Day One, Greenie

by Diabolicael

What if a girl got sent up into the Glade? This is the first part of a long fic that will take place over the year before The Maze Runner and follow through The Death Cure with some eventual Thomas/OC, because I like a good love story. It's more the movies, but there's a few things from the books and some original stuff thrown in there - my typical plot patchwork.

Note: Because the premise of the story is a girl who has to pretend to be a boy, there's inherently going to be trans themes. The character is not trans, however, so any mistakes/misrepresented issues are not intentional. I'm not trying to either represent anyone or offend anyone. If/when it does happen, I apologize.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read the story and this note.

-o-

Shivers. Noise. Cold. Not shivers, or not just shivers anyway, but shaking. Quaking and shuddering. In sync with the noise. So loud; louder than anything. Louder than the universe. Icy nose leaking slimy cold long the ridge of an upper lip, numb fingers gripping something hard and roughly sharp, the sensations the only indication that any of these things existed in the sightless cacophony. The thought of sight brings it to life; burning eyes scored with grit open and find more things than a blank mind imagined could be.

Hands, bare and dirty. Small? Big? Nothing for comparison, but the mind thinks big, but also that it's wrong. Not the mind, but the hands. How can hands be wrong? The deep purple bands that visually demarcate where hands end and wrists begin are wrong, no confusion about that and when the fingers are pried from the rusty iron (steel? Is there a difference?) grating, the mind can feel just how wrong the marks are. Turning the arms reveals more marks in whatever dim light emanates from above, slips past, and sinks below. Far, far below. Far, far more marks than the mind thinks are easily overlooked; far, far too much like the shape of other fingers pressed into dirty, olive flesh. High up the forearm the skin is pink and puckered, a swath of scarring fanning out wide and disappearing under a bunched up sleeve.

If there are hands and arms, eyes and a mind, then there is a body. Sitting back and taking stock – in addition to the hands and arms and mind and eyes (and the cold, runny nose and slimy upper lip), there are two legs wrapped in faded denim incongruously cleaner than the skin on the arms; a shirt of thick, butter yellow cotton with three rather superfluous buttons at the throat, overlarge and baggy; ugly, leather boots that could be black or brown or green for all the eyes can tell the mind with the light they're given. The ankles and calves ache when moved and the mind thinks there must be more bruising beneath the clothes, but isn't inclined to verify. The stomach has give, but feels odd and a quick tug of material reveals a skintight undershirt of some fiber the mind doesn't know the name for, but it's comfortably constrictive and keeps the torso and shoulders warm in the too cool air.

There's a face; the fingers can feel it. Soft with rounded features, small nose, large eyes, full brows, skin supple, but not loose, so the mind reads young. How young, the mind has no idea. The lips are dry (mucus notwithstanding), chapped and painful to touch, so the mind can't tell if the poutiness of the bottom one is normal or the result of the scabbed over split in the center. The area around one eye is tender and puffy, while the other just itches, skin tight and irritated by dry tracks of salt left before the mind was aware of itself. Curly hair, just barely long enough to pull forward into an eye's field of vision, nonspecific dark like the boots and sweat greasy enough to skew the color anyway.

Body accounted for, the mind broadens its examination, existence growing by increments. Its world is an eight by ten foot box made of diamond patterned metal grating. This means boxes, feet, metal, and diamonds are things. The world is getting bigger every second. Boxes within the box; still more boxes within those. Jars and bags as well, all filled with things the brain knows as soon as the eyes feed it the images – nails, beans, bandages, needles and thread. Words are a thing, a thing the brain knows and apparently loves, as the body feels a trickle of feel-good endorphins. Endorphins are a thing as well, but not as useful as the words that declare some of the bags contain flour and cornmeal, some of the boxes hold iodine and soap. The universe grows, bit by bit. There are large drums, red, and the mind thinks it should know what's inside them, but the word on the side isn't right. WCKD. It's wrong. It's so wrong the endorphins are cut off like a door slamming shut and the body goes so cold and twisty inside.

The hand wipes under the nose and the face cringes at the slick, slime glide as the snot takes two swipes to come away. It's rubbed into the denim and forgotten. The nose sniffs, sucking in more of the unpleasant goo, dragging it down the back of the throat before the mouth hocks the glob down at the grating, where it sticks, lazily drooping its way through the diamonds and disappearing into the abyss below. With the sniff comes smell and the universe expands again. Oil, grease, gasoline, sweat, dirt, lemons from somewhere, and animals. Behind the body there are coils of rope piled upon eachother and large crates covered in rough burlap sheets. The hands pull up the coarse cloth and show the eyes a pair of goats curled together on the crate floor, one of whom bleats plaintively and the lips twist bitter and flippant. The mind thinks it might be insolent. Insolence is a thing.

The noise grows louder, rougher as the cage (No, it's a box. Isn't it?) shudders harder. The ears can hear a new sound, a klaxon, the mind supplies to itself, dull and brassy from above, but growing closer with every peal. It draws the eyes and where below the shaft stretches on into infinity, above an end can be seen. That end is growing closer with the klaxon. There's no gradual decline of inertia, the box slams to a stop, jarring the body and mind, teeth clacking together, miraculously sparing the tongue, but sending the rest flat to the grating once more. The light flares ominous red, then green. The mind blinks through gaudily draped trees and songs sung from memory without conscious thought to their meanings, still more ubiquitous boxes wrapped in bright paper and bows. The universe is built around boxes.

The ceiling above cracks in half, spilling light into the box so bright the eyes weren't made to process it, brighter than the universe had ever been, searing (scorching) the retinas. The light is an explosion in the mind, neurons igniting like rapid fire flashbulbs, bursting consciousness and memory into being, the universe undergoing a catastrophic expansion. The mind and body are a person. The universe is much more than boxes.

The person flinches back and an unbidden shout tears free. Countless voices sound out in return and it only takes a moment to register the reply as laughter. The person forces the eyes open against the wishes of the mind, squinting sharply in the glare from overhead. It's only the sun. Yet, that understanding brings no relief and the mind finds its first truly blank space when the person wonders why that is. This disconcerting fact is pushed aside when the eyes finally focus and see the box surrounded on all sides.

People. The laughter is coming from people. People the person has been sent up to... in a cagebox with livestock and supplies. This does not bode well.

"Hey, they only sent us half a greenie this month!" one of the people – a boy – declares, setting off more laughter. The person in the box looks around, from face to face, hand providing little relief from the sun's backlight. The top of the cagebox is pulled open and one of the crowd drops down. The person inside tries to scramble away, but is quickly backed up to the goat crate with nowhere to go.

The young man who jumped into the boxcagelift crouches down, one arm across his knee, peering at the newcomer critically with eyes the kind of blue-green that shifts depending on the light, under thin brows positioned so low on his forehead, it looks like someone photo-manipulated them into perpetual cartoonish anger. He seems tall and has hair brownish at the roots, cut short to his scalp, but where it's grown out slightly, it lightens quickly to a blonde that compliments his rich cream-tan skin tone (though there's pink across the bridge of his nose and peeking around the sides of his neck).

"He get in a fight with the goats?" someone snipes from above.

"If he did, he lost," another declares.

"Rough trip, Greenie?" the blonde asks, eyes flicking over bruises that show significantly more stark in the bright light of the sun. The person frowns in response, shrugging and shaking the head slightly when the mind can't come up with a cause for the injuries, drawing another flat blank. "You can stand, right?"

The person nods. If the mind isn't reliable, atleast the body seems fully functional. The tall boy reaches out, but his target flinches back.

"Don't touch me!" a broken voice squeaks. The boy's thin brows jump upwards (as much as they can) and the person's own leap up to mirror them, equally surprised by the reaction. There's scattered laughter from the crowd, though some of the group looks on in sympathy or silent irritation.

"Well, you can't live in the box and you're too short to get out on your own," the boy decrees with finality, reaching forward again. He is much larger than the person first thought, dwarfing the smaller body, and stronger by far. In short order, the boy has hefted them from the floor and hauled the person up out of the box with ease, depositing the body in an unceremonious heap on the ground. The bruises twinge and the wrists scream, but the teeth grit and the pain is swallowed down. The person scrambles up to stand and glares at those encircling. Every face present is masculine, boys and young men across the spectrum of adolescence, the oldest among them possibly able to buy alcohol without raising any eyebrows, but not by much.

A thousand questions crowd behind the person's tongue, choking the throat, muting outrage, before they are able to force out a furious, "What the fuck is this?!" Which seemed to satisfactorily condense all the person wants to know about the current circumstances. Unfortunately, all the demand elicits is more laughter and derisive hoots about the use of profanity.

"Got a big mouth for a shuckin' shrimp."

