Beyond the Maze

Chapter one: the box

I wake up gasping for air as if someone just tried to drown me. "Where I am" I think to myself?Confusion came upon me as I did not remember anything. Panic overwhelms me when I realize the box that I am in is moving fast upwards. There are many boxes scattered in this elevator, they all have writing on them that says "W.I.C.K.E.D".  A red light suddenly turns on and the elevator comes to an abrupt stop causing me to fall backwards.

Suddenly light peaks through the top as the doors begin to open. All I saw were boys crowding around the top. I could hear them whisper stuff like "is it a girl?", "who is it?" and "that looks like a girl to me." Next thing I know I'm being pulled up by my arms and tossed on the grass.

I quickly scramble to my feet and run as fast as I can towards the woods and away from the boys. I stop to look back before entering the wooded area. I notice how many boys are staring at me. There's got to be atleast 20 of them here. Then I noticed there are four giant walls of concrete and moss surrounding this big field of grass.

I quickly turn around and run into the forest where I find a tree to sit down at. I curl my knees into my chest and place my head in my hands. All of a sudden I hear light footsteps coming from in the distance. I lift my head up to see a dirty blonde haired boy walking towards me.

He's wearing a light brown hoodie with some dark brown pants. He gestures to the tree across from me and says "may I?" I nod and re-situate myself against the tree. He's silent for a minute and then says "I'm Newt, I'm second in command here." It is then that I realize, he's British.

I bite my lip nervously and say "I'm Adrienne." He smiles and looks off into the distance. "Well it's very nice to meet you, Adrienne." He says still smiling. "So what is this place?" I asked nervous for his response. He sits there for minute deep in thought and then looks at me and says "we call this place the glade, we've all been here for about three years. Every month a new greenie comes up" he pauses and touches his chin with his hand. "We all do our part here and we all have jobs." "Will I get a job?" I ask. He nods as he says "yeah, you'll start trying out jobs tomorrow. You start with slicer." I have no idea what a slicer is but I'm not sure I want to know.

But I still ask "what's a slicer?"  He chuckles then says "they chop up the meet for the cooks." I looked at him in disgust. He started laughing which then made me start laughing. "It seems really peaceful here." I say looking at him. His face grows more serious now when he says "most of the time. But sometimes they don't come back" "who don't come back? Where do they go?" I ask confused. "So you see the giant walls surrounding us?" I nod "well there's a maze behind them, when it first opened up we were all confused on what it meant. It opens at sunrise and closes at sundown. So we send people in there, they're called runners. But sometimes they don't make in back in time and the walls shut."

"What happens when the walls shut?" "Well we call them grievers, no one knows what they look like or lived to tell about them." I feel so overwhelmed with all of this. Why is there a maze and why do we have to find a way out? Newt looks at me and then off into the distance.

Then footsteps start to approach us from somewhere behind where Newt was standing. It was a dark brown haired boy who was wearing a light blue long sleeve shirt with rolled up sleeves and cargo pants. "Hey newt, I see your making friends with the new greenie." He walks a little closer and holds out his hand for me to shake.

"I'm Thomas" he says. "I'm Adrienne" I tell him. "So newt told you everything about this place?" I nod and look over at Newt who is deep in thought and not paying attention to anything Thomas just said. But there was something about Thomas that seemed familiar. Newt stood up and came over to me. He offered me his hand and said "want to go meet everyone?" I said "sure" and took his hand.