Gally's eyebrows bowed as he frowned at her, going so far as to stagger a single step away. Murmurs erupted from above them. She felt Alex's gaze boring into the side of her head, but ignored him. Her attention was focused solely on Gally.
"How did you know my name?"
She blinked. "Someone just said it."
It was Gally's turn to blink, and one of the boys nudged another before they quickly quieted.
"They told you to come get us and they called you by name… It is Gally, right?"
Shaking his head slightly as if to dispel his thoughts of some other suspicion, he nodded. He held his hand down to her, and Alex stepped in front of her so he blocked Gally's hand.
"Name's Alex," He said.
A few boys whispered feverishly, and Gally's eyebrows dipped again.
"What? You can remember your name?" He stepped back. "You're not supposed to be able to remember your name. Who are you people?" His voice was laced with accusation now, that suspicion from before back full force.
"Who are we? No, who are you!" Elsie said from her spot on the ground, angry that they were the ones being questioned after what they'd just gone through. "We're the ones who were just catapulted into—" She broke off, frustrated, and still very much confused about where exactly we were. "This—place! You're all boys, you're all young, and you're all acting like this is normal? Where! Are! We!"
Gally reeled, apparently just as lost as they were, but for entirely different reasons.
Elsie looked between the two of them, and she could tell just by the look on Alex's face that he was more clued in on the situation than she was. His gaze caught hers, and for a brief moment he tried to silently communicate to her. She watched his eyes flicker up to the rest of the boys, and then back to her. Elsie frowned at him, uncomprehending, and Alex's shoulders dropped as he looked away in defeat.
Her eyes narrowed and she realized Gally was speaking. "—wait for Alby if you're not going to tell us who you are." His arms were folded, and his face was arranged in what she realized was supposed to be an intimidating expression. After he finished, she finally pushed off the ground. The circulation in her legs had been cut off from being crammed for so long, and a prickly, stinging sensation itched all down them as she swayed on her feet.
She stole a glance at the boys still crowded around before she turned to Gally, who stood like the gate keeper, separating them from the rest of the world.
"Excuse me." She strode forward and shook her head, leaving no room for discussion. "I need out of this thing, stat." She tried to shove past him, but Gally was like a wall. Elsie stumbled back, thrown off balance from how much effort she had used to try and force the stout boy blocking her path, and Alex's chest puffed up as he tugged her behind him and tried to get in Gally's face.
"Don't touch her!" Alex said, at the same moment that Gally commanded him to get back.
"Let the greenies out, Gally!"
"Yeah, quit bein' a shank!"
"Yeah, Gally," Alex mocked. "Quit being a shank."
He pointed at Alex in warning. "You don't even know what that means, shuck face!"
"Gally," A voice called. Everyone turned to look up at the arrival of a newcomer, his dirty blonde hair falling in his eyes as he leaned down to speak directly to Gally. "They're not gonna hurt anything. What are you gonna do, trap them there all night?"
"If I have to," He stubbornly persisted, crossing his arms tightly over his chest with his eyebrows pinched into a rigid v shape.
Elsie raised her own eyebrows, and the blonde boy spoke up again. Something about his voice was different from the other's; he had a heavy accent that her mind quickly identified as British. She blinked away the random factoid, struggling to focus on what mattered.
"What if the crate shuts and takes you all down… back to where it came from?" Silence descended over the group. "Are you really going to risk yourself for them?"
Gally's hardened expression wavered as he looked around the crate. "If it does, that just proves there's another way out," Gally lowly noted, and Elsie's eyes widened. The group above them shifted at the suggestion. "But it won't, because there's not. Right?" He directed that question at the siblings standing side by side, and her frustration spiked at yet another accusation from Mr. Eyebrows.
"Let's just put them in the pit, then, Gally." The blonde suggested. Murmurs of agreement slid through the crowd, but Elsie stiffened.
The pit? That didn't sound like a great place to be. She didn't want to go to the pit! No one wanted to go to a pit!
"No," Gally stubbornly refused. "They're not getting into the Glade. Not yet."
Elsie was conflicted, torn between trepidation of this so called pit and being detained in place under the authority of Mr. Eyebrows.
Angry, she decided to try reasoning with Gally. "Do I look like a danger to you?" She threw her hands up, and Gally's eyebrows tensed.
"I don't know," His voice was tight and mocking. "You are a girl."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She started, her shoes thudding against the metal as she got right in his face to challenge him.
