Chapter 1.

The Blind Girl

When I became aware of my surrounding, all I heard was grinding sounds. I felt myself moving upward – this had to be the source of the noises, which were horrid. The racket was so loud I had to cover my ears to stop it from causing a headache. My body was vibrating with the momentum of whatever I was in being lifted up. As I opened my eyes I couldn't see a thing; it was so dark. The smell of the air around me was very musty and dry. It also smelled a little moldy and I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose in disgust. I started to shiver as the cold settled into my bones. Letting out a heavy breath I ran my fingers through my hair and it was wet; so were my clothes. No wander I was cold.

Oddly enough though, none of this is what bothered me. No, what bothered me was I didn't know what I was doing here. My thoughts began to race as I wondered where I even was. I couldn't remember anything about who I was before I became to be in this noisy, dark place or let alone how I came to be here.

Then out of nowhere there was one thing that came to me. It was a name… My name. The thought of my name strangely enough made me sick to my stomach. I had no idea why a name would do this but it was a worry for later. Right now, I needed to figure out where I was or at least how big of a space I was in. Soon though, when I'd gotten used to the grinding noise around me, I took my hands away from my ears and slowly but wobbly, got to my feet. Letting out a breath I started to feel around, sadly though, without my sight it was difficult to know if I was going to run into anything and fell backwards. My thoughts came true when I ran into something and fell down right on my butt. Rubbing where I had run into the object in front of me, I heard what was bringing me up come to a halt.

It was quiet for a few seconds before I caught the sound of squeaky hinges. I still couldn't see a thing around me so I staid as still as possible. It was quiet again for a good minute or so, but soon voices started making conversation a few feet from where I was sitting, and they all sounded confused.

"Why isn't the greenie grabbing the rope?"

"Is he awake?"

"Is there even anyone in the box this time?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll check it out."

The next thing I knew I heard a bang as something or someone landed not far from where I was. I started crawling backwards and I found myself in a corner of the "box". It didn't take long for whoever jumped in with me to walk in my general direction. All this was scary enough without my sight, but the voice that fallowed made things even worse.

"You've got to come out sometime Greenie," he muttered.

It was a young man's, or maybe an older boy's voice. Either way I didn't like the sound of it; it was deep and scratchy sounding. When I didn't say anything though, the boy grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me up not so gently. Once he had me where he could see me clearly, I heard him gasp.

"You're a girl," he murmured.

'Well thank you Captain Obvious,' I thought to myself.

"It's a girl!" the boy called out louder to everyone.

That's when everything turned into chaos. Everyone who was standing above us started talking at once. The madness was almost as bad as the grinding in the box. I did figure out the voices all belonged to boys, which was strange.

"It's a girl?"

"What does she look like?"

"I call dibs!"

"Is she hot?"

"You shanks will see soon!" the boy next to me told them.

"And no one calls dibs," a deep authoritive voice said from above.

The person who still had a hold of me, pushed me to the other side of the box and I collided with the metal with a groan. I turned around, but I didn't know where the boy was now because I still couldn't see. There was only question running through my mind; if the boy could see, why couldn't I? There had to be only one conclusion about it… I was blind.

"Well go up the rope greenie," the boy barked.

I heard him make his way over to me, and I prepared for more man handling, only it didn't come.

"I said go up the rope," he growled. "Or did they send us a stupid girl?"

"No," I hissed, finding my voice, "but they did send you a blind one."

As I crossed my arms over my chest, it was once again quiet except the voices coming up from above. Not knowing what the look on the boy's face was frustrating. I rolled my eyes when he didn't say anything.

"As in I can't see," I clarified.

"You can't see?" the boy repeated.

"Isn't that what I just said? Now where is that stupid rope you keep talking about?"

Feeling the boy grab my hand, palm up, I sucked in a breath, not knowing what he was going to do to me now. Only there was no man handling like I thought there was going to be. Instead I felt the boy place something into my open hand. It was rough and cores, but it did feel strong enough to put my weight on it.

"There you go," the boy said. "Now climb."

I glared where I thought the boy was standing but did as I was told, and began to climb. Every few steps I'd raise one of my hand to see if I was any closer to the top. It didn't take very long for someone to grab onto my out stretched hand and pull me out of the hole I was in. Once whoever had me thought I was steady enough they let me go. I made sure I was out of the way for the boy who came and got me; I didn't really want to be on his bad side any more than I already seemed to be.

Standing where I was, I could feel people staring at me. I crossed my arms over my chest once more, and not knowing where I should stare I decided to look at where the ground should be. With everyone talking at once I did a pretty good job of drowning everyone out. Then another deep, voice rang out above the rest.

"Will you shanks slim it!" the voice said. "She's having problems enough not knowing where she is. How about you all go back to work. Newt, Alby, and I will take are of this."

I heard shuffling going all in different directions, along with groans and moans of complaining. The one thing which didn't help me what-so-ever was the fact I couldn't see. There was nothing more in this world that I wanted to do, but to look around at where I was. It did help that I had all my other senses, which included my hearing. I could hear, what sounded like three sets of footsteps, moving in my direction while a lot of others were going in all different directions.

"Hello Greenbean," the deep voice greeted. "I'm Nick, and this is Alby and Newt."

"Hey Greenie," a familiar deep voice muttered, this must be Ably.

The voice was the same deep voice that had said there wasn't going to be any dibs. That of course, I was grateful for. Who knows what dibs could have meant here.

"All right?" a new person said, which I had to guess was Newt.

It was quiet for a few minutes and I didn't understand what I was going on. Once again, considering I couldn't see was very frustrating.

"You're not a very social shank, are you?" Nick stated.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"She can't see Nick," the first boy I talked to, informed him. "Can't you see her eyes?"

"What do you mean she can' see, Gally?" Newt asked.

Now that Newt talked more I could tell he had an accent. It was thick, but it was easy to understand. Even though I couldn't help but melt at the sound of the accent I was still kind of mad that no one, except Gally, knew what was wrong with me.

"Exactly what he said," I snapped. "I can't see."

I heard the three boys come closer, and I could feel their warm breath on my face, but I made sure to stand my ground. There was no reason for them to think I was scared. Considering I was the only girl – which was my guess, by the way everyone was acting – plus being blind, I was the weakest link; no doubt about it. My companions didn't need to see me weaker than I already was.

"See," Gally said. "Her eyes have a smoky glaze over them. You can't even tell the color. I didn't notice until she told me, whoever put us here sent a blind girl."

And that's when the chaos really began.