Me vs My Mind

Captain Gally

Grace and Thomas sat there for several moments, too overwhelmed to move. Thomas finally forced himself to look over at the haggard building, where Grace was already staring with a great intensity. A group of boys milled around outside, glancing anxiously at the upper windows as if expecting a hideous beast to leap out in an explosion of glass and wood. 

"They probably were." Grace said to Thomas who nodded in agreement,both of them knowing it was a possibility now that they both know just about everything there should be to know. 

A metallic clicking sound from the branches above grabbed their attention, made them look up; a flash of silver and red light caught their eyes just before disappearing around the trunk to the other side. They scrambled to his feet and walked around the tree, craning their necks for a sign of whatever they'd heard, but they saw only bare branches, gray and brown, forking out like skeleton fingers—and looking just as alive.

"The hell?" 

"That was one of them beetle blades," someone said. 

"A what?" 

They turned to the right to see a kid standing nearby, short and pudgy, staring at them. He was young —probably the youngest of any in the group they'd seen so far, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. His brown hair hung down over his ears and neck, scraping the tops of his shoulders. Blue eyes shone through an otherwise pitiful face, flabby and flushed.  

Thomas nodded at him. "A beetle what?" 

"Beetle blade," the boy said, pointing to the top of the tree. "Won't hurt ya unless you're stupid enough to touch one of them." He paused. "Shank's." He didn't sound comfortable saying the last word, as if he hadn't quite grasped the slang of the Glade. 

Another scream, this one long and nerve-grinding, tore through the air and Thomas's heart lurched. The fear was like icy dew on his skin. Even Grace seemed a bit unnerved. "What's going on over there?" she asked, pointing at the building. 

"Don't know," the chubby boy replied; his voice still carried the high pitch of childhood. "Ben's in there, sicker than a dog. They got him." 

"Who?" 

"They?" Thomas didn't like the malicious way the boy had said the word. 

"Yeah." 

"Who are They?" 

"Better hope you never find out," the kid answered, looking far too comfortable for the situation. He held out his hand. "My name's Chuck. I was the Greenbean until you showed up." 

This is our guide for the night? Thomas thought. He couldn't shake his extreme discomfort, and now annoyance crept in as well. Nothing made sense; his head hurt. 

"Why is everyone calling us Greenbean?" Grace asked, shaking Chuck's hand quickly, then letting go as she noticed Thomas's discomfort. 

"Cuz you're the newest Newbie's." Chuck pointed at them and laughed. Another scream came from the house, a sound like a starving animal being tortured. 

"Bloody hell, that boy has some lungs." Kol said, getting annoyed by the screaming. 

"How can you be laughing?" Thomas asked, horrified by the noise. "It sounds like someone's dying in there." 

"He'll be okay. No one dies if they make it back in time to get the Serum. It's all or nothing. Dead or not dead. Just hurts a lot." 

This gave Grace and Thomas pause as they glanced to each other. "What hurts a lot?"