Alex's fingers narrowly missed her shoulder, and Gally seemed to hesitate with holding his ground against her briefly. But his suspicion won out, and he reached up to shove her away.
He barely had enough time to send Elsie staggering back a step before her brother tore after him. She worried that Alex would overreact and tackle him for a moment, but before he had the chance a new voice cracked through the commotion. His voice alone was enough to split the crowd like a whip. She was surprised at how easily Alex gave up upon hearing the new voice, shoving Gally roughly and taking a perverse pleasure in seeing him stumble over some rope in the crate. To say his forfeiture was out of character would be putting it mildly. Alex usually liked to finish what he started…
"Let them up, Gally," commanded the voice that split the crowd. The word leader floated to the front of her mind, and it was strange how easily this seemed to fit the newcomer's description. He was rather imposing, with dark skin and the strange non-expression of a politician. His eyes landed briefly on Elsie before flickering over to her brother, a sensation she was more than accustomed to. People tended to write her off pretty quickly. Her brother presents a much more interesting front to study.
Alex's hair was wiry and sun-streaked, his skin pleasantly tanned and faring quite well despite the stifling heat of the day. His body was like hers—lithe, thin muscles that were deceptively effective. Outwardly, he didn't seem to have much bulk, but that didn't mean he looked harmless.
That's where the likeness between them ended. Where Alex's skin and hair was golden, hers was pale and burnt. Meaning she had burning red hair and fairly light, delicate skin—someone… she couldn't remember who… but someone used to call it porcelain. The thought nagged at her mind as she struggled to place a face and name with the sentiment, but she continually came up blank.
"—something is unusual doesn't mean we should burn them at the stake. We're used to weird here, right, shanks?" He worked the crowd like a natural born leader, and they responded in kind with low chuckles and nods.
"Good that!" A few of them called out, causing the older boy to nod. He looked back to Elsie.
"It ain't normal for you guys to remember your names. That's why everyone was so suspicious," He explained, reaching down in the crate to hold his hand out to her. She eyed his extended hand and briefly mulled his words over.
"You know that sounds crazy, right?" She locked gazes with him. Silence stretched over the crowd as the older boy's smile tightened and his hand dangled between them.
It felt like forever before he responded, and she worried she'd gone too far. "Might as well get used to that," He said. "There's plenty of crazy around here." And that seemed to put the crowd of boys at ease. Some even joined in with weak smiles of their own. Halfhearted, but trying, and that's the most welcoming she'd seen from the group so far. As Elsie tightly clasped his outstretched hand, she slid a quick glance over to Alex.
He watched her back as the leader tugged her out of the crate. She was careful to watch her step so she didn't trip in front of everyone. No need to embarrass herself further…
The ground was interesting. There seemed to be quite a lot of grass, bright green and shining in the hot sun, and she was immediately hit with the scent of manure. She wrinkled her nose distastefully and looked up.
"Does she think we stink?" One of the boys guffawed, and she tried to catch whoever said it, but the crowd was too large.
Elsie was suddenly overwhelmed by what she saw. She noticed bizarre things in rapid succession, no one single thing standing out more than the other. Her initial assumption had been right. The crowd in front of her, she realized with growing dread, was all boys. She felt like she was intruding on some weird club, overcome with a sensation of other, don't belong, not like the rest!
Maybe it was the way their eyes greedily drank in every inch of her, starved and unabashed as if they were unaccustomed to the form of a female. Or maybe it was the fact that not a single inch of this place suggested a woman's touch. Whatever it was, a small pit of dread opened in her stomach and she tried not to dwell on it.
"Welcome to the Glade," The boy said behind her as he reached down to help Alex join the rest of them.
Four corners of the area stood out as landmarks. First, directly across from where they stood was a wooden shack that looked straight out of the Dark Ages. As if to intensify the staggering amount of confusion and disorientation she felt, her mind reeled with how she knew what the Dark Ages were, and that the building resembled something from that time. She could remember a page, in a book, with pictures of structures that resembled the one across from them. She couldn't, however, remember the content of the book, nor where she had gotten it from, or where she was when she read it, or why she was looking at it in the first place.
This was just the first in an endless series of fragmented memories that would come to her over the next few months. Unexplained, and usually totally unhelpful, they would rarely come attached with any sort of context. A name of a thing, a concept, or a place she had learned previously. That's all she was granted. But it was more than most of the boys here, so she was counted as fortunate.
