Everywhere, Everything ◆ Thomas ◆ TMR

001 - Welcome Back Greenie

"Clint, she's waking up!"

A headache was the first thing she noticed, a pounding that reminded her of being hit with a gun over the head - why she would compare those two, she didn't know. Her limbs ached and her body fought between being awake and asleep.

A warm hand felt her forehead, her cheeks. "Fever's gone," a voice said, different from the first. The face of a boy was hovering above her, smiling down with kind eyes, covered by an array of chocolate curls.

"Welcome back, Ari."

The room she was in looked like a home-made hospital clinic. It was small, with only her bed and the desk next to it, which held a roll of bandages, two syringes with a strange blue liquid and a pair of scissors. The boy next to her was unfamiliar.

"Who are you?" She croaked.

Pity crossed his face. He almost looked pained. "You really don't remember, huh?"

"No," she whimpered, her breathing becoming shallow. Her body was shaking like the temperature had dropped below zero, despite the humid heat inside the room. The boy put a little distance between them. "I - I don't think I remember anything."

She sat up abruptly, and he tried to sooth her, instructing her to take it slow. His voice was gentle. She blinked through the dizzy spell from her sudden movement. Her temple was covered by a bandage. As she touched it carefully, pain erupted from the spot.

"Did I hit my head? Is that why I can't remember?" She asked the boy in front of her. She tried and tried and tried to grasp at a coherent thought, but the more she tried to reach for one, the more it seemed to slip away. Her mind was like sand, falling through the spaces between her fingers. "Do I have amnesia?"

She had all the knowledge she had ever learnt in her life, but no memory of the people who taught her, the people who raised her, cared for her. She had no idea where or who she was.

She tried to swallow, only now realizing how dry her throat felt. Her breathing had picked up, and her heart was beating too fast. She tried to breathe slowly, but it only seemed to accelerate it more. A thin layer of sweat coated her forehead and her heart pounded so harshly against her ribs that she thought it might be trying to escape the confines of her body. She wiped her hands desperately on her pants.

"Hey, relax, it's alright. I'm - I'm Clint," he introduced, gesturing to himself. "I can explain everything in a moment, okay? But you need to breathe. Take a deep breath with me."

She sucked all the air into her lungs that she could, trying to follow the pattern set by Clint. Her lungs were burning with every intake of air, and it never seemed like they got enough.

"Yeah, that's it. Alright."

"Okay, explanation now, please?" She said breathlessly.

He made a face, looking out the door as if hoping someone else would come through to help him. "Your name is Ari," he said. She nodded. Already knew that. "You're in the glade. You arrived two days ago."

She raised an eyebrow. "Glade?"

He simply gestured through what she assumed to be a window, except it had no glass. She couldn't see much from where she was, other than a few trees and a lot of green grass. An open sky, so perfectly blue it almost looked fake. Birds were chirping, and the echo of a laugh was carried by the wind, followed by a smell very akin to a farm.

"The reason you don't remember anything isn't because you hit your head," he said, hesitating. She frowned, urging him to go on. His mouth opened and closed a few times. "Every month, a Greenie is sent up here - to the Glade - in the box with nothing but their name. Once a month, and always a boy. We've already had a Greenie a week ago, and you're a girl."