Authors note: I'm sorry for the late update, but I warned you guys that I wouldn't get everything out within a day.
POV Minho:
I find myself sleeping in the crook of a tree at the front of the deadheads. I look up to see that the sun is already beginning to peer into the sky. I slowly push myself up onto my feet. I look around and see Ben, strolling on over to me.
"Hello, sleepy head, late start today?" Ben says smiling.
"What time is it?" I grumble, trying to sound as tired as possible.
"You have a watch." Ben says, gesturing to my wrist.
I look down at my hand and twist my watch so that I can see the face.
"Shuck it, the doors have opened." I say angrily.
"Not sure why you needed to look at your watch to see that but yes, the doors have opened." Ben says smugly.
"So why aren't you in the maze? Why aren't I in the maze?" I say baffled.
"Louisa took your section, so you could have the day off, I'm just late." Ben shrugs.
"Then go, you idiot!" I punch him in the shoulder and he starts to jog towards the doors.
"Ah, a day off, nothin' to do and no where to be, luxury." I sigh as I see Ben make his way through the doors.
"Oh good, you weren't planning on anything." I turn around and see Newt limping over to me.
"Why?" I ask, my eyes narrowed, suspicion lacing my tone.
"You have to watch the greenie." Newt says, coming up short, and looking at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Why would I have to watch Chuck?" I ask, still baffled, but then I remember, the new girl/greenie/Mare, and the indecency she put me through by getting stung. "Shuck it." I say, closing my eyes, as the image of her trying desperately to punch me comes to light.
"Do I have to?" I ask, opening my eyes.
"As sure as we are all trapped in a bloody maze." Newt looks at me cheerily.
"Do I have to now?" I ask, trying to postpone getting my eyeballs ripped out by the crazy girl.
"You have time to get breakfast, but then you got to go make sure she's okay." Newt says in his weird accent.
"She's fine, it's me that I'm worried bout." I glare in the direction of the homestead.
"From what Louisa told me, she had every right to punch you." Newt smiles again.
"How can you say that?!" I say, turning my glare to him.
"Louisa told me that the greenie yelled at you for calling her short, and calling Louisa fat, and breaking my toe." Newt turns his head to the side and examines my face joyfully.
"But I didn't!" I shout at him. I turn around and begin to walk to the homestead.
•••
POV Mare:
I woke up this morning, feeling as crappy as ever, and I tried to remember why. Oh yeah, that's right, the giant scorpion tried to kill me. As I think back, I also remember something else from yesterday. I almost laugh at loud when I remember that the boy called Minho was keeping an eye on me and I punched him. But, as I try to remember more, my mind feels blurry, and suddenly I remember a completely different memory, in this memory I feel justified for punching Minho, and someone is dragging me away from him, he's bleeding more now, and then whoever is carrying me stops, they move in front of me and I somehow recognize them, and I am very annoyed at him. My brother. He doesn't let me get past him to keep hitting Minho, but he doesn't try to help him either. As I study his features, I see similarities between the girl in the mirror and this boy, they both have initially dark hair, though the girl's hair is probably intentionally bleached, but they share other similarities all the same.
"Skylar you gotta stop, you'll get in trouble." the boy, my brother, says disapprovingly.
"He got what was coming to him, and anyway, you're supposed to call me Mare now." I spit at the boy.
"Listen, I know you hate this place, and the rules, and you hate having to change your name and all, but this is the only way we're going to survive, so just, just live with it." the boy says hesitantly.
"Sure, Thomas." I spit at him sarcastically.
"Come on, don't be like that, if we hate each other, then we hate everybody." he holds out his hand.
"Yeah, whatever, I don't hate you." I take his hand and rise to my feet.
Then, I open my eyes, I look around and see that the boy is not here anymore, in fact I'm in the homely building now.
I start, as the door swings open. Minho walks in and looks up. His face transforms into shock that I'm awake, and is that? A hint of fear.
"Hehe hi," I laugh nervously and wave my hand.
His face turns to an angry glare as he contemplates the gesture.
"You tried to kill me." he says.
"I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration, I didn't know what I was doing, and I only got one punch in anyway." I say dismissively.
He narrows his eyes and frowns, "So you remember?"
"Hehe yeah, I'm real sorry." I rub the back of my neck.
"Jeez you're like a ninja." he guffaws at me.
"Wh- what?" I stammer, I didn't do anything ninja like, but I also feel like I've heard the exact phrase.
"Well, you just took me down, it was real sad, I mean for me, because it took you like two seconds, and I didn't even get the option of fighting back." he says.
"Well, thanks, I guess..." I say, studying his face.
He just shrugs and pulls out a chair and drags it over to my bed from the doorway.
"So, why are you here?" I ask, still puzzled.
"Wow, you're welcome for being there to make sure no one comes in and slits your throat while you sleep." he glares at me again.
"It wasn't meant to be offensive." I say taken aback.
"Whatever." he says, still glaring.
"Hey I didn't ask to be here!" I say, now getting angry myself.
At first he looks surprised, but it quickly fades to anger equal to mine.
"Well it's not my fault your here! I didn't ask to be here either, so just shut up!" he nearly shouts at me.
"Get out." I say.
"What?" he says, surprised.
"I said get out." I point at the door.
"Fine." he moves toward the door.
"Wait," I say, he looks back at me, still angry, "I'm sorry."
He looks me in the eyes, and his anger fades.
