Remember That I Love You - Newtmas

part twelve

A gasp escapes the boy's lips as a ground shaking rumble interrupts his dreamless slumber. Shooting up from where he moments ago was sleeping on the ground Thomas whips his head back and forth, staring at the area with wide eyes. Each of the four massive walls that surround him are splitting in half, right down the middle, creating the walls that lead into the maze. All the other Gladers are already milling about, nobody taking a second glance at the gargantuan moving stone walls. Thomas is unsure what scares him more, the fact that words like Glader and maze are ones that will become the norm for him, or that when he woke up he felt like he was home, like living in a place like that was completely normal. Granted, Thomas didn't know what counted as normal anymore, but he sure as hell knew it wasn't this.

The previous night Thomas had gotten as far away from all the other boys as he could, so he finds himself now nestled in a secluded corner of their small world, nobody seems to have noticed him yet. Shakily rising to his feet many of his joints and bones crack in protest as he stretches out his limbs, feeling stiff all over from sleeping in a dusty old bag on the hard ground. One thing the brunette boy remembered from his previous life was pillows, he assumed he would have to let that dream go in a place like this; nobody here seemed to have any idea how comfort worked.

As he bends over to roll up his sleeping bag his eyes wander around the Glade, landing diagonally from where he stands, staring straight into the deadheads. As if an anvil was dropped onto his skull the boy suddenly remembers Newt and the way he acted the previous night. Confusion still clouds his mind in most aspects but he knew one thing for sure, there was something weird going on with that guy, and no matter what it was Thomas was going to get to the bottom of it. A strange pull in his gut drew him towards the other boy and he wasn't going to ignore it if it could possibly help him get some answers about this place.

Walking hunched over with a sharp pain in his back muscles Thomas finds himself heading toward the milling crowd of boys a few hundred feet in front the place Alby informed him they call the Homestead. As he nears the others he hears snippets of various conversations and it shocks him how normal they sound. Boys talk about things involving dreams they had or work they had to do at their jobs - Thomas had no idea what they were talking about...did they have jobs here?! - but something about it rubbed him the wrong way, how could they be so casual? As far as he knew all these boys arrived here the same way he did, one day they woke up in an elevator and got ejected in this place with no memories, no humanity, nothing but the shell of the people they used to be. Could they really learn to live like this? Thomas didn't know what he expected, running around and screaming while people tore their clothes in anguish seemed a little overboard but still, he didn't understand how they couldn't be at least a little concerned.

Stopping in front of the large group the boy stands awkwardly until somebody notices him. The dark skinned boy from yesterday spots him from fifty feet away and strides over, his face wearing an expression of kindness and annoyance.

"Gee, Greenie, how nice of you to grace us with your presence this fine morning," he says as a greeting. "Care to clue a guy in where the hell you went yesterday? Some guys told me they saw you wandering off into the Deadheads last night but Newt was there and he said he ain't seen you since you popped outta the box yesterday."

The information takes a moment to process. Was Thomas meant to do something he wasn't aware of? All the other boys seemed to go to sleep wherever they wanted without a problem but maybe he didn't have that luxury yet? But something else nags at him too, why would Newt lie about seeing Thomas last night? He's once again overwhelmed with the feeling that the blond boy is hiding something but now he knows it's not just from Thomas, it's from everyone else too.

"I uh, went exploring a bit yeah. But the Deadheads or whatever it's called is big and dark so I slept over there," he gestures to the far off corner where he slept the previous night, "was I not supposed to?"