Newt wasn't proud of his first night in the Glade.
Although things had been going well that day, when night fell he felt more alone and terrified than ever, and he sat down under a tree and cried his eyes out. Alby had told Newt very little about the Maze, but that he would tell him more tomorrow when he showed Newt the window.
The window. That sounded more menacing than it should have.
A laugh escaped Newt's lips. He was hysterical, probably. Well, who wouldn't be in this situation?
"Hey, you okay?" a voice said. Newt looked up to see an Asian boy with toned skin standing close to him. "You're the Greenbean, right?"
Newt nodded and the boy sat down next to him. "Who the bloody shuck are you?"
The boy grinned. "I'm Minho," he said, holding his hand out to Newt. Newt smiled slightly and shook Minho's hand.
"Newt," Newt introduced himself. A rush of curiosity filled him as he looked up at the huge walls looming over them, and he asked, "Do you have any idea what those walls are about?"
Minho burst out laughing. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I have a shuck idea, all right. I'm the Keeper of the Runners. The Runners go out into the Maze every day, to try and solve it. Obviously we haven't found a solution yet or you wouldn't have found your butt here."
"Why do the Doors close every night?" Newt asked him, glad that finally someone was giving him answers.
"The Grievers," Minho answered. "They're like...like slugs with spikes in them. They're really dangerous. We've had several people killed because of-" Newt had passed out from pure fright before Minho could even finish his sentence.
Newt woke up to the sound of voices talking quietly. "Minho," Nick's voice groaned, "why would you think it is okay to tell our Greenbean here, who's been here for less than a day, about deadly slug killers?" He heard Alby laugh and the sound lifted Newt's heart. "Alby, stop laughing," Nick ordered. He did sound like a jerk. Newt had to admit, the term "deadly slug killers" was pretty funny, even though it had frightened him so much he fainted.
He opened his eyes and the three boys turned to look at him. "You're up," Nick said. "Good. I apologize for this - what should I call you?" Nick looked over at Minho, who stifled a laugh. "This moron, here." Alby smirked and clapped Minho on the shoulder. Minho then turned around and shoved Alby playfully. "Enough, boys!" Nick yelled, and the two stopped. "Alby, get Newt a roommate to sleep with."
"He can sleep with me," Alby said, and then immediately flushed scarlet. "I didn't mean - I mean, I just meant-"
Newt felt himself blushing too, especially when he realized he wouldn't mind it too much if Alby had meant it. The guy was pretty hot. "It's all right," he told Alby, whose cheeks flamed.
"Follow me and I'll get you a sleeping bag," Alby said.
"We're going to have a Gathering tomorrow," Nick called on their way out the door. "Oh, and Newt, you will need to come, too."
Newt lay awake beside Alby for a long time, listening to his new friend's quiet breathing. He wasn't crying anymore, but he was traumatized at what Minho told him, and he was afraid that he would have nightmares. He fell asleep and didn't have any nightmares, but he woke up the next morning and the first thought in his head was that somehow he felt that his pillow didn't feel right. That was when he realized - he had been using Alby's chest as a pillow for God knows how long.
"Oh my God!" Newt scrambled away from Alby, who woke up faster than you can say "Shuck". "I'm so sorry, I - I didn't mean-"
Alby was blushing, but he just laughed it off. "Come on," he said. "I have something to show you before breakfast."
Newt followed Alby over to a window - the window Alby must have been talking about yesterday, Newt realized. The light was still dim, since it was early morning, both inside and outside the walls. Newt squinted to see and he saw a slug-like creature crawling through the Maze. Newt gasped, his eyes widening, and he hid himself from the window so the thing - the Griever, he remembered Minho had called them - wouldn't see him. It was horrible. Ugly. And even with the walls separating them, he was feet away from the bloody thing.
Newt wanted to run away. His mind searched frantically for a place to run, to hide from the horrible thing out there. He found it harder to breathe and he gasped for air. "What the...bloody hell...was that?" he demanded.
"I think our friend Minho answered that for you last night," Alby said with a roll of his eyes. "But anyway - I'll remind you again. It was a Griever."
"Yeah, he told me." Newt glared and he sank to the ground, trying to catch his breath. Tears streamed down his face and he felt himself beginning to panic. "I didn't do anything! I just want to get out of here! I want-"
"Hey, hey, hey," Alby said quickly, sitting down beside him and putting an arm around his shoulders. "It'll be okay. I won't...I won't let you get hurt. You have to trust me."
