The Maze Triangle

2. So what is this place?

"Come on, Greenie. We don't have the whole day, you got it?"

"Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter, Greenie," says the boy with a wicked smile on his face. We're still down in the cage, the only difference is that now my eyes are used to the light and I can see what's around me. Although I'm curious what's in the boxes in the corner, right now more important for me is to get as far away from him as possible.

"Hey, Gally! What's taking so long?"

I turn my head towards the light above and try to find the owner of the voice. There are shadows along the edges but I can't see their faces. I turn my head back to the dude in front of me. He has chubby cheeks and very, very unique eyebrows. His lips are curled up in a grin.

"It's a girl," is the dude's response. How did they call him? Gally? Yeah, it suits him. From above us I can hear a loud whispers, shocked voices and excited murmur.

"Okay, pull her up!"

"You heard that, Greenie? They want you up."

He reaches for me, and at the same time I kick my leg up. It was instinct but I still hit my target. The boy mumbles something incoherent and glares at me. "Don't you dare to touch me," I hiss through my teeth.

"Gally, what's going on down there?!"

"The Slinthead kicked me!"

From above I hear a laugher, and for some reason it makes me relax a little. If they can laugh, they probably will not be that bad. I know, it's a messed up assumption, but still, their laugher didn't sound mean. It sounded amused.

"'right, I'm coming down." A little more whispers and little shuffling and then there's another boy. "Slim it, Greenie. Not gonna hurt you, 'right?" He's holding his palms up to me in a calming manner. I look him up and down, and then I take another step back. I press my back against the cool metal, and my breathing picks up the pace. I'm scared.

"Who are you?" My voice is not louder than a whisper. I'm scared out of my mind. "Where am I? What is my name? Why can't I remember anything? Who are you?!" With each word my voice gets louder and the last sentence comes out with a scream. From above I hear a laugher again. It starts to annoy me. I'm here, scared and confused, and they're laughing.

"Shuck! You sure can yell!" The new comer scrunches his face. "'right, my name's Newt and you're in the Glade. Now, get your little ass over here so we can get you out, Greenbean."I don't move. I keep gazing at him and his big deep brown eyes are locked with mine. I don't know what it is, but something about him calms me a little. I have no idea what shuck means, but he didn't say it in a mean way. He tried to look tough, but his eyes were soft. Kind even.

"Okay," I say. "Okay, but the Gally-boy over there won't touch me," I point my finger at him. Boy, who introduced yourself to me as Newt, chuckles.

"'right, he won't. Now c'mon, we don't have all day here." As if on cue, a rope falls from the ceiling and Newt holds it towards me with one hand. He keeps looking at me, and although I don't he would hurt me, his look's getting impatient. I move towards the rope and I take it with shaking hands. "Put your foot here," he shows me a small loop at the end, "and then hold on tight. They will pull you up."

I do as I'm told, and when my foot is securely in the loop, I hold onto the rope for a dear life. When I glance up, I can see few boys holding the other end. It starts moving slowly, and for a second I lose my balance. But before I can fall down, two hands grab my waist and steady me. Newt keeps holding me until a hand appears above my head and catches my arm.

"Don't worry," says the owner of the hand, and I can hear the smile in his voice. Together with some other guys he pulls me over the edge and all of a sudden I'm lying on the grass. I land on my back, breathing heavily, my chest going up and down in a fast motion. I hear voices all around me, but it is hard to open my eyes.

"It's a girl."

"Why girl?"

"She's pretty."

"Yeah, but she's a girl, shuck!"

Slowly, I dare to open my eyes and when I do; I want to close them again. There are like thousands of dudes around me. Well, maybe not thousands but there's a lot of them. And they're all boys. No girl in sight. That's bloody great.

"Where am I?"

"It's called Glade." I turn my head to the right and lock my eyes with a boy who pulled me over the edge. He's handsome; Short dark hair, deep brown eyes, kind look on his face, a small smile on his lips. He's sort of muscular, broad chest and firm arms. He reaches one of those arms to me, and when I take his hand, he pulls me up. I stand on shaky legs, and I take a look around.

We are standing in the middle of a space with a size of two football fields. The space, Glade, is surrounded by tall stone walls, which make a perfect square. In a far corner is a thick forest, or at least there's a lot of trees. There are also some wooden buildings and something that looks like a vegetable field. And about fifty feet away from the hole I just came up from is a tall, wooden tower.

All my instincts scream for me to run. And I would have, if it wasn't for the walls. I can't see any way out of this place, so why bother?

"What is my name?"

"You don't remember?" The Newt-boy obviously climbed up from the cage, and now he's standing next to the boy with dark hair. My head is spinning.

"No?" I whisper and take another look around this place. It looks calm, nice even, but I feel something odd about it. "Why can't I remember?"

"It's okay. It happened to all of us. Your name will come back in a day or two. My name's Thomas."

I look at the dark haired boy and the hand he's stretching towards me. I hesitate a little before I reach my hand and shake hands with him. "Hi."

He smiles at me, and his smile has an instant effect on me. My heart beat calms down, my breathing gets back to normal. I pull my hand back and let it fall to my side.

"So, what is this place?"