The building was the largest structure that looked to be hand made. It probably took a long time to build, she silently acknowledged, and it even looked to have multiple stories. There were numerous smaller shacks that dotted the rest of the open plain. They were usually big enough to house only a few things, and what looked like hay served as their roofs.
Any structure that stood was constructed from sticks, or branches bound together with rope. Fires burned in various places, white and black smoke alike wafting to the blue sky. At one end of the field there was a large expanse of trees. A forest, her mind supplied. Or, no… woods, rather. Too small to be a forest, too large to simply be an orchard of some kind.
But there was an orchard. On the opposite end of the field, nearby the largest building, were fruit trees and a vegetable garden.
And dotted all around the massive camp were boys of varying age. They tended to the gardens and orchard, they burned and built things around the camp, fed the livestock, or simply gathered around and talked. And not a single one of them was a girl. It only served to reinforce her growing feeling of being… solitary.
Even more significant than the unisex status of the camp, was the general disregard for what surrounded them. Four giant, towering stonewalls that looked large enough to be a quarter of a mile thick enclosed the entire camp. The grey stone was dirtied from age, black in some parts, weathered and accented with ivy or perhaps simply vines that grew up them. They seemed to reach the very top of the sky, brushing the lid of the world, and she knew with growing alarm that they were trapped, if only because it seemed impossible to escape.
Yet, even as she started to freak out—her breath catching in her throat and her heart working over time—she realized no one else was panicked. In fact, everyone in the field was right at ease. They didn't even notice the walls at all. They worked on what seemed to her like trivial and pointless tasks. Weed the garden, tend to the orchard, build a fire, feed the livestock—and for what? Why? Why weren't they building a ladder to climb over the walls? Why weren't they more afraid? What was she missing?
She turned to look at Alex. Her bewildered face projected her chaotic emotions. Fear, uncertainty, surprise… she actually felt the compelling urge to crawl back into the crate, but even as she had the thought, she saw that the cart had been emptied, its contents carried off by various boys, and she watched them set about closing the giant metal doors. The doors slammed down and the noise of it echoed over the field, causing her to flinch.
"Name's Alby, as in Albert." The leader finally said. "What's your names?"
She looked to Alex, who looked away from the giant walls with a deceptively calm expression. She knew he was just as freaked by them as she was, but Alex has always been good at hiding what he really thought. It took a special attention to detail to notice his tells—and she was fluent at reading them. The downward tug at the corner of his mouth told her all she needed to know.
"I'm Alex, as in Alexander. This is my sister, Elsie, as in... the pain in my neck," He said with a small smile, looking back at her for the first time since they were free from the crate. The expression on her face registered in his mind, and he instinctually took a step toward her, his smile traded in for undisguised concern. Instantly, she breathed easier.
She had almost missed the gasps that erupted from the crowd, but the evident shock on Alby's face was impossible to miss.
"You're brother and sister?" He asked in amazement, a strange glint marring his eye. Elsie wondered if he had a sibling he missed, or if there was a smaller version of him running around nearby somewhere. She glanced around the boys, unable to see anyone who looked a thing like him.
"Twins, actually," she clarified, which only further inspired the gawks they received.
"But you don't look alike," said the blonde with the accent from before. The one who tried to convince Gally to let them out. Now that she wasn't under threat of being trapped in a cage for the foreseeable future, she had the opportunity to take a closer look at the guy. He wore a thin hoodie that might have, at one time, been white, but now looked like a light tan and was faded with brown dirt stains on the sleeves. He had them pushed up to his elbows and she could see the wooden handle of some kind of tool over his shoulder. For all her scrutiny, the guy gave back just as good as he got. He stared right back at her, undeterred by her intensity, almost amused by it, and she thought she saw... something playing at the corners of his mouth. A smirk?
Elsie's eyes narrowed. "Yes, well, thank god for that."
The blonde boy raised an eyebrow and tilted his head like he had something to say about that, but Alex decided to jump in to provide the social skills she severely lacked. "We're fraternal. But don't underestimate me just because she hoarded all the pretty genes for herself; I managed to keep more brain cells than she did."
Elsie whirled to punch his shoulder on instinct and some of them snickered, when one of the kids cut through the atmosphere like a hot knife with his next words.