Newt smiled at his friend. "I already do," he said.
The next day, Newt worked in the Blood House with Winston. The Blood House was a creepy old barn with animals and a dog. Winston had a pig ready for him and he instructed Newt how to hold the axe and swing it so he could properly kill the pig.
Newt felt it big time when the axe hit the pig - it squealed and he stared at it with tears in his eyes, and screamed when he saw the blood and guts spilling out of the pig. He dropped the axe and ran out of the Blood House, going in the corner to where the Slammer was. He huddled in a corner and started crying again when he thought, I'll never be able to find a bloody job.
After a while, Newt felt someone sit down next to him. "Hey, it's okay," a soft, velvety voice said.
Newt jumped and lifted his head out of his lap, and scrambled away from Alby. "No! No! Get away from me," he sobbed, curling into a ball in the corner of the Glade. He was embarrassed but he could not stop crying.
"Hey, talk to me," Alby said, putting a hand on Newt's back. His touch sent shivers of pleasure down Newt's spine. "What happened?"
Newt explained through hiccuping sobs. "I w-won't find a j-job here!" he wept. "I don't belong here."
"No, you don't," Alby agreed. "None of us belong here. But we all do our best to survive, and I think you will, too, once you get used to this place."
Newt nodded and sniffled, looking into Alby's gorgeous chocolate eyes. "I killed a pig today."
"We all had to kill a pig," Alby said. "Most of us get over that eventually, if it makes you feel any better. But we all had to do that to find out what jobs we were best at."
"I bloody know I'm not good at that one."
Alby laughed then and Newt's heart lifted. He made it a goal to make Alby laugh more, because he didn't seem to do it enough. "I like you, Newt," he said.
Newt blushed and then smiled. "I like you too, Alby," he said, but didn't let on just how much he liked him already.
They all huddled around a huge campfire that night. When Newt got there, Alby waved him over and Newt sat on the upturned log next to his. "Do you guys have a campfire every night?" Newt asked.
"Once or twice a week," Alby informed him, winking at him. Newt blushed and looked away just as Minho sat down on his other side.
"Hey, Newt," Minho said, grinning. "Alby, don't flirt with the Greenie. Give him a day or two to settle into his new home before you flirt. Them's the rules."
Now it was Alby's turn to blush. "Hypocrite," Alby shot back, but Newt could tell he was trying not to laugh.
"I'm the hypocrite? Nick came up with those rules because you flirted with me our first day here."
"I did not!"
"Boys," Newt laughed, feeling like he finally belonged here. "Shut up."
"This isn't over," Minho threatened.
"Yes, it is," Newt informed him as Nick got up in front of the campfire. The fire behind him made him seem like a black silhouette, and it was hard to see his features.
"Everyone shut up," Nick said. "It's time for ghost stories."
Newt gulped. "Ghost stories?"
Beside him, Minho laughed. "You're gonna love this, Greenie," he told him.
"Oh, great, I'm sure I will," Newt said sarcastically, and Alby grinned.
"Who remembers what happened with that kid Brandon?" Nick asked, and some hands went up. "For those of you who don't, whenever someone breaks the rules badly enough here, or a crime happens, we call it the Banishing. We send the kid out into the Maze. They're banned from the Glade and they can't ever come back. So, one night a lot like this one, we had to Banish a kid named Brandon."
"You said that already," Newt called out, and Alby laughed.
Nick glared at Newt. "Anyway," he continued, "the Banishing never happened, because when Alby and I went to get the shucking guy out of the Slammer, he wasn't there!"
Everyone gasped, and a shiver of fear crept up Newt's spine. "The door was open and the lock was broken," Nick continued, "and Brandon was gone. We don't know where he went to this day. Some say they've seen him wandering around in the woods, but no one has seen him. Up...until...now!" Someone grabbed Newt's shoulders from behind him and he screamed bloody murder before throwing himself into Alby's arms.
Everyone laughed and Newt flushed scarlet before sitting on his own log. "Sorry," he apologized.
"Oh, Alby thinks it's completely fine," Minho joked, waggling his eyebrows at Alby, who promptly threw a stick at his friend. "He likes it when guys throw themselves at him. Get it?" Minho laughed at his joke.
"Yeah, you're so hilarious." Newt rolled his eyes at his friend. "Because I was totally throwing myself at Alby."
"Physically, you-" Minho started.
"Shut up," Newt and Alby said in unison.