A Battle With Hope (Newtmas)

Chapter 1

The boy held on tightly to the ivy that attached him to the wall, the thin chain of vines that were the only thing keeping him from falling metres to impending death. He looked at his wristwatch, one hour until the doors to the Glade began to close. He was right on schedule. Timing was everything. He knew that he had left it late enough that there was no chance of any of the other Gladers finding his body before the grievers came and took it away. He had thought this through carefully, if the grievers took his body away, the other Gladers would never know that he wasn't strong enough, never know that he was weak, that he would rather die than live another moment in this hell hole. They would simply believe that he was another one of their clan lost to the maze, killed by the vicious creatures that lived inside its walls.

For a whole year he'd lived here in the maze with the other boys, a new victim joining them each month. Every month like clockwork, a new boy appeared in the elevator-like box in the middle of their clearing, no memories but that of a name, just like the rest of them. 

The boy on the wall supposed he'd been lucky, he was one of the very first. Sent up with 29 other boys, the only ones to be sent up together, waking up confused and distraught, but at least they were all going through it together. For a whole year the boys spent their days trying to set up some sort of community, order and the boy supposed they had succeeded. They had meat, raising livestock in the farm they had set up in one corner of their clearing. They had a shelter to sleep in, they were growing fresh food, vegetables and fruits. They had a leader and a committee, there was order and peace. But there was one thing the boys didn't have, something that they craved most desperately- their freedom. With no idea who had sent them to the clearing (nicknamed by the boys- The Glade), surrounded by towering stone walls, the boys didn't have answers. They got on with their days, trying to normalise their lives as best they could. Once they realised that the stone walls that encased their clearing opened consistently every morning and closed every night, the boys, the Gladers as they called themselves, decided to send people into the opening, and continued to do this every day upon discovering that behind the walls, there was in fact a maze. Every day, with  hopes of finding a way out volunteers, nicknamed runners, ran through the maze, mapping it, looking for a way out, but it was, as the boy knew all to well, to no avail. He was one of the first to volunteer to find a way out of the maze, thinking it wouldn't be long before they got their freedom, and their questions answered, but a year had flown by. Many of the boys kept hoping, the fact that they hadn't found a way out had left them determined, but not this boy. He knew it was hopeless. Is this even a life he thought to himself? Why should we value a life that confines us to a single space, surrounded by walls that offer us nothing but false hope?

 That's why the boy had decided to do it. There was no hope. He couldn't stand by and watch the foul creatures the Gladers shared the maze with continue to kill his friends, innocent teenage boys. He couldn't live his life in this miserable, anxiety ridden state any longer, unsure of why he was here or if he would ever be released. With a final sweeping look around the maze corridor that he was hanging in, the boy closed his tear-filled brown eyes to the world and let go of the vine.

Hi all! So this is my first chapter of my first book so please, feel free to leave a comment or some feedback! Even any ideas you'd like to put forward for anything you'd like to be included in the book, I'd love to hear it! Thank you so much to anyone for reading!