The comment may be accurate – the person seems to have to look up at every face around- but it does nothing to answer the demand. The person turns from the tall blonde and aims for the weakest point in the human fence surrounding, charging forward to shove through it. The boys close ranks, pushing the would-be escapee back into the blonde's waiting grasp, strong hands closing around smaller biceps like twin vices, sinking into unseen bruising below. The fresh bite of pain ratchets the person's anger and confusion up into panic and they kick out with a snarl, catching one laughing boy with mocha skin in the stomach.

"Oh, he's a fighter!" someone hollers and it's followed by a wave of raucous cheering.

"Calm down, Greenie," the boy at the person's back soothes uselessly and the person throws their head back. Unfortunately, the taller boy is by definition taller and the person's skull misses its mark, thumping against his chest to little effect.

"Get off me!" the voice shouts. Kicking feet are caught by a thick chested young man with black hair shorn nearly to his deep cocoa scalp. Writhing like a worm on a hook, the person is hauled away from the crowd, across an expanse of green barely noticed in desperation to escape. It's not a long trip before the person is dumped into the dirt again, this time tossed into an earthen cell dug out of the ground and covered with a bamboo cage. They immediately spring to their feet, grabbing at the bars and shouting to be set free.

"Just cool off," the dark skinned boy orders, glowering down at his prisoner. The person tells him in no uncertain terms what they think about that, which the captor doesn't seem to appreciate.

"You can shout all you want," the blonde says, without much concern of the matter. "Not gettin' out until you slim it and stop bein' a psycho."

Without another word, the two boys leave their captive alone with their furor, the person's high bellows falling on deaf ears as they rage in the pocket dungeon.

-o-

When his throat is raw from screaming and his arms sore and limp as spaghetti from rattling the cell door, the person in the pit has no choice but to rest, falling back on his butt in the dirt and huddling down against the embedded stone wall of his prison. His body is sore and tired, but his mind is frenetic, flying around the confines of the pit and straight out between the gaps in the caging like a panicked bird. Panicked is the word, as he frantically tries to make some sense of the situation.

He is in a cell. He has been imprisoned by a group of young males in their early to late teens, possibly their twenties. He must be in the same age range, given the earlier inventory he took of himself while in the box – the first cage. They called him "Greenie", but he doesn't think that is his name. The realization that another stark blank space is all his mind can conjure up when he searches for his actual name sends the- his heart to pounding all over again, icy sweat mixing with the dirt on his skin and soaking through his shirts. He knows so much, so much of the universe, but any thought to himself is lost to a shapeless void of nothing and more nothing and he can't breathe. His lungs work like bellows, but no air is coming in. Darkness crowds around his vision like the boys standing above him, pressing in, suffocation on top of suffocation and stars burst in his eyes, nerves firing wildly, brain screaming, screaming what may as well be spider language into the abyssandcreationcollapsesintopreterition...

-o-

It is day, sometime around noon, if the sun's position high in the sky is any indication. The boy in the cage has been awake for some minutes. He was surprised by that, to awaken sore and tired, but otherwise feeling no ill effects from what he can only assume was a heart attack or some sort of aneurysm. In his desperation and consumptive fear, the boy hadn't had the presence of mind to look around while his jailers were hauling him into his cage, so he does it now, gripping his cell's door and pulling up on tiptoe to peek out at the world around his hole.

His first impression of green was valid and it makes sense that it was all he could take in in his previous state of mind, since that is the overwhelming majority of the area – green grass, green trees, large field of green corn stalks, and beyond all deep green ivy climbing the walls. The gray, concrete walls. Walls that spanned the length of the boy's sight, from one end of the world to the other and up toward the sky above. He can see a corner, an inward vertex that gives him the impression that he is not looking at some sort of massive structure from the outside, but within. The green is surrounded by gray, like Central Park. The boy makes this comparison, but doesn't know if he's ever been in Central Park or just seen it on TV or in films. He knows the smell of popcorn and that sneakers stick to the older theaters' uncarpeted floors, can remember the lives of fictional people with a cruel, perfect clarity that mocks his inability to recall his own.

He can hear animals not too far off and the wind carries the scent of manure to him, along with wood smoke and something cooking. The combination isn't nearly as off-putting as he thinks it should be, surprisingly finds it almost welcoming – comforting, if anything could be a comfort in this place. He sees other boys going about their own business; puttering amongst the corn stalks or walking from place to place across his field of view. If a single head turns in his direction, the boy doesn't see it and he wonders if they're ignoring him out of sympathy or apathy.

He thinks it must be the latter. He was pulled out of one cage and tossed into another while everyone around him laughed. They had the cell ready, so he can't have been the first. The cell is barely wide enough for him to hold his arms out, fingertips brushing one wall, but not quite the other. There are more cells, he can see over the walls to his left and right through more bamboo cagework. He counts four or five, including his own, but the others are empty. This doesn't make him feel better about the situation. Where are the other prisoners? More pressing: what do these boys plan to do with him? He's already been mistreated, bound and battered. He might even have brain damage, since he's apparently suffering from some kind of psychogenic amnesia.

...and he apparently knows what psychogenic amnesia is. He feels that's pretty ironic.

He needs more information, but what little information he does have puts him on the ragged edge. Part of him says to wait and see, sit back and observe, process. Another, louder part insists he needs to get out, get away; he doesn't- can't trust these people who've hurt him and caged him like an animal. He doesn't have much information, but one thing he knows deep in his bones: he doesn't want to be here. Everything else is imperative, yet superfluous. He more closely inspects his cage.

The walls are made of stone, pressed into the dirt and secured with what looks like clay. They're mostly about the size of footballs, placed with flat sides facing out to create some semblance of an even surface. He can barely work his fingers between them and can't get enough grip to even have a chance of prying one loose. The floor is packed dirt and a quick scuff of his boot digs a little rut into the earth, but only just. If he had some kind of implement and a lot of time, he could dig his way under the wall. He doesn't have any tools and isn't sure about time. While the cell door and side partitions are rough grids, the roof of the structure is made up of thinner branches tightly woven between the stronger bamboo.

The cage door is secured with a thick leather strap. The boy arches his body, stretching as far as he can, following the smooth line of it, but can't reach high enough to find the end. It's as good as a padlock. If he had longer arms or was taller, it might make a difference, but he doesn't, so he doesn't dwell. Work with the tools you have, not the ones you wish you did. Sounds like good advice. He wonders where he learned it.

Aside from his bruised body, the boy has his boots, pants, and shirts. There is nothing in his pockets and he doesn't have a belt. There are some loose pebbles on the floor of his cage, but nothing else. He huffs out a frustrated breath and looks around again.

The cage door is hinged with more of the twine that's used to bind the entire structure together and if he had a knife or even a cheap belt buckle, he could probably saw his way through it. Hell, he could probably gnaw his way through it, if he could pull himself up high enough. Which he can't. Looking at his hands once more, the boy can see the nails are chewed off to the quick, so picking at the bindings would be a useless endeavor. He drops to a knee and scours the bottom of his cell, raking his fingertips through the dirt in hopes of unearthing a larger stone he might be able to make use of. It's fruitless, none of the rocks are any good, either too small or too round or both.

Sitting back on his butt in the dirt, the boy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slow to try to refocus himself. He scratches away a drop of sweat from his ear, following the peripheral itch down his jaw and collarbone. Gripping the front of his shirt, he tugs the material away and parachutes it. It's not that the cell is hot (it's pretty chilly down in the dirt, in the shade), but the frustration and pressure has him feeling constricted. He fingers a button idly, chewing at the split in his bottom lip and going over the cell structure again.

He blinks and pulls his shirt out, looking at the button pinched between his fingers. It's flat, plastic, and about the size of a penny. He gives it a tug, but it's fairly well secured to his shirt, so he pulls it up to his mouth and worries at the thread with his teeth. In short order he has a spit slicked button in his hand (and the taste of copper in his mouth from where the material has peeled away some of his scab). His first thought is to sharpen the button on the stone around him, like a knife, but he thinks that might just take too long and tire out his fingers before he even gets near the twine. Instead, he pops the button back into his mouth, working it a little between his narrow front teeth before clamping the bit of plastic upright between his molars and biting down. It doesn't feel great, but after a moment, the button gives, snapping in two with a quiet snickt and a sharp, fleeting pain against the side of his tongue.

The boy spits out his new tool, drying the plastic and his fingers on his shirt. He stands at the cell door again, peering out, heart rabbiting behind his ribs as if the other boys will know he's up to something just by virtue of it being true. Someone walks by and he calls out to them, demanding to be set free, just to be sure they haven't taken his few minutes of silence to mean he's calmed down. The other boy glances over at him, but otherwise takes no notice. The boy in the cell quickly starts sawing away at the twine. It's not easy and his fingers quickly begin to cramp up, but he knows it's not his imagination that the cord he's working is fraying little by little. He grits his teeth and keeps going.

