SCENE II
THE PROGENY

THE GROVE

SHE REMEMBERED THE FIRST DAY of her life with perfect clarity. It began with the fresh scent of grass and earth underneath her head. The air was still but it felt pleasant against her exposed skin, the perfect temperature for a person to lie down and bask in. She could feel the warm glow of sunlight on her face and she opened her eyes to the clear blue sky above.

Everything had been so tranquil when she was the first one amongst the forty other girls to wake up. Her mind was empty, nothing to disturb it or begging for her attention. She simply stared up at that endless canvas of sapphire, taking in its sheer vastness and the utter glory of infinity. Then there was a soft groan to her left that brought her back to reality.

An asian girl with jet black hair started to stir beside her, blinking blearily as she pushed herself up onto her elbows. She touched her head gingerly and looked around in confusion, surveying the green field that they all laid on and the stone ground beyond. Then the girl turned towards her, seeing as she was the only one still awake.

"Where are we?" she asked.

The blonde shrugged her shoulders, still lying down on the ground. "No clue."

"Why can't I remember anything?" the girl frowned. "Wait... yes, I do. My name is Miyoko."

"I'm Eve," she smiled.

"Great. Are the others dead?" Miyoko looked around, her dark eyes narrowed with incredulity.

"Don't think so," Eve craned her head to the right where another athletic looking girl with raven hair in a ponytail laid a foot away from her. She reached her arm out and gently poked her with a finger. The other girl jerked in surprise as if she had just been prodded with an electric taser and snapped her eyes open.

"Wha-?" she rubbed her face. "What happened?"

"No clue," Eve repeated with another shrug. "What's your name?"

"Um..." the girl scratched her head and looked around, eyes roaming wherever they could reach. "It's... I think it's Nadia."

"Welcome to the Grove, Nadia," she grinned at her.

"Grove? Wait, what? Why can't I remember anything?" Nadia started asking as she sat up.

"She just made that up," Miyoko said with a tone of amusement. "None of us have any memories. My head feels really empty but like... I'm not clueless either, ya know? I know what milk tastes like, how to cook and stuff like that. I just got no clue who I am or any of you other shits in this place."

"I got the same thing too," Nadia nodded. "It's really weird... who put us here?"

"Maybe it was aliens," Eve suggested.

They looked down at her and shook their heads. More girls started to wake up after them, all groaning and moaning about how they had no recollections except their own name. Some of them started to wander around the area they were in, uninterested in getting to know the people they had unwittingly thrown their lots in with.

Eve finally got up from the ground and stood up after Miyoko told her she was going to check out the big building in the middle of the Grove. That was what she was going to call it now, because it certainly looked like one. There was a farm patch already set up nearby and what looked like a barn next to it. They were both empty though which meant that they would have to start from scratch if they wanted to grow their own food. In the south west was a copse of trees and some kind of cement structure on the opposite end from it.

But the most curious thing were the extensive monumental walls that enclosed the entire area. They were covered in vines, wild and unruly tendrils snaking across its entire surface. Eve turned in a circle to examine them, trying to find some kind of gap in the massive structure but there was none. After that, she went to join Miyoko and a few other girls in the big building.

There was a fireplace in the main room, a picture of an old woman in a rocking chair hung above it. That was really weird. Where was the old woman now? Did she die and someone took over her land to put forty amnesiac girls in it? Maybe this was a prison and they had all committed some horrible crime that they had to repent for.

"Hey, Eve!" Miyoko called when she saw her. "Thought you haven't met the others. This is Harriet, Sonya and Ada."

"Hey," Eve waved at them. "Welcome to the Hearth."

"Told you she was a strange one," Miyoko said, glancing at their confused expressions. "But I dunno, it's kinda cute."

"I actually like the names she comes up with," Nadia grinned beside her.

"Okay," Harriet responded with a sceptical look. She had wild tightly curled hair that was braided in several locks around her head, with dark skin. Her eyes were sharp and alert, constantly scanning and analysing everything around her.

"How did you come up with the names?" Sonya asked, tucking her golden blonde hair behind an ear. Her voice sounded like melted chocolate and honey with its heavy but pretty accent.

"Well, it's really green outside so that reminded me of a grove," Eve recounted. "And there's a fireplace in here which reminded me of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth."

"You're invaluable," Ada told her, dark eyes boring intensely into her own. She had wavy black hair that ended just below her shoulders and a lithe figure, like a ballerina.

"Anyone has any idea where we are, how we got here or why?" Harriet asked.

They shook their heads. Ada frowned as she looked around the Hearth. "We were put here on purpose. Look at all this, it's perfectly set up for us. The only reason is why though and why only girls?"

"We should look around some more, find out what the walls are for," Sonya suggested.

The group of girls exited the building and out into the courtyard where numerous others were wandering around aimlessly with confusion on their faces. A lot of them had scattered into corners to hide away and a handful kept badgering everyone around them if they knew anything. Eve followed the others as they made their way across the field and towards the north wall.

"Hey, what are you doing?" one of the girls followed after them. She had well defined muscles in her wiry frame, with dark brown hair and green eyes.

