A Way Back - The Maze Runner (♡Newt) UNDER EDITING/REWRITE

Chapter 2

Cally

I couldn't sleep. Not that I tried. Sleeping on a branch this high up? If I fell off of it, it would hurt. A lot. Still, I could not find even a moment of calm inside of me, trying to remember what had happened to me to wake up in this strange place. Some things were getting back to me from the day before. I had run to school as I normally did, enjoying the rush of the wind as the world flashed by beside me. I only had had two periods and afterwards I had made my way to Mr. Gibbs' Bookstore where I worked together with Jenny. My best friend had tried to get me to read a book series she absolutely adored, although I couldn't remember the title for the life of me right now. We had laughed about something... Probably something she had said. Jenny always managed to crack me up.
     I remember making my way home after work and eating dinner with my mother and siblings. Lilly talked about something she had learned about neural pathways during her Neurological Studies class. Lilly and I did not see eye to eye very often, but both of us had a fascination with biological sciences and unlike our brothers and mother, who complained about us talking about such gross subjects during dinner, we happily continued.
     Besides from parts of that conversation and going to read in my bed afterwards everything else just stayed fuzzy... I could not remember anything after that, nothing that could explain me waking up here, in a field in what felt like the middle of nowhere.
     The whole night, I could hear people walk around. Sometimes, they would pass by the tree and I could pick up snippets of conversations, but none of them entertained the idea of looking up, and the one time I did notice a boy stretching his neck to look at the treetops, he seemed satisfied after noticing one of those weird lizard creatures crawling around.
     Finally, the sun started to rise. A faint yellow golden light started to reach from behind the big wall I could make out in the distance. Now I could make out a little more then dark shapes something started to click inside my brain. I didn't know what exactly yet, but there was something about this place that felt familiar... It was on the tip of my tongue, but then it was gone. Quickly I shook my head, not time for that, I had to move, find a way out.
     Pain shot through my legs and back when I actually made my first move. Cramp from sitting in one position for hours catching up to me. I had been lucky the night had not been particularly cold and my purple crocheted sweater gave me enough warmth, otherwise I would have had a whole bunch of other problems to deal with besides from stiff muscles.
     "I'm tellin' ya," I froze the moment I heard a voice from below, this one spoke with a British accent. "We're not gonna find that bloody girl! I don't think there even is one." I did not dare looking down this time, having moved from my obscured hiding place from the night.
     "Gally said they-" A second voice, also male, so at least two boys.
     "That Shank is messin' with us! This doesn't make any sense. We've looked everywhere, there is no girl and there never was." I couldn't hear more of the conversation as they walked out of my hearing range, but the words of the guy with the accent had given me some hope. They thought the other boy was messing with them, that I was not here. This was good. If they weren't looking for me they would be more likely not to notice me.
     I kept quiet for a few minutes, waiting to see if any more people would pass by, but when they didn't I decided I should take my changes on the ground.
     I started to climb down, I wasn't a very good climber, never was. At least, not like this, as a street runner I could always use my speed and momentum to get up walls and over fences, but climbing down a tree? Two entirely different things.
     When I reached the ground without stumbling or just straight up falling I crouched to the ground. Looking around I noticed everything around me only had earthy colors, making me realize my favorite sweater stood out like a sour thumb. With pain in my heart I took if off and buried it under a bunch of leaves and sticks, leaving me in only my black tank top. Unfortunately there was nothing to do about the front locks of hair that I had died purple in a streak of rebellion, mostly motivated by my love for the newest album of my favorite band, for which the lead singer had died his hair a vibrant red and I could not resist taking a page from his book.
     Although the light of the sun had not reached very far yet and most of the place was still covered in a little blanket of darkness, I could make out a bit more of my surroundings now. I saw a field, on the other side of the field there were a bunch of farm animals set inside a pen beside a square shape that must be a stable of sorts. In the distance I could see another wall and as I slowly turned my head from my hiding space near the edge of the forest I noticed that those walls were everywhere. I couldn't tell which one I had run into, completely disorientated. But it did not seem to matter as the with layers of ivy covered walls went around the entirety of the space I was in. Trapped... I thought as dread filled my stomach. What kind of nightmare did I end up in?
     Nerves prickled my senses as I realized the only chance I had of escaping was climbing the walls and hoping the other side of the walls were also covered in a thick layer of plants to climb down from. Maybe not the idea of the year, but it was better than aimlessly running around or getting captured by a bunch of strangers...