It takes hours, days, a lifetime. He has to keep stopping to shake out his hand, working the painful tightness from his fingers and palm. When the twine finally breaks, he's surprised and stares at the loose ends, blinking rapidly at his success. He wrenches his eyes to the outside, dead certain someone will come running up and catch him, that the snap of the string sounded like a gunshot and drew everyone's gaze straight to him. Of course, none of that is true and the others continue on about their business, oblivious to his machinations as he unwinds the cord with shaking hands.

He tucks the twine into his pocket, along with the two halves of button and licks his lips nervously. There are trees directly behind the cells and the shadows between them are deep, so he thinks it must be a forest. It makes sense to put a prison at the edge of your settlement to keep the cries of your captives from disrupting the peace of daily life, so the boy thinks if he can make it to the trees, he'll have a chance to get away. To where, he doesn't know and isn't concerned with just yet. Away is enough for the moment.

The boy pushes at the corner of the cell door that he's just freed and it rotates outward beautifully. He's shaking, a fresh flood of adrenaline spilling into his veins, coursing through his system. His heart pounds in his ears as he wedges a boot against a crack in the stonework and hoists himself up. With a harried little wiggle, he worms his way under the door to freedom.

Timing is a tricky thing and hard to gauge when you can't anticipate a pattern. Sometimes serendipity will bite you in the ass. Just as the boy is getting to his feet, someone in the corn field glances his way.

"Hey! Get-" He probably thought he was catching one of his compatriots snooping where he knew better than to snoop, but the boy's nerves were strung tight as piano wire on a hair trigger and the moment he hears the shout, he launches himself over the roof of the prison. "Hey!"

The boy tumbles into the dirt on the other side of the cells, bounces to his feet and shoots like a rocket into the trees. Most of the trees are deciduous, thick with leaves blotting out the sun and leaving the forest floor in pleasant shade and limiting the undergrowth to smaller vegetation. It makes for an easy run, allowing the boy to make good distance in relatively little time, but also means his pursuers will have just as smooth a go of it coming after him and they knew the terrain. He can't pull up much in the way of strategy, so the best the boy comes up with on the fly is to turn ninety degrees to his right and race off that way, hoping they'll assume he'll be panicked (he is) and unthinking (he isn't) and just keep running in a straight line.

It doesn't take long for him to hear the shouting, voices overlapping and muffled by the forest, so he couldn't make out the words. He turns again, moving diagonally now, pumping his short legs for all they are worth. He hasn't gone too far when the forest around him abruptly changes. The undergrowth here is thicker and more difficult to traverse, the trees different, with gnarled, twisted branches. As he skirts around a cluster of palmettos, ducking under a thick vine trailing down from above, it's like the boy has stumbled into an entirely separate ecosystem.

Maybe he's dreaming. That would explain so much. He doesn't get his hopes up, because it doesn't feel like a dream. Or it feels too much like a dream, like he's too aware of how insane it all is for it to be anything but reality. The boy keeps going, despite a burning stitch that is developing in his side. He doesn't know the last time he ate, but from the way his body feels weirdly light, while at the same time requiring more effort to move tells him it must have been a while ago.

He can barely hear the shouting now, a good distance off. The stitch in his side as become a knife stabbing between his ribs, keeping his lungs from filling, making him stumble as he goes. He risks stopping, leaning back against a tree before the stitch forces him forward, hand pressed to his ribs in search of some relief. He pants like a dog in summer, the other hand resting on his knee, and hocks into the leaf litter to clear his throat.

As the pain in his side fades, the ache of his other injuries flares and, along with that, another sensation makes itself known. Appropriate setting, since they call it the call of nature. Listening close for a moment assures him the others aren't any closer to his position than they were a moment ago, so he decides to take care of the issue before the need becomes critical. Even though he knows he's alone, the boy glances around as he reaches for his fly. His hands are shaky from he low blood sugar and his arms sore, making the movement more awkward than he thinks it should be. He reaches into his pants to pull himself free and freezes.

His vision swarms with shadows, thick like the flies on a corpse, the flies buzzing in his ears as loud as a hurricane. Urine floods warm down his legs and he barely notices. Oh, no. Oh, no, ohnohnohno... He pitches forward, empty stomach rolling a threat it can't back up. He careens away from the tree, running blind as his fingers frantically try to button his pants again. Terror steals away any thought beyond run. So he does.

-o-

He boy runs until he can't anymore. It's not because he's too exhausted or that the fear has finally overridden his overwrought mind. He has hit a literal wall. It rises high above, so high he can't make out the top from where he stands, hands resting against the cold, immovable stone. If the wall is an enclosing border, following it long enough will lead him back to where he started, but going left will take him back to the clearing faster, so he goes right. The whole thing is just another box and every box has an opening; he just has to find it. He has to find it. He hopes it's not back the way he came.

Otherwise unoccupied, his mind jumps ahead to what he will do once he does find the exit. As a child, his first instinct is to seek out the nearest adult authority figure. That instinct could prove fatal as it was clearly an adult who put him here in the first place. A group of youths might snatch up a boy, but the box and the walls required the kind of infrastructure that necessitated actual organization. Money. Building permits. He doesn't know what the hell is going on, but he knows it's bigger than a bunch of extreme Lord of the Flies LARPers.

The only thing he has to go on are the letters printed on the supplies in the boxcagelift: WCKD. It isn't much, but it's something. If he sees those letters anywhere nearby, he'll at least know to head the other way. Maybe he'll be able to find his parents. If he has any. Maybe his parents already knew. It's a terrifying and heartbreaking thought.

People don't just materialize out of nowhere. Teleportation, while a cool concept, is firmly science fiction and not reality. The boy knows this. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel that way when a body crashes into his without warning. It has to have come from somewhere, but hell if he'd been aware of it.

They both tumble to the ground, the boy crushed under the weight of his assailant. He screeches, scrabbling at the grass and squirming, trying to wrench himself free. His attacker grunts as a sharp little elbow jabs into his ribs, strong hands grabbing at the boy's flailing limbs. A shrill whistle pierces the air like a javelin, flying far from where they struggle.

"Shuckin' greenie, take it easy!" the larger boy commands, almost plaintive in his tone. His request is denied, his quarry continuing to struggle. The smaller boy begins to cough, the weight atop him and his own panic making it hard to draw breath. Larger rolls onto his back, one arm firmly anchored around smaller's middle, bringing the other body atop his own.

It's easier to breathe now. Also, easier to fight, but only for a moment. In short order, the larger of the two has his smaller prey's arms pinned across his own chest and legs trapped between his longer limbs. The smaller boy can't escape and his larger captor can't move without loosening his grip – they are at a stalemate and both lay panting from the struggle, planning their next move.

"No one's gonna hurt you," the bigger boy insists, breathless.

"You all locked me in a hole!" the littler one snaps back.

"You were freaking out!"

"How would that calm me down?!"

A huff of air out of nostrils, blowing warm against the smaller boy's scalp is his only answer for a long moment before the bigger teen speaks again. "It usually works."

This time it's the smaller boy's nose that replies, an incredulous snort all that's needed to convey his feelings on that statement. Another quiet moment passes.

"If I let you go, are you gonna try to run again?"

"No." The reply is too quick and the smaller boy knows an exaggerated eye-roll is implicit with the beleaguered sigh that follows from above. "Oh, like you can blame me."

"You might not believe it, but we aren't the enemy here, Greenie."

"Of course, I don't believe it! And stop calling me that." The larger boy grumbles under his breath and sighs again, his head thudding softly against the ground.

"What should I call you then?" There's no answer, because the human tongue cannot pronounce the emptiness of a blank space.

"Just let me go," the smaller boy pleads, quiet and sincere, a lump growing in his throat without his consent.

The larger teen is equally quiet when he says, "I really hate to tell you this, but there's no where for you to go."

Before the smaller boy can question that remark, two becomes five as three sets of thudding footsteps draw near and an unfamiliar voice calls out, "Hey, Nick! You got him!"

The larger boy – Nick – scoffs. "I'd have signaled if I didn't?"

"Yeah, yeah." The tall blonde and the dark skinned boy were not among the three new arrivals, two of whom immediately step forward to relieve their compatriot of his burden.

"Gave us a good chase, there, Greenie," one rail thin older teen with black, shoulder-length hair and a scraggly goatee declares, gripping the boy by one bicep. The other half of the new guard is thick and stout, shorter than the other three, but still has a few inches on his charge, with honey-brown skin and a deep chestnut crew cut. He grips the other bicep and wrist in his huge, sweaty paws.

The one they call Greenie renews his struggles. He kicks out at a spindly leg and the thin boy barks a curse, toppling over gracelessly. The last member of the group is a pale ginger with piercing blue eyes and a grip like iron as he snatches at the boy's newly liberated arm.

