If There Is A Light

Chapter 1

"Was it normal to feel lonely in his situation? He was not by himself, in fact he had many friends. The people he imagined he would miss the most, he did not even know... well remember. He did not know if he had parents that cared (maybe he did not have parents at all, he could be an orphan), or brothers, or maybe a sister. Whatever his family entailed, he could not really miss something he could not remember. Maybe what he actually missed was the memories. Even if he did not have a family he could remember or even existed anymore, if he had his memories he could at least comfort himself by replaying the good ones.

Newt was not unhappy. As much as he longed to be rid of the maze and the Glade, he had found a family in all of these boys. How could he not? Every one of them went through the same exact thing, and when it was all said and done, the only thing they really had was each other and a common goal. Every single one of them shared a hope that they would find their way back to the lives they had before this, and until then they all helped to make the Glade a place where they didn't go without, felt safe and had fun: a home.

It was not much, but then again how would he know? He assumed. If the people who had put them there had the capabilities to send up the box every month with supplies and a new prisoner and change the maze every night, then surely they lived in something much nicer than huts built by teenage boys.

Honestly though most of the time, he did not dwell on the things he hoped used to be and the things he wanted or didn't have. Between sharing the load with his companions, good and quite satisfying food and quite a few entertaining conversations with his friends he had full days. By the time his body hit that hammock at night he was exhausted, and welcomed sleep eagerly; he was too tired to entertain thoughts that kept him awake at night.

No, the only time he really thought about these things was when they were expecting the box. He supposed it was when they were expecting the box. He supposed it was the fact that seeing yet another scared not being imprisoned with them brought back the memory of when he as first brought up. Back when all he thought about was a hundred and three questions that were still not answered about three years later. After awhile he accepted his fate. There were still runners mapping the maze and chasing down any leads on getting out of here. But they all knew the chances were slim and the truth was the Glade was home.

The screeching sound of metal grinding against metal brought Newt back to reality. Instinctively all of the boys migrated towards it.

Of course everyone was excited to see the new edition, so people piled all around and in front of each other. Newt of course always managed to get a good spot. Probably because he was one of the ones closer to the box. He was not paying too much attention when Gally jumped in to greet the new greenie rather than scanning the supplies briefly. But his head jerked back quickly and his ears thronged when a blood curdling scream broke through the curious chatter of the gladers. 'Well that shank's got a bloody good set of pipes on him.

Gally looked up from the box where everyone had slightly shifted away from after the loud exclamation. His gaze fell on Alby and Newt (he probably would have looked for Minho too if he had not still been running in the maze), "It's a girl."

The same confused look fell on both of their faces, and while they did not doubt Gally's honesty, they still stepped forward to double check his findings. Much to their surprise, there was in fact a girl in the box.

Her knees were huddled closely to her chest, and she had her back pressed firmly against the rust colored grates. Newt would be surprised if she didn't have marks from it. They could see it on her face that she was terrified, tears were welling up in her eyes.

Newt felt guilty. The girl was trembling in fear, but he couldn't help but notice her physical appearance. He was not shamelessly giving her the once over (he might not of seen a girl in three years, but he was still a gentleman). However, he did notice she was pretty.

She swatted at Gally's hand as he tried to pull her out of the metal crate. Nothing against his friend, but he could understand why she was hesitant to surrender to Gally. He was large, kept up his tough guy façade and had harsh features... he could see that being intimidating. Newt and Alby stepped forward to try to calm her down and assure her she was safe, "Hey. Hey. No one's going to hurt you... Welcome to the Glade."