Hello! This is sort of my prequel to the Maze Runner trilogy. I've been working on it for a while, and I finally got around to publishing it after I already wrote seven chapters, so I'm uploading all of them at once. Enjoy!

Disclaimers and such:

I do not own the Maze Runner Trilogy. The only thing that I own is the character whom I have thought up and the parts of the plot that I interpreted.

Thank you!

NOTE: This is my first fanfic, so constructive criticism is welcome, but please refrain from overly negative or hate comments.

- Plerfstacks :)

Chapter 1

Anna's eyelids cracked open slightly, revealing a small strip of bright blue sky. She blinked, dazzled by the light, and raised a hand to rub her eyes. Anna wondered why she was lying on the floor. She placed her hand on the ground beneath her and was surprised to find grass tickling her fingertips. Something hard dug into the back of Anna's head, and upon closer investigation she realized that it was her hair, pulled back into a ponytail. Anna groaned and sat up, and as she did so she was struck by a surprising realization that she had no idea whatsoever as to where she was or how she had gotten there. She had no idea who she was or who her family and friends were, and she definitely had no idea as to what the shuck was going on. Anna started slightly as the strange word popped into her head, as if completely natural. She whispered it to herself and found that the word rolled off her tongue nicely, and saying it brought a sense of safety and a feeling of being at home. Anna had resumed her position of lying on the ground when she had made her discovery of her total memory loss, and she now hauled herself back up into a sitting position. Anna's eyes widened as she realized that she was part a large circle of about 30 people. All of them were guys, some of them still lying on the ground, blinking perplexedly, and some looking around as she was. Anna brushed stray bits of her hair back from her forehead, noticing absently that she had absolutely no notion of what color it was. She dismissed this thought. Anna stood up shakily, and most of the boys followed her, till they were standing in a ring.

"Where are we?" Anna asked the group at large, not expecting an answer. She was surprised by the sound of her own voice, as it was lower than she'd expected it to be.

"The Glade," called out one of the boys. Anna turned to look at him. He was wearing a look of astonishment at what had just come out of his mouth. "I mean," he said hurriedly, "We could be anywhere."

"The Glade," Anna murmured. Like the other strange word, it felt natural on her lips, like she had said it many times before. "No," she told the boy. "I think you're right. That's where we are."

Anna glanced upwards and noticed abruptly that the sun was high up in the sky, and judging from its position, it was about two in the afternoon. She realized that they would need to group up quickly and find the necessary things for surviving in this place. She clapped her hands once.

"Alright," she said loudly. "We need to split up and explore this place. We'll meet up back here in half an hour."

"How do we know when it's been half an hour?" one boy called out. Anna thought about this.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I guess I can just yell for you all to get back here when I think it's been half an hour." The boys seemed to be okay with this, despite the fact that Anna had just established a leadership role for herself without really consulting the group as a whole. She broke them up into six groups of five, as there were exactly thirty people. Anna was in a group consisting of a boy with a mop of curly red hair, one with darting blue eyes and unkempt black hair, a kid whose straight blond bangs almost covered his eyes and a boy with acne speckling his nose. Anna introduced herself to the group and learned their names as well. She and her new group mates wandered off into the direction of a peculiar shiny thing on the ground in the middle of the Glade. When they reached it, the kid with the messy black hair who had introduced himself as Gally stepped forward and peered into the metal-plated crater. He let out a laugh and turned back to the group, grinning.

"There are boxes and boxes of stuff in there," he reported in his scratchy voice. Anna and the others looked into the hole as well, and they all gave small cries of relief and joy as they saw what was inside of it. There were crates of food, of tools, of fabric and first-aid supplies and boards and paper. There was even a large cage that appeared to have two live pigs inside of it.

"Well, this covers pretty much everything," Anna decided, smiling hugely. "Hey!" she yelled over her shoulder. "C'mere! We found something!"

The other groups jogged over to her and she was met with confusion and concern.

"What is it?" asked a boy with shaggy blond hair and bright blue eyes. His voice was thick with an accent that Anna didn't recognize.

