𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 | 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘹 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

•Before The Maze• [1]

I don't even know what to say for this but let's see how long it takes me to write this chapter, started on 5/9/23

Anyways welcome to the first chapter of many for before the maze (aka life in wckd🥳) also i couldn't find what year this series was supposed to be set in because so many people were saying different things so I made my own timeline.

As always, enjoy!

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January 10th 2043, 5 years old

"MOM WHERE ARE we going?"

She didn't respond. Not with words at least. Faint sniffles were the only sound she got back in return.

"Is Stephen coming?" She gasped, "Is this a play date?" The girl got excited at the thought of seeing one of her closest friends.

Her mom choked a breath, mentally preparing herself for the day ahead of them. "No hun, it's not. But yes, Stephen will be there... I think." The last bit was spoken quietly as she wasn't quite sure if they would actually be seeing the boy today.

"But then where are we going?" Y/N got a bit worried now. Why won't her mother tell her where she's going or what's happening? Whatever it was, surely she'd be okay right? Her mother would keep her safe... right?

Trying her best to keep her composure and keep the car still on the dry desert roads, she faked an answer, "It's a surprise hun." She put on a false enthusiastic tone to reassure her uneasy daughter.

Y/N thought her mother was acting strange but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. Everything she did seemed to be normal— but almost too normal, like she was covering something up.

Y/N had been told she was wise beyond her years, even though she was only five, she could tell it was true. The other kids she would play with or go to the sanctioned-school with didn't appear to catch on to her jokes and sarcasm. The only ones that did was her friend Jade along with Stephen.

"Will Jade be coming too?"

"No," her mom took a deep breath, "she's not coming, I'm sorry."

Y/N wasn't sure how to feel about the little information she was given along the way her mom broke the news each time. What was going on?

Her mother cleared her throat getting rid of all the evidence of sadness in her voice before speaking. "How about we play some music, yeah?"

Just a couple months ago Y/N and her mom put together a playlist on a CD of their favorite songs— mostly her mom's favorite songs, though, since they stopped making music after the outbreak. "Can we play the C..." Y/N struggled to find the right name.

"The CD? Yes we can." She opened the glove compartment on the passengers side and took the case out then popped the CD into her old fashioned car.

"Do you want to listen to the ones we haven't heard in a while?"

"Yeah sure." Y/N thought this was her moms way of saying that she was getting sick of the same songs, so she did what she could to try and lift her out of the bad mood she was in. Why was she in a mood and what caused it? Maybe that was a question for another day.

She pressed shuffle and skipped the first few songs since they already knew them by heart. She stopped at 'As the World Caves In' by Matt Maltese.

Even though the song was playing, her mom still felt an awkward silence lingering in the air. Maybe that was just her guilty conscience weighing down on her. "You know, uhm, a girl— I forgot her name— but she actually made a cover of this song and it became more popular than the original."