Fainting was a very strange thing to go through. You could be unconcious for hours and feel like only seconds have passed by. Or, you could be unconcious for seconds and feel like it had been hours. You're not completely blacked out either. Eleanor saw images fly by her, memories or dreams. Either way none of it stuck. To her, it felt like no time went by but at the same time felt like so many things had happened.
So when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to to see the sky had just started turning orange and she was lying on the same place she was just standing moments ago with Newt.
Then, she realized she had fainted.
"Eleanor!" Newt's voice sounded, making her turn to look at him
He was crouched, hovering over her figure. His voice sounded familiar to her as he said her name and she realized she might have heard him calling out for her in her dream-like state.
Eleanor sat up onto her elbow so she was eye-level with him.
Since she didn't respond, he spoke again. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah..." She said quickly. "Yes."
She could feel her cheeks heating up, she had actually fainted. She felt utterly embarrased.
Sure, those things were terrifying but Newt sure as hell didn't look like he had ever fainted.
She was quick to stand up, eager to forget about the whole thing.
Newt stood up along with her, his eyes not missing a single movement she made. Surprisingly, his eyes weren't mocking, they showed concern. But that only heightened her embarrasment.
As soon as she was on her feet, she realized something was wrong.
The world started circling around her and she was quick to close her eyes expecting the impact of the cold ground once again. But the impact never came.
Newt's arms wrapped around her waist hoisting her up and she fell on his chest.
What is with me and falling on boys chest? She thought.
"Are you sure you're ok?" Eleanor looked up at his concerned face, her chin resting on his chest. "When was the last time you ate?"
She simply shrugged, knowing she shouldn't have skipped dinner the previous night. They separated but he grabbed a hold of her arm, tuggin her along with him gently. His eyes never left her as if he was worried she might faint again. Eleanor's cheeks were burning up as he led her in what she asumed was the direction of the kitchen.
When they arrived a few boys were scrambled around eating breakfast. It seemed too early though.
"Why are they awake so early?" She felt brave enough to ask.
He sat her down on a bench in front of a table and held up his hands, as if to say 'wait here', and left her there.
Eleanor huffed in annoyance, her head feeling heavy and dizzy. She couldn't make sense of anything surrounding her since she had come out of that box. And those boys seemed to have all the answers but decided to conceal them from her.
Across the room a familiar face caught her eye. He smiled as he spotted her looking and winked in return.
Eleanor imediately hid her face, letting her damp hair cascade around her head, red flush invading her cheeks.
When she dared to look up again, he was making his way over to her.
Oh no! She thought.
Eleanor didn't know what to make of him. He hadn't exactly been nice when they had met.
"Hello, Greenie." He said, the grin impossibly big on his face.
"Hello Minho."
He seemed happy that she had remembered his name. He wasted no time and took a seat across from her.
"How'd you like the Grievers?" he asked.
Eleanors was surprised by how straightforward this boy was. No one had ever mentioned the name of things in her presence, as if it was all top secret. And there was Minho, saying 'Grievers' as if he used it everyday and it wasn't a word used to descrive gigantic killing machines.
"Is that what they're called?" She replied. In all honesty, she didn't want to announce to the whole Glade about her fainting episode. So, she changed the topic, "Why are you up so early?"
"That She-bean..." He said, as if he held the secrets to the unvierse. Though, for Eleanor he kind of did hold the secrets of this universe she happened to stumble upon. "...is the perks of being a Runner."
It was obvious he was being sarcastic, but she didn't understand.
"A Runner?" She repeated, questioning.
"You'll find out on the tour today." An accented voice said to their right.
They both turned to stare at Newt. Said boy sat down next to Eleanor and pushed a plate in front of her.
"Eat." he ordered.
It was filled to the top, she wasn't sure what with but at that moment she couldn't care less. The appealing smell made her stomach ache from need.
So, she was eagerly about to obey Newt when he added, "Slowly, we don't know how long you've been without food."
But apparently it wasn't long because her stomach welcomed the food gladly.
"So Greenie," Minho said. "How'd you like the glade so far?"
