Injured Feet & Rickety Hearts {Book 1 Completed}

//Chapter 65//

i'm so sorry this took so long to make :)
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I bounced my foot rapidly, I was growing increasingly more tired, but I had to hear this. It was almost an hour after we had been running around getting the keepers into the homestead for the gathering.

Now I sat between Alby and Newt, allowed to be by Newt up front which surprised me. Thomas was once again seated in front of the... well... there wasn't 13 keepers anymore.

"All right greenie, forget all the beat around the bush klunk. Start talking"

Alby demanded, his sour tone back to normal. He had faced so much, yet it seemed he had just gotten even more rude and harsh than he was before the accident.

Thomas didn't hesitate to begin.

"It's a long story, we don't have time to go through it all, but I'll tell you the gist of it. When I went through the changing, I saw flashes of images, hundreds of them, like a slide show in fast forward. A lot came back to me but only some of its clear enough to talk about. Other stuff has faded or is fading. But I remember enough. The creators are testing us. They want the winners or survivors to do something important"

The news to me had me reeling, Tests and winners and losers. What kind of stupid sick experiment are they running. What do they want from us? When Thomas had said this to me in the hospital room, I wasn't surprised, I guess when you think about it, it seemed so obvious. So obvious, but yet so different.

The creators wanted us for something, they wanted these results for a specific reason, but that reason was something I think I knew, well at least something I thought I knew. There is a reason we are all here, Thomas seems to know that.

Thomas had stopped and soon had Newt prompting him on with a swift "What?" Thomas looked confused, unsure on how to say all this. As would anyone else in this room. I felt a wave of unease, The people in this room weren't very easily swayed to believe something that wasn't in front of them, why would they believe Thomas?

"Let me start again, every single one of us was taken when we were really young. I don't remember how or why just glimpses and feelings that things had changed in the world, that something really bad happened. I have no idea what. The creators stole us, and I think they felt justified in doing it. Somehow, they figured out that we have above average intelligence, and that's why they chose us. I don't know, most of this is sketchy and doesn't matter that much anyway"

What he was saying made me feel slightly sick, that the world was bad out there, that he said we were stolen. I remember my dreams, dreams of girls screaming my name, desperate for me to help them. But I couldn't move.

"I can remember anything about my family or what happened to them. But after we were taken, we spent the next few years learning in special schools, living somewhat normal lives until they were finally able to finance and build the maze. All our names are just stupid nicknames they made up. Like Alby for Albert Einstein, Newt for Issac Newton, Me Thomas as in Thomas Edison... and Malaya... your nickname was Marilyn, but... I guess their nickname didn't stick to you... I guess your real name is Malaya."

All eyes fell upon me... wait, they tried to name me Marilyn? But I didn't take it on, like when they took my name and my memories they tried to place that in my mind? But something went wrong? But Malaya doesn't sound like a real name. It sounds made up... or foreign at least. Something always seemed to go wrong in my mind, but it seemed to make some sort of sense.

Newt gave me a long look before turning to Thomas.

"Marilyn, who's that?"

"Marilyn Sov Savant... Smartest women alive"