She never did fit in with them, maybe that's why they sent her in. Meraya was a short girl with a pear-shapes body, thin upper body with ample hips. Her brown, naturally curly hair flowed out around her shoulders, framing her heart shaped face. Her amber eyes shown out from her bronze skin. Freckles dusted her small button-like nose just above her full lips.
Meraya couldn't pin point the day that WICKED had taken her. For most of her life she remembered the bland white walls with men and women in lab coats scrambling around to assess some new piece of information. Most of her childhood was solving an endless stream of puzzles and tests given to her by WICKED's elite. Many days of her youth, Meraya sat in a large cushioned chair, staring down at some puzzle or maze. Her thick brows pinched together, full lips in a slight pout, as she worked out multiple solutions in her head.
When she first came to WICKED, they had thought they made a mistake. Unlike the other kids, Meraya did not start in on her work instantly. She would sit and stare with a puckered face. She wasn't the first to finish either, usually she was last. They almost chalked her up as a failure until Chancellor Paige sat down with her at age ten.
Flashback
Chancellor Paige's short heels clicked loudly against the tiled, ceramic floor as she made her way to the conference room where a small girl sat. Paige had the utmost confidence in the child, that's why when the teacher's had come to her claiming Meraya to be a failure, Chancellor Paige took it upon herself to speak with the girl, to find out what was going on.
As the Chancellor walked into the room, young Meraya sat in front of a small coffee table. On the table sat a small 9x9 board with two small bowls of stones, one black, and one white. The Chancellor recognized the game as Go, a board game about capturing territory dating back to China. Meraya sat as she usually did, brows furrowed and lips slightly puckered as she stared at the incomplete game.
Chancellor Paige approached and sat directly across from Meraya, but the little girl didn't so much as glance at her. Paige smirked to herself at this.
"Hello Meraya." Paige's aged, but sweet voice spoke out, shattering the calm silence of the empty room.
"They think I'm a failure. That's why you're here isn't it." Meraya said softly but with a strange authority no one her age should possess. Chancellor was silent for a moment, mildly surprised that this ten year old had picked up on that.
"Yes, that is why I am here." Chancellor Paige paused before continuing, "I would like to discuss your progress. Is that okay?"
Meraya slowly looked up from the game, eyeing the woman in front of her. Meraya looked at Paige with mistrust but decided speaking with her couldn't be so bad. "Fine."
Paige smiled, flashing her perfect, bleach white set of teeth. "Great, so why don't you take me through how you solve a puzzle." The Chancellor pulled out a small rubix cube and handed it to Meraya. The young girl raised a brow at the woman but examined the block.
"Well," Meraya sighed setting the block down, which Chancellor Paige frowned at, "Usually I just start out with the most obvious answer to the problem, then work out everything that could go wrong or change from that one solution. By finding the problems with my original guess, I can find out the best way to solve it." Meraya glanced up at the chancellor and picked the cube back up, solving the puzzle in just a few seconds.
Chancellor Paige sat back in her seat, with a proud smile on her face. She was very impressed with the girl's deductive skills, especially at such a young age. "Very good Meraya, you may go now." Meraya hopped off the chair that was just a little to high still, and headed off to where the other children sat. Paige watched her go with an analytic eyes. "She's either going to bring us great success, or destroy everything." Paige tapped the tiny screen of her watch, engaging a speaker. "Keep an eye on that one, she could be our greatest asset or our downfall."
End Flashback
Yes, the star child of WICKED, well one of them anyway, was being sent into the Maze. She was seen as a threat but we should start at the beginning. It may have began at age ten that Chancellor Paige had an eye out for the girl with too sharp a mind, but the catalyst didn't come until much later at sixteen, right when the Trials began.