"Hmp-" she replied through mouthfulls of her breakfast. "S'orrible, eryone iz zo rude."
She couldn't remember ever eating something so good, she swallowed.
"They all look at me as if they either wanna kill me or kiss me."
Minho laughed loudly, and she caught Newt faintly smiling for a second.
"What about us?" The asian boy said still mantaining his smirk and patting Newt on the shoulders. "Do we want to kill you or kiss you?"
She took a good look at them, her hunger subsisding a little.
They were both tall and well built. They looked tough with their tanned rough skins and their eyes, that had an edge to them, like they were much older than they looked.
They intimidated her, that much was clear. But at the same time, she took notice of that smirk Minho's lips held and the way Newt had pronounced her name with that concerned edge.
Finally Eleanor spoke.
"You." She started, signaling Minho.
His eyebrows shot up but his smirk never left.
"You look like you enjoy torturing me with that smirking and sarcasm and the whole I know about what's going on but you don't. And you," She turned to Newt, "I know that you're forced to interact with me because it's your job or whatever but you could at least try to hide your annoyance. And it would cerntainly be very helpful if any of you could tell me what the hell is going on around here, instead of staring and snickering around. Because, why not? Let's just make fun of the girl who's terrified to death and has no freaking idea what's going on!"
Eleanor was almost breathless by the end. She quickly realized what she was saying and stopped talking.
And then, as if her mind had no control over her mind she said. "Sorry."
She wasn't really sorry but it felt like a natural thing for her, to apologize.
Her head dropped and she started eating again, slower now. She was already full but she didn't think they'd appreciate her leaving food on the plate.
"Man." Minho started, breaking the silence. "You were doing so well and then you went and said 'sorry'." He chuckled.
Eleanor looked up at him, ofended.
Yeah, 'cause I have manners unlike you. She thought, though she kept quiet.
Minho chuckled again and checked his watch. "Anyways Shanks, gotta go."
He wasted no time on standing up and leaving, waiting for no goodbyes.
Eleanor's eyes followed him 'til he reached one of the cracks where the walls met. As if on cue, they started opening. The whole glade vibrating along with them.
She watched in awe as he slung a bag over his shoulders and took off running out of the glade. Eleanor gasped. Immediate thoughts of those creatures lurking out there flashed her mind.
"He just- Why did he- I though-" she tried to voice her thoughts but nothing coherent formed.
"I'm sorry." Newt cut her.
Her head snapped to look at him, surprised etched all over her face.
She stared at him for a few seconds. Eleanor thought he looked handsome, when he showed emotion that is, which according to her experience wasn't very often. She wasn't sure why he just apologized, probably because of her rant.
"S'okay." She replied a small smile on her face, maybe they did have manners after all.
But just as she had thought that he abruptly got up and left her there, making her sigh. She glanced after him as he walked away.
His walk seemed pained, uneven, his limp all the more notizable.
"Morning greenie." a voice said to Eleanor's back and she turned to find who she thought was their leader.
Did that mean he was her leader too?
She vaguely remembered his name was Alby.
"C'mon," he said, nodding his head up signaling her to get up. "Time for the tour".
Eleanor was counting down the seconds until she could start asking questions.
It was great to finally have someone explaining things but she had already walked everywhere in what they called the Glade. So with the new information, she simply had the names for the places, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what they did in each location. Still, she listened intently, trying to memorize everything he was telling her.
Alby confirmed that she was indeed the only female to ever come up in 'the Box' but she wasn't the only one. Every month a new Greenie was sent up with it, and every week new supplies arrived.
"Do you get a say on what they send up?" Eleanor had asked.
"We leave notes. Sometimes they listen." Was Alby's response.
She figured by 'they' he meant whoever had sent all of them there. He had also mentioned them as 'the Creators', but he assured her they had no idea who they were.
"Could I?" Eleanor said cautionsly. "Leave a note, I mean."
If she was going to be living there she certainly needed some things they probably wouldn't already have.
"We'll discuss it later."
"Later?" she asked.
"We're having a gathering, Greenie."
"About me?" The thought of a bunch of boys coming together to talk about her unsettled her. "Can I go?"
