Chapter 1

I snap my eyes open, the smell of rust meeting my nostrils as my nose hairs cringe at the smell. Then, I hear a grinding, creaking noise, metal against metal and feel myself being lifted upwards.

"Hello?" I call into the dark oblivion, but I know that no one will be able to hear me.

Nobody may be able to hear me ever again. I get up, knowing this is not a situation I want to be sitting in and start to run straight ahead, eventually slamming into a rickety metal wall. I turn a hundred eighty degrees around and run at that side, it too has a wall. Then I attack at the other sides and meet the same fate. It appears as if I'm in a caged elevator, it's only destination, to go up. But, I wasn't about to give up that easy. I attack the first wall I slammed into, jumping up to find the top of the cage, trying to hold onto the little openings with my fingers, but they wouldn't hold. Eventually, I fall back down to the bottom of a cage, hearing a ripping noise that I can only guess is the flesh from my fingers tear as my fingers lose their grip. Once I get myself back on my feet again, I start clawing at the wall, hearing the ripping sound repeat with every movement of my hand.

I am sweating now in this dark place that has been inclining for what seems like an hour. I wipe the sweat off my brow and then push my back up against the cool, steel wall. I let my injured hands fall and my sides and will myself to think of a way out of this dreaded place. I get an idea after a few seconds. I need to kick at the wall. I settle myself towards the middle of the cage and set my feet on a wall. Then, I start slamming the soles of my feet into the wall, harder with every kick. But it's no use. Even though the cage rattles every time I would kick or claw at it, it was too strongly made and it didn't look like I was going to get out any time soon. My only option now would be to wait where the final destination would be. So, I what seems like another half an hour, I try to conjure up memories, not realizing I didn't have any when I was kicking at the walls. The only memory I could think of was my name, and that seemed too simple. My name is Kai. That's it. I try to squeeze my eyes shut and see if that flashes any more memories across my brain, but it doesn't help in the least.

That's when I hear a siren, I look up immediately, craning my neck to see my fate. I see a beaming red light straight above me, matching the rhythm of the sirens and when I see the light getting closer, the cage halts to a stop, bouncing me around a few times. I take to deep breaths to calm myself down, in that time, meeting the same darkness I'd lived with for an hour and a half. Then, there's a split in the ceiling, revealing light. As it opens more, I see people huddled around the cage. There must be about fifty of them and by the time my vision restores, I see they're all boys. They all look down at what must be me and their expressions go bold. They're surprised. But why? Then, a blonde boy appears at the entrance and opens up the top of the cage.

"Better go check it out, Newt." One of them commands of the blonde boy.

Newt hops into my cage and my face is met with his. His blonde hair is tinged with little specks of brown, his eyes the colour of dark chocolate and he has a skinny frame but the muscles in his arms show. Then, he turns his neck to the rest of the boys and exclaims, "It's a girl."

Why is that such a surprise? There must be tons of girls here. But then a thought hits me. Why would they be surprised if I was a boy? I run a hand through my hair and let the, fall through the long strands, confirming I am a girl.

"Need some help getting out, Greenie?" The boy asks in a thick British accent as he extends a hand to me.

I take it and him and a few other boys lift me out of the metal cage that I hated with a great passion. But as soon as I'm out, I bolt for a gigantic stone opening in the midst of a wall of stone. I don't stop to ask questions, I just sprint straight for the entrance as fast as my legs will carry me. When I'm inside the stone, I make a bunch of turns, in what seems like a maze, but why would there be a maze in the middle of a small farm populated with a bunch of teenage boys? But I still keep running, not stopping for my questions to be answered. When I've been running for fifteen minutes, I come to a cliff, and halt right at the edge. I look down into its depths and it looks dark as if when you jumped into it, you'd fall into a black hole. When I'm almost finished peering into the darkness, I hear the sound of slapping footsteps on the stone, following my path. I whip my head around, trying to find a hiding place and decide that a wall with a tiny ledge just behind the cliff and to the right won't be so bad. When I hear the footsteps nearing closer, I flatten my back against the stone and slide my feet along the ledge, far enough that they may not see me.

Now, I've decided is a good time for me to cry. It seems as if I've been emotionless all this time and I need to let my true feelings out. Why would I be in a maze with only boys surrounded by a gigantic maze with a cliff with no memory of who I am or was and I'm supposed to just, what exactly?

My sobs are loud and echo through the stone and the footsteps halt. I try to sniffle up my cries, but they're too hard to hold back, especially now that I've been crying harder and it's become more difficult to breathe. Newt appears around the corner and his brown eyes stare deep into mine.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here, you have to get out, now, before someone finds you here and kills you for it." He commands.