"Slim it, shank!" he snaps, twisting the limb behind the boy's back. Greenie screams as his shoulder explodes with pain. His knees turn to jello and he slouches toward the teen on his right, trying to escape the punishing grip.

"Shuck, Justin, you're hurting him!" Nick cries, scrambling to his feet. He has shaggy, sandy brown hair and a narrow face that gives him a bird-like quality.

"He's full'a klunk; I'm not even twisting it!" Justin protests curtly, but eases the arm down from the small of Greenie's back.

"Aw, shuck, he pissed himself!" the chestnut-haired boy groans, holding Greenie as far from himself as possible without outright letting go.

"Look at his arms, shuckface!" Nick berates Justin, ignoring the other boy's complaint. Justin makes a sound of distaste and shoves Greenie at him. Chestnut whiner is more than happy to let go as well and Greenie stumbles into Nick.

"Don't touch me!" he shrieks, pushing away before Nick can get a grip on him, dropping onto his ass in the grass. They can't keep touching him. Not because it hurts (though it does); if they keep touching him, they'll notice that he doesn't match up up to them like he should. Gangly black-hair has regained his feet and reaches for Greenie, who twists away, repeating shrilly, "Don't touch me!"

"Alright, alright!" Nick shouts over the bedlam, holding his hands out at shoulder height. "No one touch the newbie. Get me?"

"Good that," Chestnut agrees immediately. The other two boys follow suit and Greenie is left untouched in the middle of the group.

"Now what do we do with him?" Justin asks shortly, earning a scowl from Nick.

"Slim it," he commands, glaring the other boy down. Justin tosses his hands up and takes a step back, acquiescing with derision. Nick eyes him a moment longer to get his point across, before sinking to one knee before Greenie.

"Hey, Greenbean," he urges gently. When the smaller boy looks up, eyes wary, he goes on. "You gotta come back with us. I know you don't want to be touched and I can't blame you, but that's gonna happen if you don't come on your own, get me?"

Greenie licks his lips and nods. He might as well have stayed in the damn cell for all the good running did him. He wipes a hand under his nose, heedless of the dirt he's smearing there. Nick offers him a hand up, but the smaller boy ignores it, pushing himself to his feet under his own power. His left shoulder throbs and he keeps the arm hugged close to his body, casting leery glances towards Justin and the nameless others. Nick gives his comrades a pointed look before motioning Greenie forward and starting the group back towards the clearing, following along the wall.

-o-

"What do you mean there's nowhere for me to go?" Greenie asks after a time spent plodding along in tense silence. Nick rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"I usually like to go over everything at once. It makes more sense when you can see everything, I think," he says. Greenie gives him a look of unimpressed consternation.

"No one can explain the Matrix?" he challenges scornfully. Nick's pale lips curve upwards, despite the bite in the smaller boy's words.

"I can explain it. It's just easier with visual aids."

"Well, I'd hate to make things hard on you," Greenie snipes, turning his eyes resolutely forward again.

"Man, he is too small to fit all that sass," Gangly declares, amused.

"He is making it hard on everyone, though," Chestnut tells him.

"C'mon, Winston, you remember your first day. No one has a great time fresh out the box." Chesnut-haired Winston mutters in vague agreement. Greenie glances over his shoulder at the teens following himself and Nick, surprised by what he's just heard. "Yeah, Greenbean, we all came up in the box; same as you."

Greenie frowns, facing ahead once more, his eyes trained unseeing on the ground as he tries to process this. Gangly doesn't sound like he's lying, but Greenie isn't some kind of mentalist, no matter what fancy psychology words he knows. Say he gives the teen the benefit of the doubt, so long as he doesn't take everything he says as gospel, what could the harm be to listen?

"Where are we? What is this place, a prison?"

"Pretty jacked prison if it is," Nick says with a shake of his head. "Especially if they're sending kids your age here."

"My age?"

Nick shrugs. "You look about thirteen. Maybe. Could be a late bloomer, I dunno. You're the shortest shank I've seen since I got here."

Greenie doesn't have anything to say to that. Thirteen? He's got a lot of weird knowledge in his head for a thirteen year old.

"Don't worry, Greenie," Gangly says, cheerfully. "You'll grow. Probably. Eat all your veggies and that, maybe get to be as tall as Gally and Newt."

"He doesn't know who Gally and Newt are, ya slinthead," Justin snipes without bite.

"Well, now he knows they're tall." Gangly laughs on his own, not caring that no one else joins in. "I'm Stephen, in case you were wondering. Since we're still callin' you 'Greenie', I guess you don't know yours yet."

"You want to handle the tours from now on?" Nick cuts in pointedly.

"I mean... not really," Stephen says, thoughtfully undesirous of the offer.

Again, the group lapses into silence. Greenie breaks it when no one seems inclined to expound on the topic. "So, what, all of you came up in the box and no one remembers their name?"

"Just... Just wait, okay?" Nick requests. "When we get back, we'll do the tour and the talk and everything."

"Why?"

"It'll be better; trust me."

Greenie narrows his eyes up at the taller boy. "Better for me or better for you?"

"Both," Nick assures him. It's not like Greenie has a choice. He can't make the other boys answer his questions. He doesn't have to like it, though, and that much is clear on his face.

-o-

When the small group returns to the clearing, Greenie gazes about with wide eyes, taking in everything he didn't see the last time he was here. There's the cells and the corn field, but also, further off, a small pond under a huge pair of oaks, a large, rustically built structure tucked into the corner of the wall, and other plots where farming is being done. There's also some sort of observation tower built around an old, denuded tree. A copse of trees jutting out from the forest proper cuts off the view, but Greenie assumes the animal pens must be there somewhere and whatever dwellings the boys reside in.

The black boy from before jogs up to meet them, accompanied by a tall blonde with hair past his pale shoulders. Nick steps away and begins speaking to the duo. It becomes quickly apparent that no one is pleased with the way the conversation is going.

"That's Newt. Tall, see?" Stephen says, pointing at the blonde, who is frowning as the black boy motions aggressively towards where Greenie stands with the other three boys. Stephen scratches at his goatee. "That's Alby. He's got a short fuse, but he's a good guy, really."

"Yeah, he was real cool throwing me into a hole like that." Greenie's sour attitude seems to amuse Stephen more than anything else and the younger boy isn't sure if that increases his irritation or not. It probably does, but it's ratcheted so high right now, it's hard to tell.

Alby seems to make his final point, firmly, and stalks away without a backward glance. Nick and Newt share a look before moving back towards the others.

"Okay, Greenie. Ready?" Nick asks, but it's fairly rhetorical. Winston and Justin move off without a word, but Stephen tells the smaller boy he'll see him around before leaving him with the two Ns. "So, uh... normally, I start with 'Welcome to the Glade', but I guess you don't feel super welcome right now." Greenie has no response for that understatement. "You know I'm Nick; I'm kind of the leader of this bunch'a shanks. This is Newt and that other guy was Alby. They take over when I'm not around. So, if you need anything-"

"I need answers."

Nick nods, lips tightening at the blunt interruption. "Yeah, I'm getting to that. So, I know you don't remember your name, yet. That's normal. It-"

"What the hell is normal about that?" Greenie snaps. "Stephen made it sound like that happens to everyone. Are you saying someone intentionally messed with our memories?"

Newt chuckles dryly. "You were right. Alby'd have none a' this." The tall blonde speaks with a rather heavy, lilting accent that surprises Greenie, but not so much as to distract him from the subject at hand. Nick waylays him, though, clearly trying to keep his patience.

"Listen, don't get worked up again. There's a lot to fill you in on and if you interrupt me every three seconds, we'll never get through it. Just hold off on the questions until the end, okay?"

"No. Not okay," Greenie scoffs, his voice growing ever more high pitched. "Just answer me when I ask you something! Did someone fuck up my memory on purpose?"

"Probably. It did happen to all of us, so probably yes," Nick admits reluctantly.

"Who? W-C-K-D? What is that? Did they do this to me?"

"Well, their initials are on all the supplies," the older boy hedges.

"Is this a prison? What are we doing here?" Newt shakes his head, but he's not answering Greenie's question, just expressing incredulity at his insistent interrogation.

"Surviving," Nick tells him, sounding final and ominous.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"This is why I told you to wait until the end," he declares, exasperated. Greenie isn't any less rankled than he is, but if the only way to get answers is to let Nick do it his way, then, again, Greenie doesn't have much of a choice. He tosses out a hand in a curt, expectant manner signaling the other boy to proceed. Both Nick and Newt seem relieved by the smaller boy's (begrudging) acceptance. "Alright, follow me."

So Greenie does.

-o-

When the tour is over, Greenie knows that he's been titled thusly because he is the latest addition to the Glade – the large swath of land at the center of the stone walls. He knows that all the other boys have arrived the same way, through the Box, with their name (his should return to him within a few days), but no other memories of their own lives. Everyone who lives in the Glade has a job and does their job, so everything runs smoothly. Every job is overseen by a Keeper and he'll work with each Keeper to see what job he gets.

