MAZES | cake ✓ | warning:shitty!

t w e n t y - f o u r

only about six more chapters left eek
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also pls read the a/n at the end of this chapter :]
~ gia:)

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Calum did not expect training to be so hard.

Honestly, Calum thought it would be just push-ups and a few laps through The Maze. But spars with real spears, spear throwing, wood lifting, and just endless work? Calum hated it. He wondered how life was outside the walls of The Maze, he wondered if it was in any way worse than in The Glade.

He knew that couldn't be true. The goal of this was to obviously test them, whoever or whatever put them here, and they would not have taken them out of a cruel world just to put them in a slightly less cruel world. It's the other way around.

Right now, Calum was with Vinny and Ashton, who was taking a break from his duties as a Med-Jack and deciding to get some real training in, since nobody was hurt or in The Infirmary at the time. Luckily.

They were waiting in line with the other Gladers to have a spar fight with Luke using wooden spears, and then see whoever could hit the center of a target on a tree by throwing the spear at a wooden target. Shawn was currently the one who was up.

"Calum, hey mate, you alive?" Ashton suddenly waved blindly in Calum's face and the dark-haired boy jumped from the trance of thought he was in, chuckling awkwardly and clenching his teeth, inhaling a hissing breath.

"Yeah, yeah, just thinking, s'all." Calum replied, looking down.

"What about?" The curly-haired boy queried and Calum sighed.

"Just about the outside world."
"Do you remember?" Ashton asked quietly.
"No," Calum replied bitterly. "At least, not the good things."

Flashback:
Calum was hunched over against a wall. The windows of the room were shattered, broken glass all over the floor. His eyes were stained and bloodshot with fiery tears that felt like acid searing down his cheeks.
Calum was on his hands and knees, shirtless and in boxers, spitting blood from his mouth and wiping his nose, which oozed with warm blood, with the back of his hand, which was cut and bleeding from the glass.

Bruises lined his arms and all the way up his upper body. A voice yelled and screamed at him, but he couldn't tune in. His head was pounding as he wheezed, coughing and sputtering as he fell back against the white wall, which was streaked with blood. His blood.

"Worthless! You don't deserve to live, you fag," A voice snarled. A foot came crashing into Calum's gut and he coughed, unable to breathe. His body trembled as blood trickled from the side of his mouth. His eyes were closed before what felt like a shard of glass sliced across his cheek, making him cry out, clutching his numb cheek with his hand, but his arms were suddenly forced back to the ground by another set of cold hands. His fingers were suddenly crushed beneath shoes, and he let out a cry as he felt his knuckles pop and crack.

"Why are you here, Calum? Remind me again," The voice hissed cruelly by his ear, cackling, and that same shard of glass was smashed above his head and the fragments showering over him into his hair. Calum's body spasmed and was wracked with sobs, hiccuping as he felt those cold hands grip the band of his boxers and practically rip them off him. A chilly hand collided with his already bleeding cheek, his head being thrown back against the wall as he tried to scream, but his mouth was suddenly stuffed with what felt like a cloth. Couldn't move, hardly breathe, he was helpless.