"Keepers only." He said harshly. She tried to think, the 'Keepers' were the boys in charge of the different activities.
"Now, no more questions until I finish." Alby barked and he moved on to talk about the Med-jacks.
After he finished he took a deep breath as if bracing himself and said. "Okay, you can ask now."
He imediately looked like he regreted doing so. Eleanor didn't know where to start, she figured she'd start with the easy questions and maybe he wouldn't blow her off too soon.
"What is that?" She chose to ask, signaling the building where she had met Minho the previous day.
"The map room." He said as if that explained everything.
Eleanor waited for him to add something, so when he didn't she spoke again.
"So it stores maps, or...?"
"Something like that." he said and then added, "it's off limits."
Of course it was. Of course he was not going to explain.
She decided to go for the next easy question on her list.
"What are Runners?" She asked and, by his reaction, she immediately guessed she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of him.
He proved her wrong.
His face turned into more of a scowl than it already was and he said, "They run the maze."
That small word sounded like a bomb in her mind.
Maze.
A maze?
A maze...
She was sure her heart had stopped beating for a second.
Of freaking course...
It made sense now.
She could visualize it. An incredibly large maze with incredibly tall walls and deadly creatures trapping them in. Eleanor started thinking.
Someone had put all of them in there for whatever reason. Maybe they just needed to solve the puzzle and find a way out.
Maybe they were all part of one big experiment or trial or something...
But what if there was no getting out? What if they were trapped with only a way in?
No. There had to be a way out.
She then thought of Minho running the maze, corridor after corridor for months, years even. Those creatures lurking around the corners.
Somehow, that made her understand Minho better, and she felt a wave of respect for the older boy run through her.
Seeming surprised that she didn't ask any more questions, Alby spoke. "Alright, greenie?"
When she nodded he said, "Good, you'll start on the blood house tomorrow."
Eleanor felt sick to her stomach but she didn't complain. One of the golden rules of the Glade was that everyone had to do their part, and she didn't plan on making this lot of boys think she was in any way different than them.
"And remember..." he added. "Don't hurt anyone, and never leave the glade. Shouldn't be too hard, huh? Greenie?"
Eleanor simply nodded.
At first she had been glad the tour was over, but after walking for what felt like hours she was impossibly bored. She had no idea what she was supposed to do for the rest of the day.
She started debating whether or not to explore the inside of the buildings. With Alby she had seen everything from the outside and she was curious about the inside. She really didn't want to get in trouble, or gather even more attention to herself. But, she had been there for not even a day and she was already dying of boredom.
Eleanor headed for the biggest building, which was conveniently the one closer to her.
She recalled Alby had called it the "Homestead". That name had stuck because it had the word 'home' on it, and frankly, it wasn't that hard to remember.
It was the biggest building but it wasn't nearly as big as Eleanor knew real houses were. Even though she didn't remember her own house, or any house for that matter.
The Homestead looked like it had been reformed several times so it had a certain look of instability.
The inside was no exception, with almost no furniture. The walls were patched up as if it had been done randomly but the place was still standing so it seemed to work. She gave them credit for that. The ground was almost completely engulfed in sleeping bags, hammcocks and clothes scatered all around. She could've sworn she saw a pair of underpants lying around. She didn't dare to get any closer to confirm it.
On the farthest wall, there was a crooked set of stairs that were anything but inviting, Nontheless, Eleanor followed that path.
There were barely three rooms in the second floor all jammed up together, their doors pressing against eachother in a tiny corridor. All three doors were opened so she didn't think she was doing anything wrong.
The first two rooms were empty. A single bed, if you could call it that, in each of them and barely anything else.
As Eleanor took a step to peer on the last room, she should've heard that someone was inside. She should have swallowed her curiosity and gone back outside. And she only realised all of this things when her eyes came in contact with a shirtless torso.
Her lips parted to let out an involuntary gasp.
Both of them made eye contact on the same instant, their faces the description of surprise.
Newt stared wide eyed at Eleanor.
"Shi-" She turned around flushtered "Sorry. I'm so sorry."