"Just checking out the Wall," Nadia told her. "What's your name?"

"It's Beth," the girl stopped next to them and looked up. "We should climb it and look around."

"It's really high, it could be dangerous," Sonya told her.

Beth scoffed. "Then you're just a scaredy cat."

"What!" the blonde exclaimed indignantly. "I am not!"

"It's worth a shot, guys," Miyoko said, taking a few steps forwards and gripping hold of a vine. She pulled hard on it to test its weight and found it satisfactory enough. With a grunt, she began to haul herself up the wall while using the curling ivy as footholds as well.

"Awesome," Beth nodded her head before following after the girl.

"Be careful!" Sonya called.

"Yeah, yeah, princess," Miyoko responded playfully.

Eve watched as both girls made quick progress climbing up the wall, pausing halfway to examine the Grove. Miyoko looked back up to the sky, switching back and forth several times. She shook her head at the end. "This part ain't good, let's try another section."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Beth said a little below her.

They started to clamber back down to the ground, jogging over to the eastern wall instead. By then, a crowd of girls had gathered to cheer the both of them on. But like the first time, Miyoko looked between the sky and the ground before deciding that it was no use. They wouldn't be able to scale the wall to the top. Eve thought that was kind of weird. Was there something blocking the way to the top up there? She couldn't see much of the actual structure of the Walls underneath all the ivy but it still puzzled her somewhat.

Miyoko sat down on the grass with her elbows resting on her thighs and fists against her cheeks. She let out a bluster of exasperation as she looked around.

"What is this place?" she started.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Eve said.

Sonya scratched her cheek then. "Well, if we can't figure things out now, why don't we do something that we actually can do like finding somewhere to sleep tonight. The sun's about to set, and I saw some food in the kitchen. It isn't much but it'll do."

"You're right," Ada nodded curtly. "We haven't checked the rest of the Hearth upstairs. I bet there are bedrooms there, we should figure out sleeping quarters for everyone. Allocate jobs maybe when we have a better grasp of things. I think we were meant to build a community, everything is set up for us to make a life here."

"Sounds fine to me," Harriet said. "I like order."

"You guys go on ahead," Miyoko said, springing up to a stand. "I'm gonna look at the Walls some more."

"Okay, you know where to find us," Eve waved and she turned around to head back to the Hearth. Nadia walked alongside her, not having said much for the last hour or so. She turned to the girl curiously. "What's up, buttercup?"

The girl frowned slightly before looking up at her. "I've just been thinking... walls could work two ways, right? They could either keep us in... or they could be keeping something out."

It sent a chill up Eve's spine at the realisation that Nadia could be right about that. She laughed in an attempt to lighten the mood. "We won't know unless some kinda miracle happens and those Walls start opening up."

Nadia nodded and they entered the Hearth to help Sonya in the kitchen. Some of the girls had managed to wander inside and they grouped together to whip up a meal for everyone. There were only tins of food in the cupboards; beans and sausages, some pasta, and preserved fruits. It didn't seem so bad after they had managed to find some plates and figured out how to use the microwave.

Ada and Harriet came back saying that there were rooms upstairs with single beds in them, but there were plenty of blankets and pillows for everyone to be comfortable. There was a med-bay with medicine on the top floor as well.

They got to know more girls as they sat around the kitchen, which was a large adjoining room to the Hearth. There were plenty of tables and chairs arranged neatly in front of a counter. Behind it was where the ovens, sinks, cupboards and other appliances sat. They tried guessing each other's ages, with a girl named Sophie looking to be the youngest amongst them at thirteen.

Eve wondered whether they had been juvenile delinquents and the Grove was some kind of re-educational facility of some kind. Once they were done with dinner and washing the dishes, they gathered upstairs to figure out sleeping arrangements. Some girls volunteered to sleep in the living room instead, letting everyone else to share a room in groups of seven.

The sky outside descended into a deep twilight that looked cold and despondent from inside the warmth of the Hearth. Eve settled into her covers on the floor, tucking her blanket over her body and burrowing her face into the soft pillow. She fell asleep almost immediately.

"What the hell was that?!"

Her eyes opened automatically at the loud shout next to her ear and she shot up quickly to look around. Miyoko had ran towards the window, her bare feet thudding heavily against the wooden floorboards, and peered out with a perplexed expression. Then there was a deep rumble that came from outside. Everyone in the room got up to look out the windows as well, pressing their faces against the glass to get a better look.

Outside, all around the Grove, the Walls started to move with a lumbering and grating sound as they heaved across the diameter of the compound. Four open doors on each point of the compass stood in the wake of the procession, giving a glimpse of the outside world to them. It was dark through the gaps in the Walls, and all Eve could see were long passages that branched out into the beyond. Nadia breathed out an exclamation of awe next to her.

"Can anyone see what's out there?" Ada asked.

Miyoko nodded above her. "It's a Maze."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

i really enjoyed writing this chapter because of group b! ada was named after ada lovelace who wrote the first computer algorithm.

harriet = alby
sonya = newt
miyoko = minho
beth = gally
ada = nick
nadia = a friend's character (maybe ben or lee?)
eve = ?