Chapter 1: Arrival

She was lying on something hard. One of her arms was flung over her stomach, and the other spread out to the side. Dull sunlight shone behind her eyelids. She could smell animals, and hear the soft wanderings of several somethings with several feet.

She… she was unconscious? No, if she was unconscious, she wouldn't be having all these thoughts. She had been unconscious and now she was waking up. She willed her eyes to open. She thought they fluttered a bit. Her head twitched.

She. She was a she. She was a human she. She was lying on the ground and was waking up from being unconscious. Not the kind of unconscious that came with sleep, but the kind of unconsciousness that was artificially induced.

Roz. Her name was Roz.

Her min stretched, straining to think of anything else. She couldn't. Her mind and memory were blank. She was a human named Roz. She was a human named Roz who was lying on the ground waking up from being unconscious.

But that was all she knew. Her stomach tightened and her head twitched again. Finally, her eyes opened, and she looked up into a light blue sky. It was cloudless. She couldn't see the sun.

She sat up slowly, wincing at the twinge in her stiff neck. She looked around, and saw about thirty other people, all sitting up, with the same confused, slightly pained expressions on their faces. Everyone looked at everyone for a moment, and then took in their surroundings.

They were, indeed, lying (or, well, now sitting), on the ground. A stone ground with several weeds popping up through cracks. Animals trotted around them, sheep, horses, pigs. A dog barked at them once before going back to digging the hole he was occupied with. There were a few shacks dotted here and there. There was a set of trees in the corner of…

Of…

Surrounding them were four walls. Four walls towering higher than anything Roz had ever seen. Or… they would be, if she could remember anything. In each wall was a slit, like a doorway, leading into a dark corridor.

Roz frowned, and looked around at the other people on the ground. About thirty of them. All of them were teenagers. Kids. The youngest, she spotted, looked about… twelve? Freckled. Baby fat filling out his cheeks. Eyes wide with fear. The oldest… sixteen? Dark skin. A more chiselled face. Eyes flitting about suspiciously.

Something clicked in her mind.

They were all boys.

Roz searched all their faces again, hoping she was wrong. But no. there was not a single girl in sight. She looked down at herself. Maybe her mind was lying to her and she, too, was actually a boy.

Her legs were splayed out in front of her awkwardly. Heavy boots and thick socks… boys could wear those. Knobbly knees… a scar stretching up her left thigh… quite boyish. Denim shorts and a thick belt wrapped around hips… what did boys hips usually look like? A black t-shirt… she poked her stomach with thin fingers. She looked down at her chest.

Definitely not a boy then. She grimaced, and ran her hands through her hair. She was surprised to find it was short, ending at her chin. Somehow, even though she didn't remember knowing any other girls, she expected it to be typically long. She tugged a strand into her line of sight. Brown.

The silence suddenly broke as one of the boys scrabbled up, his feet scuffing along the stone and a confused, pained noise crawling up from his throat.

That spurred everyone else into motion.

Roz jumped up, standing with her feet planted firmly on the floor and her spine curled forward, protecting her front. She looked around, something deep in her mind telling herself she needed to keep herself safe. She took a few steps backwards, and bumped into something. Whirling around, she saw a boy with blonde hair, who had just jumped to see who he had bumped into. His eyebrow raised at her, and his questioning expression didn't hide the fear in his eyes.

People around them were babbling to themselves, looking around in fear. Roz stared at the boy for a moment, before shooting off the side, curling in on herself and protecting herself again. The boy watched her, but didn't follow.

"Who else doesn't remember anything but their name?" Someone finally spoke. Roz jumped, and saw it was the oldest looking boy. There was a hesitant moment, and then everyone replied. A few raised their hands, some muttered yes and me, and a few nodded. Roz nodded.

"Where are we?" a boy asked. He looked young, fourteen? But he already seemed to be growing facial hair.

"None of us know," a boy with a large, crooked nose and black hair replied.

"It looks like a courtyard… a glade…" the blonde boy Roz had bumped into said. His voice was different from the others. An accent. But Roz couldn't place where from.

"We need to figure out where we are. What this is. Who we are." the oldest boy said.

"Who are you then?" Roz asked, "What's your name?"

Everyone turned to look at her. In the space of a few seconds, she saw the same thought come into all of their minds. She was the only girl. She swallowed, and shifted, uncomfortable, crossing her arms.

"Alby." The oldest boy finally said, "My name's Alby." Roz nodded, and Alby pointed at the slits in the walls, "Look at those. They look like doors. We need to find out what's beyond them."

"Not all of us," the blonde boy with the accent said, "We don't know what it is. What would happen? Only a group should go. Paired off in case something happens. The rest stay here. We're obviously here for a reason. Look at the animals. There are pens. Buildings. Crops. It looks like we live here."

Alby nodded. "Yeah. Yeah it does…"

"Newt," The boy provided his name. Alby nodded.

"Volunteers to go through the Doors then?" he asked.

"Wait a minute," the boy with the crooked nose said, "Who put you in charge?"

Roz raised an eyebrow. She supposed he had a point. Alby shrugged.

"No one. But no one else seems to be taking the position. Unless you want to…"

"Gally." The boy said, and suddenly looked uncomfortable. When he didn't say anything else, Alby asked for volunteers again. A few boys raised their hands. Newt did. An Asian boy. A skinny blonde boy. A pallid skinned boy. A few others. Roz did too. She didn't much want to stay put in this… Glade. Alby nodded again.

"Pair off. Keep each other safe."

The group of explorers split off from the other boys, huddling in a small circle. Roz kept her arms firmly crossed.

"Four doors," the Asian boy said, "And there are eight of us. Two people to each door?" Everyone nodded. "Right. I'm Minho."

The pallid boy next to him said, "Leo. I'll come with you."

Two boys called Ben and Alex paired together, as did two boys called Graham and Hans.

"Do you mind being paired with me?" Newt asked Roz. He seemed to notice her edginess. Roz looked him over for a moment in silence, pressing her lips together.

"You're good," she replied, finally uncrossing her arms. "Newt right?"

"Yeah, and you?"

"Roz," she said. She held out a hand, and he quirked a small smile, shaking it.

"Good that," Newt said, and then addressed the rest of the group, "Let's get going then."

They split off into their pairs, each going towards a different door. Newt and Roz passed the main group of boys, and heard Alby assigning different tasks to people, like exploring the trees in the corner, or rounding up in animals into the pens, or checking out the buildings.

Newt and Roz arrived in front of their door, the south door, and they stood at the edge for a minute, looking up to the top and the sky. Then down, to the corridor that stretched in front of them and then seemed to split into a T. They looked at each other, before taking a deep breath, and stepping over the threshold, and past the Walls.

Well, I decided to write a good ol' fashioned, only girl in the glade, newt/oc story. Also a sort of study in the gladers before thomas turned up and fucked everything up XD but seriously, I hope this sparks some interest, so drop me a review and let me know what you thing :D