

The flickering of the lights that passed were starting to make me nauseous, so I closed my eyes and pressed my hands to my face. That may have been a mistake, because I was thrown to the side when the box came to a jarring halt.

When I was able to sit up and open my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the sliver of light shining into the box from the ceiling. I reached up towards it as I stood up, but the box was taller than I had originally thought. I squinted as I looked around for a suitable box to use as a stool, then dragged it into the middle of the box before climbing up and reaching for the ceiling once again, flinching slightly at the coolness of the metal before I pushed up on it. It swung open, and I was immediately blinded by the sun.

I groaned as I climbed out of the box and rolled onto the ground outside of it, thoroughly exhausted by the unfamiliarity of my situation.

As I gazed up at the sky I finally realized that everything around me was absolutely silent, a drastic change from the loud rumble of the box during my trip here.

Speaking of, where was here?

I sighed and pushed myself up off the ground to get a better look at my surroundings, the most prominent of which being the giant walls that surrounded the area I was in.

The walls stretched up higher than the tops of all the trees, and I had never been good with distance, so I couldn't even begin to guess how tall they really were. But if it helps: they were tall.

There were also 4 gaps in the Wall, one on each side. What they led to, I didn't know, and I was not prepared to find out. But if I had to describe what was outside the Walls, I would call it... spooky.

I spun in a slow circle to take in everything around me. Aside from the Walls, nothing else really stuck out to me. I could see a fenced area with some pigs in one corner, and a house in another. There was a small grouping of trees next to a farm, and of course, the platform I was standing on that held the Box.

I decided to head towards the house first, hopefully to find someone who could help me. I was sadly disappointed. The house, along with every other structure I could find, were completely empty. I was alone here- wherever "here" was.

"Alex! Alex, wake up!"

I gasped as I sat up, disoriented from the dream I was having.

"Lex? Are you alright?" said the voice that had woken me up just a few moments earlier.

Aris.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine-" I cut myself off, realizing what was weird about this situation. "Aris, why are you here? This is the girl's bunk, you have your own."

Aris gave me a look that said are you serious? Before holding out a hand to help me out of bed, which I gladly accepted. "Because lunch is being served, and you already slept through breakfast, so I figured it would better to deal with tired you than hungry you,"

I shrugged. He definitely had a point.

"Oh! And apparently, a new group came in this morning, so I wanted to go see what they were like," he explained as we began to make our way to the mess hall.

"Yeah sure, is Lizzie already in the mess hall?" It was really just a habit to ask where Lizzie was at this point. She had a habit of disappearing by herself for periods of time, and back in the maze, we often found her occupied by the most boring things, like sticks and bugs.

Lizzie was by far the youngest kid I had met, both in our maze and here with all of the survivors from other mazes. Even if that managed not to make her stand out, her dark, curly hair was sure to, because it was always bouncing around with Lizzie, who almost never stood still.

"Yeah, she's saving our seats," Aris answered. "Not that anyone would take them anyways," he muttered.

I glanced at him, wanting to ask what that was supposed to mean, but figured he probably wouldn't tell me, so I just dropped it.

We arrived at the mess hall-without getting lost, which was an achievement in itself- and grabbed some lunch before heading over to where Lizzy was waving eagerly to us. I sat down next to her and Aris sat across from us, our usual configuration.

As Lizzie chattered on about god knows what, and I occasionally reminded her to eat instead of just talking, I noticed Aris was more disconnected than usual. He was staring over my shoulder, presumably at one of the other tables.

"Hey," I snapped my fingers in front of his face, snapping him out of his daze. "What're you staring at?"

Aris looked back at me before turning his attention back to his food. "The new guys, they're sitting right over there."

I turned to look, just in time to see an entire table full of guys looking at me-us. "Well if you want to go talk to them, they sure seem interested in you," I replied, turning my attention back to Lizzie.

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