The Maze Runner: Acadia

Chapter Two

          The helping hands didn't stop swarming around her until the girl stood up straight and had the dust brushed from her top and pants. Being too dazed to swat the hands away, she simply shook, trying to breath.

         Still dazed by the light and eventful ride to this place, she staggered a bit. She was consumed by mostly fear but also curiosity, but still felt too ill to look closely at her surroundings. A murmur of whispers settled over the group as she silently swiveled her head around, trying to take it all in.

      As she rotated in a slow circle, the whispers and comments only increased. She flinched away as some reached out to pull her long hair with a hand. There had to be at most two dozen of them, their clothes smudged and sweaty as if they'd been hard at work, all sizes and races, their hair of varying lengths. She suddenly felt dizzy, her eyes flickering between the boys and the bizarre place which she found herself.

      "Easy there..." a voiced chimed, resting a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, silence pulling at her, keeping anything from escaping her mouth.

      They stood in a vast courtyard seven times the size of a football field, surrounded by four enormous walls made of grey stone and covered in spots with thick ivy. The walls had to be hundreds of feet high and formed a seemingly perfect square around them, each side split in the exact middle by an opening as tall as the walls themselves that, from what she could see, led to passages and long corridors beyond.

      The floor of the courtyard looked like it was made of huge stone blocks, many of them cracked and filled with long grasses and weeds. An odd, dilapidated wooden building near one of the corners of the square contrasted greatly with the grey stone. A few trees surrounded it, their roots like gnarled hands digging into the rock floor for food. Another corner of the compound held gardens- from where she was standing, the girl recognizes corn, tomatoes, and fruit trees.

       Across the courtyard from there stood wooden pens holding sheep and pigs and cows. A large grove of trees filled the final corner; the closest ones looked crippled and close to dying. The sky overhead was cloudless and blue, but there was no sign of the sun despite the brightness of the day. The creeping shadows of the walls didn't reveal the time or direction- it could be early morning or late afternoon. As she breathed in deeply, trying to settle her nerves, a mixture of smells bombarded her nose. Freshly turned dirt, manure, pine, something rotten, and something sweet.

      "Look at that." a scratchy voice broke the silence: the girl couldn't see who it came from, "Creators sending a weakling. Greenies' gonna break her pretty little neck checkin' out the new digs. Wonder what lucky Keeper she's gonna get." Several boys laughed, but most remained silent. Why were they so shocked? Where were the other girls, and why were there only boys here?

      " Shut your hole, Mac." a deeper voice responded.

      She focused back in on the dozens of strangers surrounding her. She knew she must look out of it- she felt like she had been drugged. A tall kid with blond hair and a square raw stared at her with his mouth agape, slapping at the dark-skinned boy next to him. A short, pudgy boy fidgeted back and forth on his feet, looking up at the girl with wide eyes. The same dark-skinned boy frowned- also the same one who had welcomed her. Countless others stared.

      The girl once again felt a pressing ache of confusion and panic- hearing so many words and phrases that didn't make sense. Shank. Shuck. Keeper. They popped out of the boys' mouths so naturally it seemed odd for her to not understand. It was as if her memory loss had stolen a chunk of her language- it was disorienting.

      Different emotions battled for dominance in her mind and heart. Confusion. Curiosity. Panic. Fear. But laced through it all was the dark feeling of utter hopelessness, like the world had ended for her, had been wiped from her memory and replaced with something awful. She wanted to run and hide from these people.