Standing atop the observation tower, the trio looks out over the Glade. The sun is getting low in the sky, just barely peeking over the wall to the right of the one they now face. Greenie makes a mental note that this is the south wall.

"Basically, it can be boiled down to three rules," Nick says with the air of someone bringing a discussion to a close. "Do your part. Don't hurt anyone else."

Greenie had been good about holding his tongue throughout Nick and Newt's exposition of life in the Glade, but he can't hold back a sound of incredulity at this. "That one seems open to interpretation."

"We didn't do that to you," Nick says, of Greenie's many bruises. He can't seem to decide between defensiveness or compassion, so the words just come out oddly flat. He isn't happy about Greenie's injuries, that much is clear, at least.

"Haven't exactly been using kid gloves, either," the smaller boy points out in lieu of listing how poorly they've treated him since his arrival.

"We're not the gentlest bunch," Newt concedes, not really apologetic, but not entirely apathetic either. "We're not tryin' to maim you, either."

Greenie fights the urge to cover where the burn scars show on his arm. "What's the third rule?"

"Never, ever go out those doors," Nick orders, his voice final, as hard and immovable as the walls surrounding them.

"Why?"

"It's too dangerous," Newt answers. "If you go out there, chances are, you don't come back."

"What's out there?" Greenie asks, peering at the opening directly ahead. From this distance, all he can see is a corridor leading off into shadow.

"It's a maze," Nick tells him. "And like Newt said, it's dangerous."

"What do you mean, 'it's a maze'?" Greenie looks up at the older boys. They gaze blankly back. "Like an actual maze? Like, we're the minotaur at the center of the labyrinth, maze maze? Are you kidding me? Why?"

"The maze isn't the important thing, right now," Nick says, like that's reasonable. He goes on, speaking slow and firm, making this point clear to Greenie crucial for him. "What's important is that you don't go in it. The maze is for Runners onl-"

Whatever decree Nick is in the process of laying down is cut off by the stentorian clanking of a great machine. Greenie's stomach goes hollow, chills creeping up his spine like ants as the unnatural grind and clatter resonates through the Glade from all sides, echoing hauntingly off the stone walls. An unearthly groaning wind sluices down the corridor, scattering dust and bits of debris out into the meadow. Everything is aberrantly silent for a moment, as if the entirety of the Glade is holding its breath. Then the machine moves again and the sides of the doorway slide inward with a scrape of stone on stone that Greenie can feel in his back teeth, sealing off the maze and the rest of the world beyond.

Nick and Newt could let the moment speak for itself, but the leader puts a definitive period at the end of the statement. "If you go out there, we won't come looking for you. No one lasts a night in the maze."

Greenie's mouth opens, the obvious question poised on the tip of his tongue. What happens to them? But for the first time, he doesn't ask. Because he doesn't think he wants to know.

Not yet.

-o-

The trio descends the tower; Nick first, then Greenie, and Newt above. On the ground, as the sun slips behind the wall and everything falls into shadow, Greenie's tongue shakes itself free of the lingering horror the closing doors compelled.

"Runners go into the maze."

"Only Runners," Nick reiterates unnecessarily.

"And they haven't found a way out." It's not a question. "Have they found anything?"

"Nothing good," Newt laments, a shadow passing across his face that has nothing to do with the setting sun. "Not yet."

"How long have you been here?"

"Two years, give or take," Nick says, glancing at Newt for confirmation. The other boy nods as Greenie gapes at the pair.

"Two years? How- ...How? Why?"

Trying to head off a fresh diatribe, Nick begins, "Calm d-"

"Stop telling me to calm down!" Greenie shouts over him. "I'm allowed to be upset right now!You don't even know, do you?" He is glaring so hard, the skin under his right eye twitches. "You don't know where we are or why we're here or- You drag me around on a tour, talking about jobs and rules, like you're some kind of authority and you don't even fucking know anything!"

"Goin' mental isn't gonna get you anywhere. Takin' it out on us isn't gonna make it better; it's not gonna make answers appear outta the bloody sky," Newt says, his previously almost ataractic voice suddenly stern and unyielding, like a parent that's had enough of a tantrum. The harsh contrast makes Greenie feel cowed in spite of his righteous indignation and he can feel heat rising in the skin on the back of his neck, flooding his cheeks. His ears feel like they're on fire. He hates it and he hates Newt a little bit for causing it. He grinds his teeth impotently, because as infuriating as it is, the older boy is right. That doesn't make the pill any easier to swallow and Greenie chokes on it.

"Fuck you and your rules and your Glade and your bullshit," he manages a gravelly growl through the ever narrowing passage of a throat constricting with outrage and bile. "I don't have to listen to you."

"That's where you're wrong," Nick tells him, a suddenly intimidating presence that Greenie doesn't want to back down from, but it's so hard not to. He swallows hard.

"You said you wouldn't hurt me," the smaller boy recounts, less than confident he can trust the older boys at their word.

"No, but I will put you back in the Pit until you figure out I'm right."

Greenie's mouth tightens, lips squirming to one side before smoothing out into a defiant curl. "You can try."

They throw him back into a cell.

-o-

Newt, Nick, Alby, and the tall blonde with the bluegreen eyes stand a few feet away from the cell, conferring over their prisoner. There's a sliver of satisfaction in being a thorn in their collective side that Greenie chews over like a cow with cud. He knows it's petty and that the faceless "Creators" are the architects of his predicament, but he'll take solace where he can find it at this point. Maybe he'll feel guilty later. Probably not.

The four boys approach the cell and open the door, Nick and the unnamed blonde hunkering down in front of the opening to peer inside.

"So, how'd you do it, Greenie?" the blonde asks, apropos of nothing. "You got a knife on you or something?"

"No. Your cells are just shit." The smaller boy's sneer is sharp like the knife he didn't need to escape. He might not remember himself, but it's obvious he doesn't react well to being forced into a corner. The blonde scoffs, glaring at him in disbelief.

"If we don't get it off him, he's just gonna cut his way out again," he tells his leader. Nick cocks an eyebrow at Greenie, who responds with a choleric purse of his lips.

"If I had a knife, I'da stabbed you with it."

Four pairs of brows go up at the words, their owners exchanging glances. Nick ultimately shrugs. "I believe him."

"Well, he cut his way out with something," the blonde insists, testily. His next words are directed at Greenie. "Give it up or I'm gonna take it off you."

"I don't have anything," the smaller boy persists. "You locked me in here with string."

"Kid's got a point, Gally," Alby concedes. Stephen was right; he is tall. Gally gnaws the inside of his cheek in annoyance.

"He didn't chew through it," he grumbles. "Let's just pull him out and search him."

Greenie tenses, pressing his body against the wall at his back. "He doesn't like to be touched," Nick informs the others. He gives the smaller boy a meaningful, calculating look. "Right, Greenie? So, maybe you should just give up whatever you got, so we don't have to do anything you won't like."

"I don't fucking have anything!" the smaller boy snarls.

"How about a compromise, yeah?" Newt steps in, patting Nick and Gally's shoulders, leaning his weight on them to look down at Greenie. "You want to change outta those trousers, right? So, take those off and we'll give you new ones and whatever's in your pockets stays there."

It would be a completely reasonable offer. It would be, if not for the way Greenie's chest starts to cave in on itself. He can't take off his clothes. They'll see. He can't let them. He shakes his head, gasping out a, "No."

"It's not a big deal," Newt presses gently. Greenie's skin goes cold and clammy and he tugs the sleeves of his shirt down over his hands, hunches his shoulders to cover every inch of skin he can. His head is still shaking and the world tilts around him.

"Shuck, give him some water!" Someone says, voice distorted, the sound fuzzy. Nick looms closer, reaching for the smaller boy and Greenie flails. Batting Nick's hand away pings like metal off his knuckle, clangs against the rock wall of his cell.

"Get away!" He's not sure if he actually says it or just thinks it. Or if he's even thinking anything at all.

"Alright, guys, back up. Give him some air before he has a shuckin' heart attack." Air would be good. Air would be wonderful.

"Just breathe, alright? You can keep the buggin' smelly trousers."

Breathe. Breathing is good. Breathing is the best. Greenie squeezes his eyes shut and wheezes, forcing his lungs to work, fighting the darkness slavering to claim him again. If he faints now, they'll take his pants while he's out. He can't. He can't.

"That's right. You're good, Greenie," Newt drones, his voice dropping into some low, smooth register; careful and encouraging. Patient like none of them have been since pulling the boy out of the boxcage. "Just slow it down. Slow in... Slow out. Good that. Again. Bloody brilliant, you are. Gonna make you the Keeper of the Breathers, right?"

