Withholding (Newt x Reader)

Joan

 I opened my eyes for the first time to the clanging of metal. I was seated on the floor of a cold steel cage, my knees weak from an attempt to stand I couldn't remember. Cold sweat dampened my skin. I sucked in a few shaky breaths, but my lungs didn't seem to want to hold air. I took a few more and my head cleared. The name "Joan" was printed across my brain, and I guessed it was mine. But something was missing. No, everything was missing. All of my memories were gone. I scrambled through my head, grasping at straws, but nothing stuck. Nothing was left behind. Who I was. Where I was. Who had done this to me.

But then the cage began to rise, and I was flung backward against the wall. A couple of crates came rolling off their stacks to hit me. That was definitely gonna bruise. I coughed out another breath, and wheezed it back in. A shiver went through my arms and down my spine. I tried to stand one last time, but the lift rattled again so I decided against it. Instead I sat firmly in a corner and tried not to vomit. I clutched my knees tightly against my chest, and measured my breathing. It was almost completely dark, but I could see the outline of the objects in the lift and I knew there was no way out until it stopped moving. So I waited.

After what seemed like hours, the lift jolted to a halt, bouncing my huddled-up form like a kid playing "Popcorn" on a trampoline. How did I remember that? The image came so clearly to my mind, but when I tried to follow it to the last time I had been on a trampoline, I came up spades. My heart fluttered in panic at the complete lack of personal memory in my head. It downright jumped into my throat when the scrape of metal welcomed a bar of blinding sunlight into the lift. I raised a hand to block my eyes from the assault. Figures stood around the opening, staring down at me, chattering and pointing.

"Get her up here, come on," said a male voice, deep and commanding but young.

Another figure jumped down into the lift to offer me a hand. I tried to lift my arm but it didn't go well, so he wrapped it around his shoulder and sat me on a loop of rope, holding me steady as the others pulled me to the surface. I crawled up off of my hands and knees, coughing. Several people reached out to keep me upright as I stood. I blinked until the bar of light faded from my retinas and I looked around me. I was surrounded by a group of boys, teenagers all, of different heights, builds, ages, races- and levels of confusion and shock. Some gawked, some stared as if stunned. They whispered to each other, "Who is she?" and I had to ask myself the same question.

"Nick, you gonna say somethin'?" asked the first voice. It belonged to an older boy with dark skin and thick muscles in his arms. He looked to a taller boy that obscured him slightly from my view. This boy, Nick, had dark hair and remarkably pale skin, and was considerably calmer than the boys around him. He nodded, stepped forward, and offered his hand for me to shake.

I took it.

"What's your name, Greenie?" he asked soothingly. Greenie. Newbie, must be.

"Joan," I replied.

"Alright Joan, I'm Nick. I'm the leader here."

"And.... where is here?"

"Right, sorry. We call it the Glade. Now this might sound like a lot at first, so you might want to give it a few minutes to sink in."

"Give what a few minutes?"

Nick looked to the others and gestured for them to part. I walked through the path of people into a broad courtyard full of grass and trees and animals. Four walls taller than I could possibly imagine them needing to be loomed overhead with a wide gap in the middle of each of them. Trees grew in one corner, and cobbled structures zig-zagged their way toward the top of the wall in another. The sun looked strange, I tried to use it to determine time or direction but couldn't.