"I'm sorry too, that was probably the most stupid argument I've ever been in." he says moving away from the door.
"You can say that again, but don't, because that would just be annoying." I say.
He laughs, "you're pretty funny."
"Well thank you, I pride myself on it." I make a small mock bow.
He smiles, but then his smile falters, "do you remember why you're here?"
"Yeah, the scorpion tried to eat me." I say waving my hand dismissively.
"Um, okay sure, do you remember anything after that?" he asks.
"Yeah, I punched you in the face." I say, confused at the question.
"I mean memories, you know, from before the maze." he looks at me hopefully.
"Yes." I don't elaborate.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asks.
I look up at him, he's got dark spiked hair and he looks, Asian, he's a runner, so it's obvious why he's tall and lean, but what is he doing here?
"Not particularly. You still haven't answered my question though. Why, not meaning to be offensive, are you here?" I ask, changing the subject.
"I'm here to make sure you stay safe." he says simply.
"I thought you were a runner, I thought you went out into the maze everyday to try and find a way out of this place." I say, realizing too late, that my voice sounded accusatory.
He looks at me, his eyes filling with anger before he calms, "Louisa is taking my place today."
"Oh, I'm sorry." I say looking down at my hands.
"For what? I get a day off." He looks at me puzzled.
"Well, for two things, for accusing you for not being in the maze, and for taking your day off." I say, still looking at my hands.
"Oh it's fine, I had nothing to do anyway." He says casually.
I look up at him. He's just sitting there, not a care in the world.
"You don't have to watch me." I say, still looking at him out of the corner of my eye.
"Yeah I do." he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because Newt made me."
"Oh." I say disappointment creeping into my voice.
Obviously he notices it, "I mean, because you're the best person to take care of ever!" he smiles.
I laugh,"real smooth."
"Yeah, real sly Romeo." The door opens and Newt's head pops into the room.
"Sup." Minho says.
"Just wanted to make sure you two weren't killing each other, but you seem to be getting along quite well." he snickers.
Minho moves over to my bed.
"Can I have that please?" he gestures to one of the pillows supporting me.
"Be my guest." I hand him the pillow.
He lifts it behind his shoulder, then propels it forward, hitting Newt in the face.
"Oi, quit!" Newt yells, as I take another pillow and throw it at him too.
"Never!" Minho yells as I hand him another pillow and he throws it at Newt.
This time Newt catches it.
"Oh crap." I mutter.
"You said it." Minho says, poised and ready to dodge it.
Newt smiles and throws the pillow at Minho, but he dodges it, leaving behind him, little humble me, and it slams into my face.
"Well now you asked for it." I say, I slowly rise from the bed and pick up a pillow off the ground. I reach down and pick another off the bed.
"Oh no! I'm sooooo scared." Minho waves his hands in mock surrender.
"You should be." I smile and narrow my eyes.
•••
I completely dominated Minho and Newt when pillow fighting, then Louisa got back around a few hours later. It's dinnertime and Louisa and me are waiting in line behind the counter. We would have been first to get food, but I was too occupied telling Louisa the events of my day.
We are finally second in line, and just about to get our food, when a tall boy with jet-black hair steps in front of us.
"Uh excuse me," I say to his back.
The boy turns around and looks at me like I've interrupted very important work, "what?" he asks in a deep guttural tone.
"What yourself." I say calmly.
"Yeah, what's your problem Jack?" Louisa adds.
"I don't know what you're talking about." the boy turns around again.
"Hey, we're not done talking to you, you've quite obviously cut us in line and we would like you to move to the back of the line please!" I say, not frustrated, but determined.
The boy, Jack, ignores me completely.
I look around to see Newt and Minho walk over to us, and I get an idea.
"Hey guys!" I wave at them to come over.
They walk over, "what's the happs greenie?" Minho says.
"Nothin', we were just waiting in line for food, we were about to get some but this idiot stepped in front of us." I say, and motion to Jack, making sure he can't hear me.
"Well, we can't have that, ladies first, eh." Newt says. "Oi, Jack, I think you're mistaken at where you should be in line."
"Yeah dude, you can't cut in line, if we lose organization than we lose order, and order's all we got here." Minho adds.
Jack doesn't even turn to look at them.
Minho reaches his hand over to Jack's shoulder, "hey dude-"
Just as Minho touches Jack, he spins around, knocking Minho's hand away.
"What the shuck man?" Minho pulls his hand back and looks up at him.
"Oddly enough I don't think that's a good question." I say.
As I look at Jack's face, I see that his eyes are vacant and his face is slackened, he stands there almost lazily, yet it's obvious that he remains vigilant.
"I beg to differ, I'd like to know what happened to him." Minho says after a few seconds of silence.
Suddenly, Jack raises his arm, in his hand he holds a kitchen knife.
"She's going to kill us all, even you guys!" Jack mutters distractedly.
Everyone turns their heads to me, even Louisa.
"Who is?" Minho says, eyes narrowing at Jack.
"Louisa! She's the reason we're stuck here! It's her fault, her and T and T!" he shouts hysterically.
"Did you just say T and T? You did not just bring explosives into this," I say confused.
"You can help save us Mare, she might listen to you, you've been against the whole thing from the beginning!" he cries.
"Yeah okay, what whole thing?" I ask.
"They're going to kill us all anyway, we might as well get it over with!" he shouts, then he lifts the knife and plunges it into his chest.