THE HEARTS » TMR [1]

02. The Glade

She woke up, gasping and wheezing. Sweat dripped down her forehead. Her fingers trembled with anxiety, fear, and confusion. How long had she been sleeping? An hour? Two?

    She frantically looked around to see that she was sitting on top of a bed, and that half of her body was covered with a filthy, ripped blanket. Her hands and hair, as well as her clothes, were the next thing she noticed. Her skin was pale. She had red hair that dipped down both sides of her shoulders. And she was dressed in pink and gray clothes.

    My name is Margaret, she thought. 

    It was all she could remember, all that came to her mind. Nothing made sense—nothing at all. Why couldn't she remember anything else besides her name? It was all too much to take in. She tried her best to calm down, to slow her breathing before taking another chance to examine at her surroundings. She was in a shed—that looked to be handmade. It was mostly constructed of wood. There were a couple of windows with small cracks around the edges. 

    "Hello?" Her voice sounded like a croak. It was the first time she had heard her own voice in her salvageable memory. But, aside from that, Margaret was worried that something—or someone—would come out and hurt her. However, there was no response. She was completely alone.

    She swung her legs out of bed and rose to her feet. Where the hell am I? Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a bowl of soup. A sudden urge of hunger erupted from her stomach, and surprisingly, she felt a sense of relief in her. She picked up the bowl, and took a large sip from it, savoring the sweet sensation of the warm liquid traveling down from her throat to her stomach. When she finished her soup, she heard someone yelling outside the shed.

    "Put your back into it, shanks!" 

    It was a boy.

    Margaret put the bowl back into its' place and walked out of the shed—with caution—into the wide open space, only to find boys everywhere. Boys. They're all boys. Some of them were young, while others were older. Most of them were in groups, while others were off on their own, not even noticing that there was girl standing a few feet away from them. She used it to her advantage to search for other girls like her, but she didn't see anyone with hair as long as hers. She was the only one. Margaret was the only girl.

    But that wasn't the worst part. The next thing she saw was both horrifying and too good to be true.

    Walls. She was surrounded by four massive solid-material walls that were partially covered in thick ivy. The walls had to be hundreds of feet high and formed a perfect square around her, each side split in the exact middle by an opening as tall as the walls themselves that, from what Margaret could see, led to passages and corridors beyond. She wondered if she'd ever been through those walls before, if she came through there once. The thought of it made her sound stupid and it was definitely impossible, given how dangerous and risky it appeared in there.

    She heard noises around her—voices—after she pushed the random thought out of her head, and fear squeezed her chest. The boys were rushing towards her, shouting as they went. Margaret only caught snippets here and there.

    "Hey! She's awake!"

    "The girl's awake!"

    "No way! I got dibs!"

    "Dude, she's hot!"

    Their voices were odd; some of them yelled out weird phrases at each other such as shank and shuck. It confused her. She couldn't see their faces from afar because the sunlight was stinging her eyes. After a few moments, the boys had formed a circle around her. Margaret wasn't sure what she expected, but seeing those faces up close perplexed her. They were just teenagers. Kids. But it also didn't change the fact that she was the only girl there. 

    A skinny boy with messy blonde hair approached Margaret while the rest of the boys remained behind. She took a step back. The boy raised his hands in surrender.

    "Whoa, it's okay. We're not going to harm you." She recognized him as the boy with the British accent she had heard in her sleep. 

    Margaret's body tensed. She wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, given that she barely knew him. She looked around at the other boys and noticed a dark-skinned boy to the left wearing a leather apron with pockets filled with spoons, forks, and. . . a knife. Margaret dashed towards the boy, snatched the knife from one of his pockets, and pointed it directly at the group of teenagers.

    "Stay back!" She yelled, trying as hard as she could to sound malicious. The boys just stood there, stunned, staring at her.

    The dark-skinned boy raised his hands up and screamed, "Oh, shuck! She got my knife!"

    Margaret's eyes narrowed, and her mouth tightened into a smirk. It was at that point that she decided it was time to ask some questions. "Where am I? Who are you, people? What is this place?" 

    Another boy approached her. His hair was also dirty blonde, and he appeared to be fifteen or so, tall and skinny. His cheeks were freckled, and his brows were oddly shaped. "Listen, girl, we're not gonna hurt you. We just wanna know who you are."

    Margaret held the knife firmly in her grip. Her stomach was wrenched, twisted, and pulled by a storm of emotions. She wanted to scream, cry, and vomit. She just wanted to run away and hide from these boys, and never return. "I'm not gonna tell you unless you tell me where the hell I am!"

    Then a few more boys emerged from the crowd and joined the circle, and one of them caught her eye. A brown-haired boy who looked to be about sixteen years old, the same age as Margaret. She made direct eye contact with him, and took notice of his facial features and clothing. He was dressed in brown cargo pants and a blue shirt. He had moles—too many to even count—on some parts of his face. 

    He saw the blonde glaring in front of her, and took action. "Whoa! Gally, stop!" The brown-haired boy yelled. "Let me handle this."

    Margaret was surprised at the boy's reaction, but felt a bit of gratitude for him stepping up. 

    The blonde glared again, but backed away from them both, his angry expression fixed on Margaret. When the brown-haired boy returned his gaze to her, he noticed the knife in her hand was pointing at him. "Hey, whoa, whoa. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."

    "Would you please tell me where I am? Or, more importantly, why can't I remember anything?"

    "I understand that. All of us—we went through that. None of us here can remember anything except our names. You will remember yours in a day or—"

    "Margaret," she said.

    "W-What?"

    She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. "My name is Margaret."

    He paused before confirming it. "Margaret."

    Margaret lowered the knife to her side as soon as he said her name, how at ease she felt hearing him say it. It sounded more distinct than ever before. It was pointless to point the knife at the boy any longer. He proved that he wasn't going to harm her. "Who are you?"

    "I'm Thomas."

     Thomas. Even the name sounded familiar to Margaret. She looked behind him to still see the crowd of teenage boys, standing there, staring back at her with their jaws dropped to the ground.

    "Welcome to the Glade, Margaret."