Her voice sounded high pitched and too loud for the silence that reigned.
Her hands flew to her eyes, covering her face in embarrasment.
"Shuck, Greenie!" She heard Newt say, as well as rustling behind her back. "What the hell are you doing here?"
She didn't turn, she felt an amount of embarrassment she was unaware a person was capable of feeling.
"You can turn around now." Newt said to her, and she obliged, gazing carefully at the boy in front of her.
His skin had been covered. That cleared her mind a little bit. She felt the need to apologize, as she was getting used to.
"I'm so sorry." she rushed. "I was just bored and looking around and I didn't know you were here. Maybe it's your room or something, I don't know."
Knowing she had started rambling; she stopped, took a deep breath and added, "I'm truly sorry."
Eleanor was one hundred percent certain her face was as red as she felt it hot. The image she'd seen a minute ago was still burning in her mind.
"It's fine." Newt said, "You just... You just took me by surprise that's all."
"That makes both of us." she blurted and then blushed even more, if it was possible.
An awkward silence fell between them which only lasted a few seconds before she could speak again.
"Well, I'm gonna... go." she signaled with her thumb. "Sorry again."
And without waiting for an answer she had taken off. As she walked down the corridor she heard Newt sighing.
"Bloody hell".
"Hey Eleanor." Gally greeted Eleanor as he aproached her.
She was waiting in line to get her food, having decided that she would not be skipping any meals ever again. Though she had almost regretted that decision as every single eye in the room bore holes into her entire body.
Eleanor smiled at Gally when he got to her. She realized she actually did like Gally. She thought he was nice and genuine which was definetly a improvement to the others.
"Hey Gally."
"Where were you this morning?" He said as the line advanced forward. "When I woke up you were gone."
"Oh." Eleanor was surprised he had been wondering about her. "Newt took me to see the..."
She paused trying to remember, "...Grievers?"
He nodded, his face adopting a somber tone.
"So," he spoke, "how was it?"
"Terrifying." She replied. He nodded along with her words. She quietly added. "I actually fainted."
She was surprised at herself for telling him that, but she did feel like she could trust Gally. At least, a lot more than she could trust the others.
"What?" he asked rather loudly. "Are you ok?"
His concerned tone surprised Eleanor.
"It's okay." She quickly replied, not wanting him to worry. "I'm okay."
She gave her this look, like he actually cared. And then, Eleanor felt glad that she at least had Gally in this scary and confusing enviroment.
Over lunch, Gally explained what he did as the Keeper of the Builders. He introduced Eleanor to a couple of his builders friends and they chatted for a while. Though Eleanor still felt out of place, it was the most comfortable she had been since she'd gotten there. Mainly because of Gally. Not to mention the food was delicious.
She had met the Cook, a hairy and impressibly big dark skinned guy who just scared Eleanor. He didn't smile but his eyes had been warm which she apreciated. Still, he was very intimidating.
She ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with the builders, mostly watching them work but it was something to cure her boredom. And when Gally wasn't too busy, he was a source of conversation for Eleanor. She could feel herself growing more fond of him by the minute.
By the time dinner came around, however, Gally had to go to the Gathering.
He had explained it was that late because they had to wait for Minho, who she'd learnt was the Keeper of the Runners, to attend it. But a couple of builders asked her to eat with them so at least she had company.
They had already started warming up to her and no longer acted like she was an alien on earth.
Once again, Eleanor was glad she had befriended Gally.
"So?" Eleanor assaulted Gally as soon as he was out the door.
She had been waiting for the 'Gathering' to be over. She knew they were talking about her and that made her feel uneasy.
As her foot tapped nervously on the ground she had wondered what they would be saying about her.
Would Newt tell them about the fainting scene?
That thought made her blush in embarrasment. They would think she was weak, and although she knew she was, she didn't want to give them more reasons that she was different. Also, she was certain they didn't appreciate weak people.
Her nerves were killing her. So, as soon as the door opened, she jumped forward. The first ones out had been Alby and Newt, the latest didn't even spare her a second look. Eleanor was glad, she was so embarrased. The thought of the sight she had witness just a few hours before, made her cheeks burn red.