"Not until I get some answers or I'll stay here until I'm eighty." I cry through the tears stubbornly.

"You won't even last a night in here." He explains. "Here, Greenbean, I'll make you a deal." Now I'm interested.

I nod, letting him know he can go on.

"If you come with me out of here right now, I'll tell you whatever you need to know. How does that sound?" He asks softly.

"On one condition." I reply smugly.

He rolls his eyes and smirks.

"You stop calling me Greenie or Greenbean or whatever."

He smiles a kind smile and nods.

I shuffle my feet along the stone ledge and once I'm close to Newt, he offers his hand to help me out and I take it gratefully. Once I'm out, I take a moment to wipe the tears off my cheeks and Newt waits there patiently with a compassionate look on his face.

"Don't worry, I was the same when I came to this shucking place." I laugh a little at his confession and we start walking back towards the entrance.

"So, if you don't want me to call you Greenie, what do you want me to call you?" He continues.

"Kai." I reply, my voice sounding silky, instead of raspy like I had expected it to be.

"Beautiful name, I believe derived from the Hawaiian ocean, Kailua, is that correct?" He asks intelligently.

"I don't know. I don't really know anything." I exclaim.

"Yeah, I've been reading up on a few atlases and history books that came up in the box a while ago." He says.

"The box?"

"Yeah. Each month they send up a new member of our community and each week we get supplies. Every so often we send requests down into the box and the Creators usually send up our suggestions."

"Creators?"

"The people who put us here."

I nod.

"So, if you said you'd tell me anything, can we start with my appearance? How old I am, hair, eyes height, stuff like that."

"Well," he starts. "I'd say you're about five foot two, medium long brown hair, brown eyes, I think you're around sixteen and you're butt ugly." He says with a smile.

"Well that's not very ni-"

"Slim it, Kai, I'm only joking, you're actually quite pretty."

This makes me blush. Even though I can't see myself, Newt's description of me seemed pretty effective and it makes me nervous to be called pretty by a boy, especially one as handsome as Newt.

"Any more questions?" He asks.

"Why don't I remember anything and why are we here." I ask the only two questions that have been crossing my mind forever.

"We all came up in the box only remembering our first names and nothing about ourselves. We never gain anything back either. And we don't know why we were sent here but we figure it has something to do with this maze that you just mindlessly ran into."

I look all around the maze as we walk. Tall ivy covers the walls, not reaching the top and the stone has large cracks in it.

"And that's pretty much all there is to it. It's tradition that I give you the tour tomorrow and throughout the time period of a month, you'll be working in different jobs to see which one suits you best. And then you'll be a full fledged member here."

When we reach the entrance of the maze, the sun tells me it's getting late and it starts to set behind the stone walls. As Newt and I start to walk straight out of the maze, a tall, dark skinned boy approaches me and looks down straight into my eyes and starts yelling at me.

"Do you know how many rules you have just broken by just being here an hour?"

I start to stammer my excuses when Newt steps in front of me.

"Slim it, Alby, she didn't know what she was doing. Don't you remember when Ben ran straight for the maze when he arrived too?"

The boy named Alby rolls his eyes and pushes Newt aside so that he meets my face again.

"Alright, Greenie, I'll leet you off the shucking hook just this once, but if you ever pull another idiot move again, you'll be banished from the maze, understand?" His voice slightly softer now.

I nod and he walks away.

"Not much of a talker, are ya?" Newt says from beside me.

"I could blab on and on about my life that I don't know and bore you to death with my extensive facts on human evolution." I reply sarcastically.

"I guess you have a lot to learn here, huh, Kai?"

"I guess so."

When the sun is completely set behind the stone walls an Asian boy and tall Caucasian boy come out from the maze with vest over their chests, carrying large bottles of water, looking like they've been running for hours.

Newt jogs up to meet the Asian one, and I notice he has a slight limp to his walk. After a minute, he comes back to me and explains,

"I just needed to talk to Minho about some stuff."

"Was that stuff about me?" I ask with a smirk playing across my lips.

"Maybe..." Newt replies poking at my arms.

Then, I hear a grinding noise, similar to the one in the box but much bigger. I stare at the stone entrance and to walls on either side of it begin to close. After two minutes of grinding and screeching, the doors meet each other and seal themselves shut.

"What was that?" I ask wonderingly of Newt.

"That was the maze closing. Welcome to the Glade, Kai,"