"Supplies," Anna responded, gesturing down at the array of boxes. The blond boy leaned forwards to get a better look. His eyes lit up when he was able to see the contents of the strange metal box.

"This is bloody amazing!" he cried, grinning at Anna.

"Bloody…" she whispered under her breath, knitting her eyebrows. She looked up quickly, hoping that the boy hadn't noticed. He seemed too busy talking with the other members of Anna's group. The boys chattered happily amongst themselves, all of them visibly relieved.

"We've gotta get this shuck stuff out of the box," Anna said loudly. There was a chorus of agreement, and Anna noted that none of them commented on her use of the new vocabulary. Working as a team, the boys and Anna lifted the crates out of the box, and within fifteen minutes it was all unloaded.

Anna surveyed their work approvingly.

"Great job, guys," she said. "Now let's drag it all to a storage place or something. We can't leave it out here in case it rains." The boys muttered agreement, and in an hour or so the crates had been unpacked into the various buildings. They put the pigs in the barn, the food in a small area with the necessary food preservation equipment, and the clothes and stuff in the two-story building that looked like it could serve as a place for them to sleep at night. By the time they were finished, Anna figured that it was about three or four in the afternoon.

"What should we do now?" she asked the group at large. They thought for a moment.

"We should try and set this place up for us to live in," suggested a tall Asian boy who looked to be about fifteen.

"What do you mean?" Anna asked him.

"Well," he said, thinking about this. "Like, we need to be able to stay here long-term. There's no telling when we'll be able to get out of this shuck place." Anna nodded.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Sounds good. Let's do it."

The boys put themselves to work setting up a place to sleep, making dinner out of the meager canned food they'd been given, and trying to plant the seeds that had been found in the supplies. Anna decided to work with the kids who were trying to plant the crops, and though the backbreaking task of planting corn, carrots, potatoes, and various grains was hard, Anna thought it was sort of a relaxing job to do. Anna was relieved, however, when two hours had gone by and she felt herself getting hungry. She stood up painfully and assessed the work done by her and her fellow farmers. Anna felt rather disappointed in the four or five messy rows of soon-to-be crops that were the fruit of their labors, but she pushed this thought from her mind.

"Alright," she announced, clapping her hands once. "Let's go and see if they've made dinner."

Anna poked the slimy mass on her plate, shuddering when it jiggled away from her touch and bounced back into place. This congealed ball of meat and who-knows-what-else was what she was expected to eat for her dinner. Dave (whom Anna had heard was the new leader in the kitchen) surely could have done better than this, Anna thought to herself, poking the blobby thing on her plate once more.

A voice broke through her moody thoughts.

"Can I sit here?"

Anna looked up to see the boy with the longish blond hair whom she'd met earlier. She scooted over, making room on the bench.

"Sure," she replied. He sat to her right, placing his tray of the same indescribable goop on the table. He looked at it distastefully.

"You'd think," he said, "that the people who volunteered to work in the bloody kitchen would have some amount of talent in that field." Anna laughed.

"You'd think," she agreed. "But there's really no way of knowing, is there?" She sighed, her mood suddenly gloomy. The boy pondered this.

"I guess," he replied softly. "Why do you think we're here, anyway?"

Anna shrugged.

"Oh, I'm Newt, by the way," he added suddenly. He sighed in response to Anna's momentary look of surprise that was quickly masked by casual expression. "Yes," he said exasperatedly. "Like the little amphibian. That's my name, okay?"

"Right," Anna said. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Newt responded. "It's just that it's been one bloody day and I've had to explain this to about twenty different people."

"Sorry," Anna repeated. "I guess that would be annoying."

"What's your name?" Newt asked her in his interesting accent.

"Anna," she replied, smiling. Newt laughed.

"Shuck it, I was hoping your name would be Frog or Lizard or something so I could have some fun too." Anna grinned at this.

"I guess you're out of luck, then," she told him. Newt returned her grin and Anna could tell that he wanted to be friends, and she was glad, because Anna could already see that friends were going to be the most important part of her new life here.