(A/N: As I'm sure you've noticed, there are a lot of OC's in this fic. It's mentioned often that many of the original Gladers died one way or another, and very few of the forty or fifty surviving Gladers were named. So there's going to be even more OC's coming.

Also, to XxMoonlitShadowxX: Wow! *Blushes* Thanks! Your review is the best thing that's happened in the fortnight I've been writing this! And about the plants, I'm studying them in order to make a living working with them, so I guess you're correct both ways? Thanks again, and here's another chapter!)

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Seven, First Day of the Eighth Month.

A small crowd of us met beside the Box hole after lunch, waiting for the new Greenie. There's six of us now, being myself, Nick, Will, a teen boy named Alby who seemed to half hate me, and runs with Nick, a kid named Jack who was good at bandaging cuts and scrapes, and someone named Sam who took over building from Nick, letting him run more.

I think soon I'll need to get my own helper, because the gardens are now feeding six people, five of which are hungry teenage boys. At least we have meat to feed them too, because teen boys who work all day long get very hungry.

Nick's been working with Alby to map the maze, trying to find some sort of pattern in it's seemingly random changes. They've covered the walls of my house with diagrams, which I find very annoying, but it stops them from feeling hopeless. That's the main enemy in this life, despair. Sometimes one or another boy will break down at night, and the night air often carries the sound of gentle sobbing.

Well, that and Sam's ghastly snoring. That could give us all nightmares, even Sam himself. He needs help with that sometime.

Anyway, we all understood when someone felt helpless in the night, and we had a principle: what happens in the dark, stays in the dark.

During the day, however, I made sure everyone was busy. No-one was allowed enough free time to mope, and at lunch break we all sat together. That way, we all knew that we were alright.

I still slept in my bedroom, but mostly the rest slept in the 'homestead' that Nick and Sam was building. Nick still preferred to sleep outside, saying that although he couldn't see the stars, at least he could imagine them.

Will has tried to teach us his sign-language, but the memory wipe has taken most of it, so he has trouble. Mostly he just writes on the ground. He gets irritated if we don't look when he's talking, but he only needs to clap his hands for us to look at him, so that's fine.

Alby, for some reason, seems to not like me. The dark-skinned boy is all into order, and I think he would prefer it if there were no girls at all. Perhaps he thinks someone's going to fight over me. Pfft. Or he might think Nick likes me, which he doesn't. I have a suspicion that Nick and Alby like each other, but if I push it I'd probably ruin it for them.

Jack was difficult to find a job for, until Will cut himself one day while slicing, and Jack just sort of took over, directing him to the house and washing the cut before bandaging it up. Since then, he's taken to calling himself 'Jack the Med-Jack' all the time, but I have to admit it's very useful having someone who knows how to fix us up.

Sam came last month. He's tall, quite beefy, and could probably pick up a cow with one arm. He's the one Will got to help him when one of the cows had a difficult labour, because he was able to pull the stuck calf out with no trouble. He's the sort of guy that makes everyone feel weak, but he's a little dim. You have to tell him exactly what you want done, but then he does it perfectly. He's fairly gentle, but when Jack teased Alby one day, he nearly ripped both their heads off before we explained that it was all friendly.

What can I say? I like Sam. He's a good kid.

Down below, the Box gives a loud grumble, startling me from my thoughts. Up came the box, rumbling and groaning, before stopping at the surface with that loud BANG that I swear must be included just to scare the greenie.

The boys heave the doors open, and Nick jumps down into the Box. This month's Greenie is curled in a ball in one corner, but when he heard Nick jump down, he uncurled and brandished some sort of cooking pan at him.

He was tall and dark-skinned, and although he was no older than Nick, he had a full beard falling away from his chin. His arms were also covered in black wiry hairs, giving the impression that he was as hairy as one of our sheep. He waved the pan at Nick. "Where am I?"

Nick stepped back tactfully, giving him some space and avoiding being hit with a pan. "This is the Glade, Greenie. You mind putting that frypan down?"

Frypan-boy hesitated, then lowered the pan and allowed himself to be pulled out. "I'm not Greenie, I'm Siggy."

I spoke up. "Well then, Siggy the frypan greenie, welcome to the Glade. I'm Ash, I do the gardening, and Nick's the one who pulled you out, he runs and helps with the building. The big guy is Sam, who also does building, and over there is Alby, also runs. Will over here looks after the animals and butchers them, and Jack there patches us up when we get hurt."

Siggy the frypan boy looks around at all of us, then shakes our hands. After he'd gotten over his initial shock, he seems like a nice boy, and very friendly. He's a little grubby, like the people below didn't give him a bath before they sent him up, but he doesn't seem to care.

When Nick and Will begin to get dinner, Siggy's skill showed himself. That boy is good at cooking! He cut the meat into neat strips and fried it properly in the same frypan he held in the Box, then neatly chopped up vegetables to go with. It was the best meal I've eaten in seven months.

Sam grinned in appreciation as we ate. "You are a good cook, frypan man. You should cook all the time. Good food is good."

That's Sam for you. Everything in the world is divided into good and bad. Even if he did talk with his mouth full.

Nick smiled and nodded. "I second that."

Will raised his hand and gave a thumbs up, showing that he agreed.

I smiled to myself as I watched them, all sitting around the campfire and laughing. These boys are my new family, and I love them with all my heart.