Wicked IS good: Chapter three (Don't be afraid of the dark)
Darkness was strange. It was both utter black and also void of color. It was completely dark as Newt climbed inside the wall.
His feel hit the ground solidly and was surprised to find the small ground space littered with vines an ivy. The second thing he noticed was that it wasn't particularly horrible in the cave; it wasn't horribly small and the stone surrounding him was cool, almost cold to the touch. There was a small shelf like hole carved into the rock near the bottom and the ceiling hung low, but a small tunnel reached the top of the stone and let in a small glimmer of moonlight.
He looked up, anxious for Elizabeth to join him and close the stone door. Before he cod make out a clear image, darkness flooded the chamber and with it, Newt was knocked to the ground, his head thudding hard against the stone.
"Newt?" Came Elizabeth's worried whisper. "Hey, are you alright?"
His eyes hadn't yet adjusted and so he couldn't make out her figure in the dimness but he felt her presence to the left and standing just above him. He half grunts as he sits up, pain reverberating throughout his skull. "I hit my head," he mutters as he feels for the throbbing lump he knew was there.
"Fuck, I did that, didn't I? I'm always doing shit like that. I'm not used to someone else being in here. I'm so sorry," she sounds sincere as she kneels by his side close to the rock. With his legs stretched out like they were, there wasn't any room for her. She apparently realizes this, and curls up so she sits on one of this legs and her legs are against his side. She pushes him forward gently and touches her hand delicately to the back of his head. "Oh! Damn, you've probably got a concussion. You're not gonna puke, are you?"
He shakes his head no, the action hurting slightly. "Good. You're not supposed to sleep though, ya know when you have a concussion. So there's goes sleeping the time away. Fantastic," she mutters, a pout already in place.
It's silent then, but it's not an awkward silence. It's one where the both of them just sit there, perfectly peaceful as they are curl up beside each other in the middle of a death trap with free range monsters. Newt knows that he should feel terrified beyond belief. After all he was trapped in a labyrinth of dark turns and vicious monsters, the only reason he was still breathing was because of the crater within the walls in which he was trapped with a dangerous green-eyed girl and a concussion. But for some reason, he felt perfectly at ease. So at ease that...he might just...
"No! Hey! No sleeping. Your concussion," she reminds him as she shakes his shoulder.
He moans something incoherently but shifts upwards. He mumbles something that sounds something like, "but I'm tired."
"No, you can't sleep." she commands. "Stay awake. What do you want to do?"
Even his drowsy state, a few choice pastimes come to mind that Newt doesn't dare say aloud. What? It was the first girl he's seen in possibly forever and he was a teenage boy. Could you blame him? It wasn't like he would go through with it. He shifted against the cold wall and relaxed beside Elizabeth. Without his knowledge, again he begins to drift off.
"Hey, no, stop that. Want me to tell you about the Yard?" She questions, a desperate tinge to her hushed voice.
This catches his interest. He sits up a little farther and open his eyes wider; now able to make out her form in the moonlight that trickled in from above. She had pulled her wavy locks to hang over one shoulder, leaving her other bare, revealing a flash of skin. "Uh, yeah," he manages to utter.
"Well, like your glade, we have the same walls and in the center is the portal. The woods are in the North East corner, and that's where we sleep. We sleep in hammocks in the trees with some assemble of our belongings hanging in pots and bags and a curtain that will give you privacy. It's nice."
"Like a tree house," Newt wonders aloud.
She shrugs. "Yeah, I guess. Less of the house part though. In the South West we have our animal pens and the cook houses. You know, for slaughtering the animals, smoking the meat, storing it, making meals. And the fields are in the south east, it's where we get our crops. We pump water there too. Our meetings are held in the north west corner in the grove and the the creator houses are in the same corner but farther off. They make things we need like clothes and stuff like that. You'd be surprised of what you can make with a little Maze stone, some vines and pine sap," she explains with a little laugh.
"Wait, you being back stuff from the maze?" He questions.
She nods. "Well, yeah. I mean there's tons of it. We might as well. You mean you don't? It makes great ropes. Real strong."
He makes a mental note to get the Gladers to step up their game before the girls see how much worse their Glade is than their Yard. "What's your job? Are you a leader?" She seemed like she would be one with how outspoken she was.
"No, Harriet and Sonya are the leaders. I, uh, I used to be a leader though, back before Sonya came. I stepped down. I'm a scout now, like you but you call yourselves runners. So are Sophie, Diana and Sarah. We're the scouts, one of us per section."
He nods and she keeps quiet for a moment, letting him take it in without being silent so long that he falls asleep. She's about to speak when he does. "How'd you find this place?" He murmurs the question, looking around as his eyes start to adjust better.
"I made it."
He looks up at her, eyes wide in amazement as he glances up at the cavern. "How?"
"I wasn't as hard as you'd think. In our maze we have a half dozen of them. I made this one yesterday; I wanted to make sure there was a safe place in case of...well this. And there was already a little space. There are craters in most of the walls. I just tunneled to the top and widened it a little. I made the shelf too. Oh, I have a candle here somewhere." He watches her reach into the dark nook that was the shelf in this place and pull out a half coconut filled with some kind of solid slime and a wick.
"What the bloody hell is that?" Newt mumbles in half horror, forgetting his concussion for a moment. The substance was a clear, mucus like green that looked horribly familiar.
"Griever slime," she replies brightly as she also pulls out a bottle of water and offers him some, which he declines. Matches are the next thing that she produces from the shelf. The creators sent them up in the box sometimes, but they weren't necessary since they usually kept a fire going at all times. She lights the match on the first try and immediately her face is illuminated in flickering light that is soon replaced by the only slightly brighter light of the candle.
Newt realizes then, that while the Gladers were keeping away and being afraid of the Maze, the girls were surviving with it. They used the griever slime to make candles, the vines to make rope, they spent nights in the maze...the boys didn't know a thing. People like Alby, would be impressed, people like Gally would be furious. This was a difficult situation, and it was important it remained a secret. It was important that the girls remained a secret; important that Elizabeth remained a secret.
Because that seamed to be just what she wanted to be with those unforgiving emerald eyes of hers; a secret.
A/N: I'm back, sort of. I like this story and I have a lot of ideas for it too, I'm just been so so busy. Its easing off now, but finals are in a week so we'll see. With Thanksgiving break next week, you can expect an update around then. Review and let me know what you think of Elizabeth, my OC, and the rest of the overall idea of the book. I'm going to introduce some more OC graders soon, we can't just have the main characters running around. I don't think I'm going to have Thomas in this story though, but I might in the future if i run out of ideas and want to draw it out. So lemme know what you think -Bella xoxo