     I looked around one more time to locate the closest wall with the most ivy and waited until I did not see anyone blocking my path towards it. Okay... I took a deep breath, calming my nerves and focusing on my goal. I got this... Now or never.... I readied myself against the still moist earth and pushed myself forward.
     Earth and leaves shot up from underneath my feet as I ran towards the wall. Ignoring the hunger I felt after not eating anything for hours and making my body move at full speed. I almost made it to the wall, but not without being spotted.
     "Hey! There! The girl! I Catch her!" The boy's voice calling out from the distance just spurred me on even more, adrenaline pumping through my veins I ran even faster. When I reached the wall I used my momentum, taking the first few steps on the wall, pushing off, flying a few inches through the air before grabbing a hold of a string of ivy. I swung back down, breaking my fall against the wall with my legs, bending my knees to not hurt myself on impact.
     For a short moment I did not move, heart beating in my ears as I hung there, praying to any deity that would listen that the ivy would hold me. But when I heard another boy yell and the ivy did not snap, I started climbing up.
     "No! Stop! Get off of it! It's not safe!" One of the strangers shouted at me. I chuckled joylessly, of course climbing a giant wall was not save. But no fucking way I would willingly come down so another person could grab a hold on me, I'd take my changes with the wall.
     A loud, mechanic squeaking noise, followed by a low rumble and the wall shook. I stopped, clasping the ivy even tighter, breaking some of the stems so the sticky substance inside of it now stained my hands. Panic shot through my body when the wall started to move.
     The stone rumbled and shook as it left the place it had stood solidly on the ground only moments ago. I desperately to hold on, but the vibrations where too intense, involuntarily my fingers slipped away from the ivy. My stomach dropped as I fell down, screaming for only a short moment as the air got slammed out of my lungs when I hit the ground.
     "Fuck me..." I mumbled after sucking in a few deep breaths. Slowly, after making sure nothing was broken, I pushed myself into a sitting position, rubbing the back of my head. I knew I should flee. Get up and continue running. But I could not bring myself to look away as the enormous piece of stone that kept inching to the sides, slowly revealing a long, dark hallway, with more walls covered in ivy. When the walls stopped moving, the deafening noise went away with it.
     I couldn't pull my eyes away from the hallway that seemed to grow darker with the second, an airily feeling creeping up on me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
     "Are ya okay?" My heart jumped when I heard a voice from way too close behind me. My pursuers had caught up to me. There were about seven boys surrounding me, not close enough to touch me, but still way too close. I could see more people running into this direction and the urge to get the fuck out of there took over again and I jumped up.
     I glanced into the hallway that just appeared behind me, ready to run off into the opportunity that just presented itself to me on a silver platter. I knew I should just take off into it, wherever it went should be better than here. But as I stared at the dark hallway a shudder of goosebumps spread over my body, making every hair in my neck stand up. Everything inside of me screaming danger. I didn't know what to do.
     "Don't go in there." The same boy as before spoke up.
     Not knowing what else to do I snapped around, pulling out my pocket knife and holding it protectively in front of me. Some of the boys took a step back, except for two. The two that had been the last guys to pass by my hiding tree.
     "Put the knife down." One told me, an Asian looking guy with dark, spiked up hair and dark, hooded eyes. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, showing his biceps. He's definitely stronger than me. Was the first thing that crossed my mind.
     "No fucking way, Pretty boy. Now back up. I'm leaving." I said, hoping my voice sounded far more intimidating to them then it did to me.
     "Calm down, Greenie." The other one with longer blond hair and a British accent started. "You can't leave, it's-" As he spoke, he took a step closer. Immediately I jerked my knife into his direction.
     "Stay back!" I bit at him, making him move back on his other leg, hands stuck up in the air.
     "Okay, just put the bloody knife down." The blonde one continued. "We're not gonna hurt ya."
     "Not happening." In stood my ground.
     At that point some other boys had reached us. One with black hair who had tried to take me with him and another guy who seemed older than the others. He had dark skin and really short, black hair. The one with darker skin got closer to me so I turned to him, my knife in front of me.
     "Don't move!" I snapped at the guy, "don't get any closer." I didn't want to hurt anyone, not really, but I would if I had to.
     "You need to calm down, Greenie." The older boy spoke, his hands were also in the air, mimicking the blonde guy.
     "Alby don't..." the blonde tried, sticking out his hand to his friend as he started to take another step into my direction.