"What makes you so special?" Asked the young boy, the youngest one she'd seen yet. He was young enough to be left with plenty of baby fat. She wouldn't place him over the age of eleven. Her face scrunched in confusion. The boy's question was odd, but his tone suggested he was jealous, which stopped her from making any retort. "None of us got to stay with our family!"
Choosing, perhaps impolitely, to ignore him (because what could she say to that, really?) she turned to Alby. "Where are we?" She asked him, and some of her anxiety creeped into her voice.
Alby's face became slightly exhausted, like he was already too tired of having to deal with them.
She rephrased. "I mean, what is this place?"
He sighed and began to stride past her, deeper into the compound. "It's a long story, greenies. Think it's best if we break it to ya slowly. Trust me. In the mean time, I'll take you on a tour and explain a little."
Elsie hopped to keep pace with him, barely paying attention to her surroundings because she was stuffed to the brim with questions. "Where are all the girls?" She asked, apparently having decided that was the most vital question. Funny, she didn't remember deciding that.
Alby glanced at her. "I'm lookin' at her," He said, and she forgot to follow him for a second. Alex looked at her with mirrored shock.
"That can't be true," Elsie insisted, stumbling as she struggled to make her shorter legs work as fast as his.
"She's the only girl?" Alex frowned, effortlessly matching Alby's stride.
"You can bet on it. You two actually caused quite the commotion," He informed them as he led them to the orchard and gardens. Boys watched as they passed, their eyes lingering on Elsie in particular. She quickened her pace and ducked her head.
"We popped out of the ground with a goat. I think that warrants a commotion," Alex observed as if it should be obvious.
"Don't flatter yourselves."
Alex blinked at Alby's harsh tone, and the siblings exchanged a glance.
"You think you two sorry slintheads were the first ones to come in through the box? No, you were just the first to arrive together like that. And you're the first girl."
Elsie struggled to keep up with both the conversation and pace, but just as before, Alex was effortlessly able to keep up.
"You mean that happens a lot?" Her brother translated, pointing back to the spot where the cage had been.
Alby only became more frustrated. "Are you two even listening? Clean the klunk outta your ears, would ya? That box comes once a month." His finger pointed back at the large hole in the ground. "It brings fresh supplies, and a fresh greenbean each time. In the past, it's always been one boy." He held a single finger up. He looked from Alex, and then to Elsie meaningfully. "And his memory is wiped clean. Usually. Sometimes he'll remember his name—if he's one of the lucky ones." He paused to let that soak in. "But this month, it brought two greenbeans." He lifted a second finger. "Not only that, but twins. And a girl, as the shuckin' cherry on top… Never happened before." He shook his head like he didn't have the patience to deal with them, and waved his hand at them dismissively.
The uniqueness of their situation finally hit home for Elsie. Finally, the gawking stares and Gally's reaction made a lot more sense. She and her brother were just... just a bizarre delivery. It was totally out of the ordinary for everyone, not just them.
Still, something about the way Alby explained everything bothered her. She looked around at the boys, how they seemed totally used to the giant walls that bordered the camp, and a new question formed. "How long have you been here?" She asked, almost afraid to know the answer.
Alby sighed, and put his hands on his hips. "Finally," He said. "You're asking the right questions." Scratch that. Very afraid to know the answer. "I've been here for almost three years."
Elsie felt her head swim with surprise. She had expected a few months, maybe a year—tops. But three years? What even happened in the last three years for her…
Come to think of it, what had happened in the last three years? Strangely, she couldn't remember. She couldn't recall a single detail of her life, apart from when she woke up next to Alex down in that crate. She knew he was her twin, and she knew her name. But that's all she knew. How old was she three years ago? How old is she now? Where was she, before this? What about her family? Do they even have one, or is Alex all there was for her?
And what about the rest of them? How old was everyone there? What happened to their families? Were they all orphans, or were they just someone's prisoner? Was this some kind of death camp?
She recalled the number of boys she'd seen since they arrived. She estimated there were maybe around fifty, or sixty, in total. Doing some quick mental math, her face scrunched, and she recalculated the numbers three times before she interrupted the boys.
Alby was explaining what the Track-Hoes did when she cut him off. "Wait," she said, blinking slowly at him in confusion. "Given the number of boys here… I thought you said there's never been more than one in the—box," (strange to call it that) "to arrive at a time?"
