cнapтer 2

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I was consumed with curiosity but it still felt too nerve racking to look around the Glade.

As I rotated in a slow circle, the other kids snickered and stared; some reached out and poked me with a finger, which I highly unappreciated.

"Don't touch me!" I spat at them as the British boy disappeared into the swarm of boys that surrounded me. There had to be at least fifty of them, their clothes smudged and sweaty as if they'd been hard at work, all shapes and sizes and races, their hair of varying lengths.

"Look at the Greenbean," A scratchy voice said; I couldn't tell who it came from. "gonna break her shuck neck checkin' out the new digs." Several boys laughed.

"Shut your hole, Gally." A deeper voice responded.

I focused back in on the dozens of strangers around me, acting as if they've never seen a girl.

I knew I must've looked scared and nervous—I felt like I'd been drugged.

"Leave her alone!" The Britsh boy appeared in front of me, guarding me from these creepy boys. "Can't you see she's bloody scared, they both are." His voice lowered at the end of his sentence.

"Where am I?" The boy asked.

"Nowhere good." This came from a dark-skinned boy. "Just slim yourself nice and calm."

"Which Keeper she gonna get?" Someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

"She can come with me." The boy with the scratchy voice said, looking at me directly in the eye while giving me a devious smirk. 

"I told you guys!" The British kid yelled at the crowd of boys again. "She's off limits, if you shanks dare to touch her, you'll be thrown in the slammer!"

Glade?

Shank?

Slammer?

Bloody?

Keeper?

Where did all of these words come from? I didn't have any memory of using those words. They popped out of the boys' mouths so naturally it seemed odd for me not to understand. It was as if my memory loss had stolen a chunk of my language—it was disorienting.

I felt too many emotions at once. Confusion, curiosity, panic, fear, but laced through it all was the dark feeling of utter hopelessness, like the world had ended for me, had been wiped from my memory and replaced with something awful. I just wanted to run and hide from these people.

The floor of the courtyard looked like it was made of huge stone blocks, many of them cracked and filled with long grasses and weeds. An odd wooden building near one of the corners of the square contrasted greatly with the gray stone. A few trees surrounded it, their roots like gnarled hands digging into the rock floor for food.

Another corner of the compound held gardens—from where I was standing I recognized corn, tomato plants, fruit trees.

Across the courtyard from there stood wooden pens holding sheep and pigs and cows. I had a faint memory of loving animals, even owning some.

A large grove of trees filled the final corner; the closest ones looked crippled and close to dying. The sky overhead was cloudless and blue, but I could see no sign of the sun despite the brightness of the day.

The creeping shadows of the walls didn't reveal the time or direction—it could be early morning or late afternoon.

As I breathed in deeply, trying to settle my nerves, a mixture of smells bombarded me, making me cringe.

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