It shouldn't help as much as it does (Newt being part of the reason Greenie is suffocating on his own fear), but the smaller boy isn't about to cut off his nose to spite his face. He lets the older boy's words wash over him, breathing in time. His heart slowly calms, the iron band around his chest easing bit by bit. He slumps against the wall, not even wincing when his head thunks back against the stone. He is exhausted.

"Squirrely little shank, isn't he?" Gally pronounces offhandedly and no one disagrees. Greenie doesn't even bother to open his eyes.

"We're gonna have to keep him here for the night, anyway. Let's just have someone watch him and make sure he stays put." It's Alby who proposes this and the others all make sounds of accedence.

"I'll go first," Newt tells them.

"That's nice of you," Nick says, unspoken curiosity in his tone. There's a smirk in Newt's when he replies.

"I'm a generous sort."

Alby snorts. "And he'll be in his bed tonight, while the rest of us take turns sitting out here with the Greenie."

The boys share a chuckle before the other three head off about their own business and Newt sits himself down, leaning his back against the slanted wall of the cell door. His legs are spread wide, bent at the knee and he rests his arms across them.

"We're really not a bad lot," he says over his shoulder without bothering to really look back. "You'll see. Not gonna lie and say it's gonna be easy – especially not for someone as... nervy as you – but it'll come. Trust me; in a couple weeks, you'll feel right at home. S'much as the rest of us do."

Greenie stays silent, drawing the tattered edges of his thoughts together. "And what if I don't?" His voice is so quiet when he does speak, he doesn't really expect Newt to hear him, thinks he doesn't when the older boy doesn't respond for full minutes afterward.

Then, only, "You will."

It's not reassuring, but Greenie doesn't think it was meant to be. He thinks Newt just couldn't say anything else.

-o-

The sun has set and Greenie can hear the sounds of the other boys all gathered together somewhere beyond the outcropping of trees to his left – East, he reminds himself. Louder, he hears crickets and peepers, but no cicadas, which strikes him as odd since the air is so balmy and he figures it must be sometime in mid spring or late summer to be so perfectly mild. He's not sure why he thinks that, since he has no idea where he lived before this pit he's in. Someplace with balmy bookended summers and cicadas, he guesses.

Newt hasn't spoken again and neither has Greenie. He feels a bitter certainty that anything meaningful he'd ask of the older boy would be answered with half truths or nothing at all, that Newt doesn't have half the answers and doesn't want to share the ones he does. Greenie can't begin to guess why, not now, not with so little information, not as tired and stressed as he is.

"Hey, Newt; what's the good news?" says a vaguely familiar disembodied voice. Newt snorts, levering himself up from the ground with a grunt. His voice is throaty when he answers, stretching his lanky body, stiff from too long in one position.

"No such thing," he tells the newcomer; dry cynicism sweetened with just enough teasing to cut the sourness. "Hang on; that bacon?"

"Frypan did up a hog for the occasion. Said he was roastin' it all day and not gonna waste that just 'cause the greenbean's antisocial."

"Good that." Newt turns back to the cell and unlatches the door, stepping back so the new boy can approach.

Stephen smiles amiably down into the pit, sinking to one knee to offer Greenie a deep, metal plate, piled with food and a metal thermos. The smaller boy looks at the items warily. He wants to tell Stephen to take them away, that he's not hungry, but the moment the smell reaches his nose, his stomach springs to brutal life, twisting around on itself angrily, loudly demanding to be filled.

He takes the plate and thermos quickly, sitting back as far as he can the moment they are in his grasp. Stephen doesn't appear offended, only tells Greenie to eat up as he stands back, allowing Newt to close the door and secure it once more. Newt doesn't stick around, eager to get his own meal now that his replacement has come, leaving Greenie alone with Stephen.

"I don't think I could be a Cook," Stephen muses as he sits, facing the cell, and pulls a bit of wood from his pocket. Greenie thinks Stephen might be talking to him, but the other boy doesn't seem to care that he doesn't answer. "Always around all the food. I think one day, I'd just snap and stuff myself 'til I passed out. Prolly end up in here for a week, then get busted down to Slopper. ...Worth it." He chuckles to himself, grinning as he scrapes at the wood with a small knife.

Greenie keeps one eye on Stephen as he inspects the food as closely as he can in what little light manages to spill into the cell from the torch Newt had lit when dusk was properly settling in. He can't smell anything chemical in the food, but it's not like Greenie has any idea what drugs would smell like. He's just hoping they'd have some kind of odor he could discern as not food. There's no cutlery of any kind, which doesn't surprise him, so he has to use his dirty fingers and really isn't all that concerned about the fact, though he thinks he normally would be. Fighting against every urge in his body, following his intellect and mistrust over his cavernous hunger, the boy puts only a small amount of food into his mouth.

Nothing about this day is good, not even sustenance for a ravenous child. A sharp ache erupts in his cheek and jaw as the salivary glands there kick like a startled horse and his stomach cramps viciously. He makes a sound that couldn't be called a groan, but is too guttural to be a whine. It's anguish, not relief. One foot kicks reflexively and he rocks in place cupping his jaw and, though he knows the discomfort will only last a moment, he rubs the soft flesh in hopes of speeding up the process.

It might be the best thing Greenie has ever tasted in his life. That thought is half hyperbole and half entirely possible sentiment. He wouldn't know. There's little seasoning on the pork, but it's rich, somehow tastes thick, and so juicy, so tender it all but disintegrates against his tongue. It's the hardest thing he's done today to not immediately stuff more and more into his mouth after he swallows the first bite, but if the worry about being drugged weren't enough of a deterrent, Greenie also knows full well that if he gobbles down too much at once, he'll just vomit it all right back up. Like a dog that doesn't know any better. He doesn't know if Stephen will get him more if that happens and doubts his disregard of dirty fingers means he'd be up for baby-birding himself.

"Back when I was a greenbean, I ended up with the Builders. Gally's the Keeper. You seen Gally yet?" Stephen waits a beat, giving Greenie a chance to answer, but doesn't comment when the smaller boy remains silent. "Work's about as hard as Track-hoein', but I liked it better, 'cause it actually feels like you're gettin' something done. You work in the corn field or the gardens for a week and everything looks just like it did when you started. I mean, m'not stupid, I know the plants are growin', but it's not even close, 'cause when you spend a week makin', like, a bunch of new lanterns, you have a bunch of new lanterns, get me?"

As Stephen prattles, Greenie takes stock of how he feels. Hungry. Tired. Scared. That's about it. He takes another bite of food, chewing slowly, savoring the taste to give whatever it might be laced with a chance to start working. If it's going to start working. After the fifth bite, he's pretty sure either there's no drugs in the food or he's already ingested enough of it that eating the rest won't make much difference. He takes only the barest of sips of the water in the thermos, not because he fears it might also be drugged, as he's fairly confident he could taste if there was something off about the water, but because he doesn't want to end up having to pee again.

He absolutely doesn't want to do that in front of another person and thinks Stephen (or whoever) would say they needed to keep his hands in view or something, because they still think he has some kind of knife or something. And he doesn't want to piss his pants again. They itch and the acrid sting of ammonia has filled his little pit like a biting cloud.

A loud series of sounds starts up from somewhere beyond Greenie's little box, deep rumbling scrapes and heavy impacts; whatever it is sounds big somehow, like two giants fighting.

"And there it goes," Stephen says offhandedly.

"What is it?" Greenie has to ask, flinching when a particularly close impact vibrates the air.

"It's the maze changing. Like it's not bad enough, the thing rearranges itself every night."

The maze changing. Greenie has obviously never been in the maze, has no idea of its scale or composition, but from the height of the walls and how loud and big the sound of the pieces moving around, he feels like it must be gargantuan. It just makes the situation all the more confusing and intimidating. The cost of building the damn thing alone would be astronomical. What the hell could possibly be gained from forcing a bunch of teenagers into this situation?

"It's not that bein' a Runner is all bad," Stephen ruminates. "Just that it is. I mean, I get seconds before anyone else, first dibs on clothes, weapons. Days off. But the trade off is actually having to go into the maze. You're probably thinkin' you want that, because you just got here and you want to get out. We all do, shank. But you don't want to go out there, trust me. It sure as shuck ain't what you think."

"What's out there?"

"Bad things," the older boy says. It's vague, like most of the answers Greenie has gotten today, but Stephen's tone is deliberate and ominous enough that the smaller boy doesn't push. "You can be goin' along and everything's fine and you're already dead and you don't even know it. But you don't have to worry about it, okay? You're too shrimpy to be a Runner and too new, anyway. Nah, smart shank like you 'll end up a Builder. Hell, maybe a Med-jack.