Alby crossed his arms at her. "There hasn't. At least, not that I can remember." He glanced between them. "There's been a lot, but not like this. And I don't think this is the kind of thing you just forget."
"But there have to be at least fifty boys here, right?" Alex watched her strangely as Alby slowly confirmed her math. "If the box only comes once a month, then that would mean it's been at least a little over four years since this—thing started. Whatever this is."
"This thing is your life now," Alby snapped, anger painting his face. She flinched at his ferocity, taking an unconscious, minute step behind Alex. "You'll do well to remember that! You're stuck here, same as the rest of us. You might as well accept it right here, right now." He jabbed the air with each word for emphasis. "None of this makes any sense. Got it, greenie? We've been searchin' for answers for as long as I've been here. And we've got nothin'. So you might as well come to terms with that, and fast."
Elsie frowned, her analytical mind struggling to cope with his mentality. "So that's it? You're just fine with not knowing?"
"Hell no!" Alby growled. "But I ain't got much of a choice!"
The tall blonde guy that seems to pop up at any sign of conflict appeared over Alby's shoulder. "You're gonna give her a buggin' heart attack, Alby! She's scared, can't you see that?
Elsie's face heated at being singled out, and she resisted the urge to duck even farther behind Alex.
"She's pushin' me, Newt," Alby huffed, and the blonde guy—Newt—smirked.
"That ain't hard to do, Alby," He joked, nudging Alby in the shoulder to prove his point. Alby wasn't knocked off balance, not even close, but it goaded a reluctant grin from the older boy, nonetheless. Just like that, Newt had dissipated the tension from the atmosphere yet again. "Maybe I should give the tour, if you're just gonna bug out on them at every question."
"Hey." Alby put his hands up and shook his head. "Be my guest. Got better things I could be doin' instead of leadin' around a couple of slintheaded greenies."
And with that, Alby took his leave, stalking off in the direction of what he had informed them was the Homestead. Elsie pulled her mouth into a bland smile, looking at Newt. "Aww, how sweet." She blinked at Alex innocently. "I think he likes us!"
"Give it time," Newt grinned. "He'll warm up to you eventually. Between you, me and the fence post, I think the git's given too many tours to too many greenies. I think we've all been waiting for the day the you guys stop coming, the day something changes. And nobody's been waitin' longer than Alby." He paused, scrunching his nose. "Course, sending two newbies ain't exactly what we had in mind. Which is probably partly why he was so—er, sweet. To you."
Elsie sighed, looking at the black shoes on her feet. These clunky boots… were they even hers? She tried to summon some sense of ownership as she looked down at them, but they were just shoes. Not her shoes, just plain old shoes. She wondered if that was part of the deal, getting sent here. They changed what you wore, too. Maybe they changed everything.
Who knows? They stole their memory, somehow. And certainly, they took their freedom, their choice, assuming they ever had one to begin with. If they hadn't had any choice, would she feel so terrible? Would this fate really seem so bad if she had been a prisoner all along? Or would it simply feel like more of the status quo, if not an upgrade to be excited about? She didn't know. She didn't know, and she grew tired of trying to piece it all together.
So, let me just say that I know there are some discrepancies between the movie and the book. I am not adhering to one story over another, so there will be some variation between the two. One of those variations is the fact that Alby is not the first Glader in my story. In the book, he's one of the first, but not the first. The timeline didn't logically fit in my opinion, since it never mentions multiple boys being sent up (so far as I can recall), and Thomas estimates there are maybe 60 boys at the Glade when he arrives. So, if only one boy is sent up a month... and if Alby was the first one there... and he's been there for three years? that math don't add up XD But that's okay! It's not something that really matters, it's just something I noticed. Just know that there will likely be more variations like that in the future, especially since there are such large differences between the books and the movies...
*You can skip this part if you want* I'm hoping Alby doesn't seem terribly out of character. Another thing I've noticed as I began writing this is that Movie Characters and Book Characters are WAYYY different. I personally prefer the Book Characters. In the book, Alby is pretty harsh with Thomas. He's been there so long that he already knows the Glade like the back of his hand, and any questions the newbies have/ideas they want to present him with on how to get out PROBABLY got tiring after hearing it so often. Especially after all he's been through. So I can understand him being a snippy bitch with Thomas in the book. It's interesting to me that the actor chose not to play him that way in the movie... it did make him more likeable, though. Idk, I just wanted to point that out, in case you're worried he's OOC.