When Gally came out, she sighed in relief and basically attacked him.
"So?" he replied.
"What happened in there?" She anxiously asked.
Gally laughed at her eagerness.
"You know, normal stuff." he simply said. When Eleanor raised her eyebrows at him he continued. "Just a few ground rules. Respect the girl, no peaking while she showers... Stuff like that."
She blushed, she hadn't even thought about that. Now that she thought about it, a shower would sounds perfect-
"Okay, Anything else?"
"I don't think so," he said, "apart from that you're like one of us".
"Did they say if I can ask the Box for things?" Eleanor asked, remembering what Alby had said.
"No, not that."
"What?!" She almost screamed, terrified at the idea. When she realized she was being too loud she dropped the volume, "But I need things!"
Gally chuckled, but he at least look apologetic.
"Like what?" he teased, "A mirror? Make-up?"
Eleanor knew he was joking but that comment irritated her. As if she had to be reminded of how different she was from all of them.
"Oh, I don't know." She said, sarcasms obvious on her voice. "A tampon, maybe?"
Gally's reaction was so priceless it made Eleanor forget all about her irritation. He turned a pale shade of green, his eyes were popped open and his eyebrows were raised impossibly high on his forehead.
"I'm gonna go talk to Alby, then." She couldn't hide her smile and her amused tone.
He slowly nodded. His face hadn't changed and it looked like he was having some sort of mental breakdown.
"Well, see ya later, Shank."
After Alby agreed, Eleanor decided to take a shower. The problem was, she had no idea where everything was. So she went on a search for someone who could help her, show her where the showers were and maybe even get a towel and clean clothes.
Something was up around the glade, they were putting wood in the centre of the clearing as if to build a fire. She didn't think too much of it. After all, she didn't know everything they did yet. It was simply her second day there.
Her first choice for help had been Gally but he seemed to be in charge of whatever was going on. All the other builders were busy following his orders.
Newt and Alby were out of the question.
That left her... Minho.
She knew it was a horrible choice and one she was going to regret, but it was the only one she had.
He was sat by the Kitchens chatting away with a blonde boy that was just as tall as him. They had apparently been eating dinner.
Minho's companion spotted her first, "Hey greenie."
When he spoke, Minho turned too. He saw her and a smirk invaded his face, one that she was getting used to seeing. God, she hated that smirk.
"Hey, Greenie." He greeted.
Sighing, she replied. "It's Eleanor."
"Sure, greenie."
Eleanor gritted her teeth in annoyance.
"You look cute when you're angry." said Minho, that everlasting smirk never leaving his face.
The blonde boy next to him chuckled at the interaction.
Eleanor scoffed, annoyed. "I'm not cute."
"Sure you're not, greenie." He said "You're so tough."
For dramatic effect he ruffled her hair. She glared daggers at him as she stepped away from his reach.
"Oh, shut up!" Eleanor said, hitting his shoulder. She was sure she had done more harm to herself than to him
Then, she turned to the other boy, deciding to ignore Minho. "I'm Eleanor."
"Ben."
She smiled at him.
"If you excuse me," she added, "I have to borrow him for a second."
Both their eyebrows shot up but she didn't give them time to react.
She grabbed Minho's arm and dragged him with her. He luckly followed her.
"I need your help." She told him.
Minho seemed to like that a bit too much. "Is that so?"
When she stole a glance at him she saw that his eyebrows where raised.
She spoke. "I just need to shower, okay?"
Minho laughed.
"And you need me?" He asked. "To do what? Rub your back? Not that I'm opposing."
Eleanor's reaction only made Minho laugh more.
"What? No!"
She released his arm from her grip so she would stop touching him. Her cheeks felt hot once again.
"Relax, greenie. I know what you mean." He said a bit more serious now, though he still wore that ridiculous smirk.
"We should hurry, though." He added, walking faster. "Wouldn't want to miss the party."
Party? She stared after him in confusion. What kind of world was she living in?
A party, huh?
She wasn't sure she liked the idea. But one thing was sure, things could get interesting.