"And don't lose sleep gettin' all worked up over something in the maze sneakin' into the Glade at night. Nothing gettin' through those walls, alright? You'll be safe... as long as you stay inside." Stephen sighs, setting his whittling down and leaning back, resting his hands in the dirt and looking up at the sky. His tone isn't as serious when he goes on, but more somber. "I was hopin' you'd be bigger, faster. I'm tired a' the maze; tired a' runnin' out there over and over, jumpin' at my own shadow. But there's only eight of us and there's gotta be at least that and volunteers aren't exactly lining up, you know? Maybe next month."

The silence is heavy now, in a way Greenie doesn't understand. It pulls him down like a cement weight bolted into his sternum. A half dozen breaths later, Stephen goes on, chattering about life in the Glade as if nothing had happened at all. He sees the plate is empty and opens the cell door to take it back. Nothing more; no offers of new clothes, no requests for whatever contraband they think Greenie is hiding. He just sets the plate aside, lashes the door closed again, and resumes his whittling, taking up his bland monologue right where he left off.

Greenie, with a full belly dragging him down, nods off in the middle of a thought and doesn't even know he's doing it.

-o-

Greenie comes awake with a start, heart slamming his ribs like it's trying to escape its own cage. Nothing has changed, as far as he can see with a quick look around, just that he and Stephen are no longer alone. Alby has arrived to take over the watch. He frowns down at the prisoner, condescending and disappointed like Greenie's been sent to the principal's office.

"Hope you have a better day tomorrow, Greenbean," Stephen says sincerely in parting, giving Alby a pat on the back before he heads off.

The torchlight makes Alby's dark skin glow, the flames' reflection dancing off the water in his eyes. It's uncanny and arresting, like Goya's Black Paintings. Greenie knows what the Black Paintings are and, knowing what they are, is concerned that he knows what they are. He's not sure a thirteen year old should feel so strongly about the depiction of the titan Cronus eating his son.

"Didn't have to be this way," Alby says, heavy with reproach.

"I didn't put myself in here," Greenie says back, defiant. The frown deepens.

"Yeah, you did. S'not like we got a lot a' rules. They aren't hard to follow."

"Can you give me one good reason I need to?" the smaller boy challenges, discomfort and exhaustion making him prickly and antagonistic. Alby crouches down in a sudden movement that makes Greenie flinch, practically pressing his face against the cross pieces of the cell door.

"If you can't, I'll throw you into the maze myself." The threat is stark and angry and considering how almost obsessively emphatic everyone is that Greenie fall in line, the boy takes Alby at his word.

"I believe you," Greenie says. He swallows hard, throat dry enough that it clicks when he does. He learns something about himself then that he wouldn't have expected (because what thirteen year old boy does?) and isn't particularly happy about. He's a little reckless. "I think that's the most honest anyone here has been with me. I feel like I should say thank you."

Alby's brows tick up in surprise before furrowing, his frown deepening as he breaks away from Greenie's steady gaze. The larger boy shifts, abruptly uncomfortable and shakes his head, muttering something that sounds like "psycho" under his breath. He faces the cell again, his shoulders not quite as squared as before.

"Gimme the bottle," he orders. His voice is as firm as before, but he doesn't meet Greenie's eyes this time.

"Really? Prisoners aren't allowed to have water?" the smaller boy asks, aggravated. The fact that he wasn't planning to drink the water is inconsequential compared to the idea that he can't have it.

"Ask for it if you want it. You already busted out of here once today and that's not happening again. I'm not giving you anything to work with, don't care if it's harmless like water, get me?"

"Whatever." He hands over the bottle. Alby sets it off to the side, then sits, leaning his back against the cell door to drive home what he said about Greenie not escaping again. It only increases the smaller boy's resolve to do just that.

It's useless to try keeping track of time in the pit, even more so when the Glade quiets down for the evening and people cease stopping by to chat with Alby and take a peek at the prison's lone occupant. With the others all but filing by to get a glimpse of The Amazing Defiant Boy!™, Greenie feels a bit like an attraction in a side show. His skin crawls a little at how close the concept hits to home, so he does his best to push the idea away and not think of it again.

Once the real, true quiet sets in, seconds creep by, feeling like hours. It's a terrible combination of torturously slow and too fast. He's sure the entire night will have passed him by before he has a chance to get free of the cage. Before he figures out how to get free. With Alby leaning against the door, the only other option he has to work with is the back wall of the structure. That's pretty tightly woven. Given time and solitude, he could eventually work some branches loose, but that would almost surely require him to break them in the process and that would without a doubt alert his guard to exactly what he was doing.

Working the problem over and over in his mind, Greenie keeps finding himself skipping ahead to what he'll do once he's out and having to reel himself back to the current obstacle. Crawl before you walk... blindly into an unfamiliar forest at night. Yeah, focusing on the cell is better.

A loud snarl rends the tranquil night and Greenie nearly jumps out of his skin. His eyes flare wide in the darkness, barely any light thrown by Alby's waning torch. The sound comes again a breath later and the terrified boy slumps like a puppet whose strings have been cut. It's only Alby snoring.

...Alby is snoring. Alby is asleep. Greenie sits up straight again, creeping close to the cell door, barely breathing himself as he waits and observes, looking for any tell that the older boy is playing possum to lure his prisoner into making a mistake. He counts time in rapid heartbeats, letting himself make headway into the hundreds before allowing himself to decide Alby really has fallen asleep. Greenie expected him to be more vigilant, but he was leaning on the only exit and probably had a long day, besides. So, okay, his guard is asleep. Good, he can try to inspect the back wall – in so much as he can in near total darkness.

Greenie turns to shuffle back to the back of the cell and his boot knocks into something that pings softly. He freezes and waits for the next snore before moving again, feeling along the ground to find what he'd hit. A water bottle. His mind flashes; it must be the one Nick had offered him earlier, when he was having another heart attack. With his attention focused upwards, towards his captors and freedom, Greenie hadn't realized they never took it back, and tucked as it was up against the front wall of the cell, once it started getting dark, none of the other boys had seen it in the shadows.

He sits back and turns the bottle over and over in his hands, wondering what use he could make of the thing. His lips curl in a way he thinks must look pretty devilish, because that's the feeling that correspondingly curls in his belly at the thought of using a water bottle to escape as Alby had mentioned before. Greenie would consider the bottle as more of a canteen than a thermos, the ping of the metal has a muted quality to it that gives him the impression it's not double walled to maintain the temperature of the liquid inside longer.

If he could crush it, the cheap aluminum (somehow he knows these things are always cheap) will split, leaving him with a sharp, jagged cutting edge. He sighs, tapping his fingers in absent irritation against the barrel body of the canteen, knowing he'll never be able to get enough force to do that outright, even if he stood on the thing – not without waking Alby. He's too small and none of the rocks that make up the walls have a pronounced enough edge to pierce the thin metal otherwise. He unscrews the cap and runs a finger around the opening. The edge has been rounded off to make a lip, but not welded in place. The boy's devilish smirk widens, showing his teeth to the shadows for a moment before the next obstacle looms ahead.

If Alby is against the one exit, it doesn't matter if Greenie can cut through the twine hinge. The roof and back wall are that tight weave, so that's a no go. He closes the bottle again, setting it down and standing. He runs his fingers over the bamboo cross-grating that divides his cell from the next one over. It's not as secure as the one for the door, probably because the boys thought moving from one cell to the next was a useless endeavor. Greenie knows he can just cut through these, but he also has the feeling he doesn't want the others to know exactly how he escaped this time – though he's not sure if that's for practical reasons or because he wants to know something important they don't, for them to feel confused and angry about answers they can't have.

He gives some of the individual poles a careful shake, testing the lashings. There's some slack; none of the bindings are very tight. If he can loosen them up just a little, he'll be able to just slide them apart. Greenie retrieves the bottle again, opening it, and slowly and quietly pours its contents over the bindings. Once the bottle's empty, he sits back down and goes about uncurling the lip, setting the opening against the squarest edge he can find and pushing down with all his weight and strength. Sure, it slips off over and over and maybe he whacks his head against the wall once or twice, but it works.

He leaves the bottle on the ground and focuses on the divider next, working the bamboo poles back and forth, up and down, until the twine stretches and loosens enough that he can slide them how he needs. When the gap is big enough for him to fit through, Greenie plucks the bottle from the ground and pockets the lid. Timing his movements with Alby's snores, like that guy in the prison escape movie with the thunder, he squirms his way into the next cell.

It's going so smoothly, Greenie counterintuitively starts to get anxious. He argues with his own mind as he sets the divider back to rights. It could all be an elaborate trap, but that's stupid, because they've already caught him. It could be some kind of sick game, but if that's true, then Newt and Stephen are probably the greatest actors on the planet. He could have been drugged after all and this is all one long delusion. That one he doesn't have a counter-argument for and decides to ignore, because if that's the case, then it really doesn't matter what he does, anyway.