     Alby. The name of the person the two wanted to drag me to last night. But also... My eyes grew wide, danger temporarily forgotten. I knew that name in the same way I knew this place. The walls, the ivy... The book I read before falling asleep... It all made sense.
     "Of course..." I mumbled. "I'm dreaming... this isn't real..." I let the hand with my knife fall down beside my body again. The fogginess, the heavy limbs, the creepy crawly creature in the tree and moving walls. Of course this is all a dream, influenced by the book I started reading before falling asleep, the Maze Runner. Jenny had dragged me to the movies when they had come out and then pressed the first book in my hands.
     "Greenie?" The dark skinned boy started carefully, letting his arms fall back beside his body. "Are you alright?"
     I looked up at him, making real eye contact for the first time. "Yes, I am just dreaming. This is fine." I barely noticed some of the guys exchanging some confused looks, but I just continued. "You're Alby-" I said while gesturing at him with the point of my knife, making him flinch back again, earning some 'wow!' and 'carefuls' from the others, which I ignored. Slight excitement mixing with relieve now everything started to make sense to me.
     "-You are Gally." I continued while pointing at the black haired guy who had woken me. "That makes you," I turned to the blonde one who had a British accent. "Issac- no, wait... Issac Newton... you're Newt! And you!" I pointed at the Asian guy. "You... the Asian Runner... ow what was his name... Mickey... no no, Misha. No that's not it..."
     "Minho." He stated, a mixture of confusion and suspicion in his voice.
     "OH! Of course!" I exclaimed, laughing to myself, not caring that I must look like a crazy person. "I knew that. Anyway it doesn't matter. I'm dreaming." Another wave of relieve washed over me as I made the statement again, confirming it to myself. "Oh, thank God! I thought I got kidnapped or something." I lowered my knife and took another good look around. That's why I thought it looked familiar. I'm in the Glade.
     The realization that I was dreaming had calmed me down entirely. I had seen The Maze Runner as a movie when it came out and had literally just started reading the first book, it was only logical that my subconscious had made me dream about it. The only thing that was off was how realistic it was. But then again, it had happened many times before that I didn't realize I was dreaming inside a dream and though a flying head and fire breathing cats were entirely normal.
     "You'r not dreaming." Alby spoke carefully, looking at me with knitted eyebrows.
     "Of course I am." I stated. "How else is this possible? I mean, all this? Moving walls? That's not real. I'm dreaming for sure."
     "She's crazy." I heard Gally say, not even bothering to lower his voice so I wouldn't hear him.
     "Yeah, I'm crazy, completely bonkers. But let's be real, Gally. All the best people are." I said as I turned to him. He backed up, for a moment I didn't get why, only to realize I was still pointing around with my knife. "Oh, sorry. Let me just- put this back before I stab someone's eye out. Probably my own." While I said it I put it back in it's little holster. "Not that I can, this ain't real."
     "Since you already know our names." Minho spoke up, a suspicious tone in his voice. "Mind to tell yours?"
     "Sure! My name's Callidora, Callidora Noble." I said with a bow. "But call me Cally."
     "You know your last name?" One of the other guys that stood with us asked me.
     "Well, yes, I just told you, didn't I?" The boys who had gathered around me started mumbling to each other as if me knowing my last name somehow was the weird thing.
     "Shut it, Shanks!" Alby called out, making everyone stop talking entirely. "I call a Gathering. Minho, get the others. Newt, stay with us. Everyone else. Get to work!" The group of guys thinned out, some actively whispering among each other, some while shooting me weird glances, but that did not bother me. Instead I took the time to take in this place.
     It was bigger than I initially thought and now I could take a closer look I realized I would have never been able to reach the to of those walls. At least, in real life, good thing this all wasn't real.
     When I glanced back at Alby and Newt I realized they were staring at me with crossed arms an raised eyebrows, waiting on me to either do or say something. "Sorry, what?"
     "Do you remember more?" Alby did not even try to hide his annoyance with my lack of focus.
     Not seeing the point in lying, I answered honestly. "Yep, what do you wanne know?"
     "What's your age?" Newt asked me this time.
     "I'm 17. Was born on July 21st. What about you?"
     The two guys completely ignore my question and looked locked eyes with each other, I could swear they were communicating silently until they turning to me again, apparently having reached a silent conclusion.
     "Let's go," The blonde boy spoke up. "We need to get ya to the Gathering."
     Alby started walking first, I doubted for a second, not knowing if I was supposed to follow first. Newt noticed my hesitation and gestured after his friend. With a bit of an awkward smile I walked after the guy. Newt followed close behind, probably making sure I didn't run off again. Not that I planned on, there was no real danger anyway, so why not follow? Maybe something fun would happen, or maybe not. But either way I would wake up eventually and none of it would have mattered.

~.~.~

Edited: 30-11-24