Imagine...

Chapter 2

The roof starts to open after a series of weird noises. You're so shocked that you can't even move. You stay sitting on the floor with your legs close to your chest scared to death of where you ended up.

Finally, bright sunlight pours through the roof and you have to keep your eyes screwed shut for several seconds. Eventually you begin to hear voices. They sound like teenage boys. You try listening to see if you can depict a female voice, but you can't hear even one.

"It's a girl." You immediately pick up on the boy's very thick English accent. Then, very slowly, you start opening your eyes. In front of you, you see a very cute teenage boy with blond hair. He's holding his hand out towards you. You want to take it, but you're so scared.

"What's your name?" You say in a raspy voice. It burns to speak, but you refuse to take the boy's hand without knowing his name. He looks at you weirdly at first and then his expression changes to a shy smile as he shakes his head a little.

"I'm Newt. Welcome to The Glade, Greenie."

You try to think of your name again, but become puzzled when it still doesn't come to you. Newt must have noticed your expression because he then explained that no one knows anything - not even their name when they first arrive. How peculiar.

You decide not to speak anymore and instead take his hand. The hand you grab is filthy. It's covered in dirt. His clothes could use washing too.

Newt pulls you out of the cage and you then take a good look around. You see an ocean of boys surrounding you. Not a single girl except for you. Great. The boys don't even try to crowd you or ask questions, they only stare.

With your hand still in Newt's, he leads you away from the cage you arrived in and took you to a wooden building.

"So, Greenie, what is your Number One question right now?" He asks. That's literally the worst question he could ask. There are at least a billion questions you want to ask him, but of course you can't just bombard him with them all at once. You decide to really think about this.

"What are those walls for?" You finally ask. Newt grins at you, as if he knew you would ask about the walls first.

"Look around Greenie. Our Glade is surrounded by solid concrete. Those walls are called The Maze. Straight ahead of us are The Doors. They're open right now, but around sunset they close for the entire night. Only two people have ever survived the night in there. Well, if you want to be technical it was three, but one was knocked out the entire time.

"The Maze is something that no one has figured out. We aren't even sure if we're supposed to go in there at all. But we do it to see if anything new or different pops up. These walls protect us from the Grievers at night, we don-" You cut Newt off. What the bloody hell is a Griever?

"A Griever? What? Are they just some people who grieve over dead people and kill anyone who tries to talk to them? What the bloody hell?!" You're almost hysterical. This can't be happening. You must definitely be dreaming.

Without acknowledging your comment, Newt calmly explains what a Griever is. "Grievers are these creature things that mainly come out at night. They're sort of like robots. Some parts are made of machine and others are made of gooey stuff and is covered with skin. I can show it to you if you want." You look at him with a mix of horror and curiosity.

"Show me." You say bravely. You're so intrigued by how something could be a mix of mechanical parts and of something that could almost be animal-like. It's weird.

"I'll be glad to tomorrow," Newt says in his thick English accent, "The Doors are going to close any minute now. Let's go introduce you to The Runners."