Once he's pretty sure the grating is as close to what it should be as he can manage, Greenie gets to work on the door. Using the bottle is lightyears beyond the button and takes a fraction of the time. The twine snaps and he's free. Almost. Slithering his way under the door is the most nerve wracking thing he's done today, forcing himself to go slow when he just wants to rush and be done with it, Alby barely feet away. His awful pants get caught up by a belt loop and he has to wriggle to get it loose, but he finally makes it out.

The final step in ensuring his captors' indignity has Greenie kneeling before the cell he's just escaped, carefully looping the cut twine back around the door, remaking the hinge as it was before. When Alby's replacement comes, it will look like Greenie just vanished into thin air. With a last, vindictive smirk, the boy creeps away into the forest.

-o-

The moon is close to full and, after spending so long in the cave-like pit, the forest practically glows with light. Instead of bearing left, Greenie goes right – east; northeast into the woods. It's unfamiliar, but then he doubts he'd have had an easier time going west after his mad flight that afternoon. He moves as fast as he can in the terrain (not very), keeping his ears as wide open as he can for the sound of pursuers.

This time when a snarl cuts through the night, it's not Alby's deviated septum. It's ragged and ghoulish, a rusty dagger piercing the air and bleeding ice into Greenie's soul. The sound goes on and on, until the boy is shaking in his skin, echoing in the Glade for seconds after it ends and in his mind for longer. Bad things. That's what Stephen had said were in the maze and Greenie had believed him at the time, but now he thinks he had no idea. Whatever that was, he knows that even if his mind was fully intact, he'd never have heard anything like it. That might be the scariest thing.

The crickets and peepers don't seem to care, their serenades uninterrupted by the ghastly cry. Stephen also said that the bad things stay in the maze and, as terrifying and loud as the roar had been, it was also far away. Greenie gets moving again, fighting to focus on the boys that would be coming after him and not the creature he'd been told would not.

He's stumbling and falling almost more than walking at this point, his body refusing to supply any more adrenaline and exhaustion riding him into the ground. Worse, he has to pee again. Badly. But, even with no one around and covered in the safety of darkness, he can't bring himself to do it. And the sound of running water isn't helping.

Wait.

His fatigued mind takes a moment to realize that the sound means something. Something good. He heads towards it and soon finds a narrow stream, maybe six feet across, glittering invitingly with moonlight. It smells sweetly of moss and gurgles along jauntily. The ground along the bank is pretty rocky, so he thinks the water would be clear if the sun was out to see it. He immediately wades in, boots and all. The water here rises up to just below his knees and is ice cold. It doesn't matter, the boy immediately sits and lets his bladder go.

In the back of his mind, Greenie gets a niggling sense that he should be embarrassed doing it, but not only can't he summon up an ounce of concern over it, he actively tells that thought to shut its stupid face. The relief is profound; not just feeling like an overfilled balloon blissfully deflating, but the cold water on his stinging, chafed skin. He rubs his hands against the denim and wiggles, doing his best to wash out the old urine while still wearing them. He opens his fly and leans back, getting even more soaked, letting the stream flow through his clothes.

A hand creeps into the opening, breath held as Greenie investigates what he'd felt earlier. Confirmation hits him like an anvil and he sinks further into the stream, letting the cold water cover him entirely. It's both better and worse than he'd feared. He hasn't been... altered. With the injuries to the rest of his body, that had been the boy's first, all consuming, crushing fear. The truth brings with it new terrors and complications. He is reassuringly fully intact. Unsettlingly, he has a fully intact vagina. Running hands up his chest confirms that beneath the tight undershirt are small, soft, perfectly normal breasts.

Greenie is a girl. A girl who was beaten and bound and sent up to a group of unsupervised teenage boys. Unsupervised teenage boys who have been trapped in a high stress environment, with no outside contact, for up to two years. No one had even asked, no one so much as mentioned the possibility. Greenie is dreadfully certain he is the first girl the boxlift has provided. The world has become infinitely more sinister and dangerous, and considering he'd been threatened with murder and heard some kind of deadly creature shrieking into the night not long ago, that is really saying something.

He is starting to shiver and it's not from fear, because his body is done with useful chemical production for the evening. He's been sitting in the icy river too long. Greenie gets up and keeps moving; there's nothing else he can do. So he is resolute as well as reckless. And resourceful, he thinks, since he'd managed his way out of the Pit twice in a day. And female. He muses, his tired brain traipsing along drunkenly. It's weird that he doesn't think of himself any differently. He's been a boy all day, but he was really a girl, but that didn't matter. Or did it? Maybe if he'd actually been male, he would have gone along with Nick and his not-so-merry band; maybe he'd have stayed in the hole like a good little boy.

He doesn't think so. It's confusing. Greenie wonders if it has to do with having absolutely no memories of himself. Maybe he acted differently when he was a girl. Er, before he forgot he was a girl. He has no way of knowing and it really doesn't matter anyway. He is who he is and, while it puts him in a world of danger, the vagina between his legs doesn't change that.

He startles, body jerking to a stop and hopping back three feet when a giant snake appears in front of him. Greenie scoffs at himself, not quite alert enough to laugh at his own stupidity. The upside to being so exhausted is that he takes no time to calm down after the fright; his heart barely skipped a beat over it. The snake is not a snake, it's a thick, serpentine branch trailing along the forest floor before him. His eyes follow it back to its trunk and the boy feels a fleeting (entirely irrational) swell of remorse that he's too tired to be impressed by the massive oak tree before him. It's the kind from southern gothic stories, all thick, twisting limbs and fat trunk, like a gargantuan land anemone.

The trunk is considerably wider than Greenie is tall, branches sprawling around the tree like it's trying to slowly claim the whole world. He follows the snake branch in, deciding that this is the perfect place to rest. This branch, unfortunately appears to be growing out of a portion of the trunk that's split from the whole and fallen at an angle and Greenie can't see well enough to risk slipping into the gap and hurting himself. Further.

He circumnavigates the oak, one hand on the trunk to keep his balance as he steps through smaller shade plants and thick blankets of ivy surrounding it. The boy lets out a squeak when the ground gives way under him, only to huff in overtired annoyance that he's just stepped into a hole hidden by the ivy. He finds another low branch he can clamor up, scaling the accommodating tree with ease.

Finally, finally, he finds a place where the branches meet, wide enough to curl his small frame into. His still damp clothes aren't enough of a discomfort in the warm night air to dissuade his entirely done-in body from closing shop for the evening.

Greenie sleeps and dreams of a box with an opening he can't reach.

-o-

"Sir, are you certain this is the right subject?" the technician, Emery, asked. He was a slight, mousy young man who wore his lab coat and name badge like a Halloween costume. Jansen had chosen him specifically because the guy had all the spine of a jellyfish.

"What does it say on the processing order?" he asked, not even bothering to alter his pleasantly disinterested expression or harden his tone of voice. He didn't even have to try to intimidate this peon. Emery blinked an apology in Morse code, looking down at the tablet he held and re-reading the screen as if it were necessary.

"Subject A65," he recited. The younger man looked up at his superior (in every sense, Jansen thought) in anxious confusion. "But it has to be a mistake. This serial number was designated D1 and, besides that, it's not possible for a Group D subject to be integrated into Group A."

Jansen's salt and pepper eyebrows rose just a fraction of an inch and his body stilled in an unsettlingly predatory manner.

"Impossible?" was all he said, but encompassed in the single word was an encyclopedia of warning. He'd like to say he'd worked hard to learn how to project malice so subtly, but the truth was, it came naturally and he had to put far more effort into suppressing it than anything else.

Emery stuttered, a light flush of moisture gathering at his temples. Pathetic. "Unethical?" he amended. Jansen allowed his normally affable mouth to curve into a slight frown and stepped closer, speaking softly, as if in confidence. Emery froze like a rabbit faced with a snake.

"I find it best not to question the morals of the administration," Jansen advised the lowly processing technician (barely a step above an orderly, really). "And the system doesn't make mistakes. The subjects go where the orders say they go. They know what they're doing, Emery."

The younger man nodded, stepping back the moment Jansen released his gaze and scurrying off to actually do his job. Jansen smirked inside his mouth, turning to look through the wide observation window into the holding area where Subject A65 was awaiting processing for trial integration. The young girl was breathing heavily, her face flushed from exertion and fury, dark eyes wide with fear. Though she'd been in the room for nearly an hour, she still intermittently struggled against the restraints the orderlies and members of his own security staff had forced her into, since the doctors wouldn't risk sedating her now and then again so soon for the wipe procedure.

Jansen wasn't a fool. He knew the moment Paige received the integration summary, he'd catch Hell for "overlooking" the altered orders and reassignment of D1 as A65, but by then it would be too late to do anything about it. A formal censure and maybe a fine, as if he was worried about money or a note in his file. More than worth it.

-o-

Continued in The Girl in the Maze