The First Glader

4

The boy jolted upright, eyes wide and wild. His gaze darted around the stone walls, the field, the sky. He looked terrified—and Ada recognized the look instantly.

She had worn it herself.

He opened his mouth, but no words came.

Ada reached down and extended her hand, ignoring the sting in her arm as the bandage tightened. "Come on. I've got you."

His breathing hitched. Slowly—hesitantly—he reached up and took her hand. His grip trembled, but it was warm. Human. Real.

She pulled.

He nearly collapsed as his feet hit the grass. His knees buckled, and Ada caught his shoulder with her good arm, steadying him.

His voice scraped out on the thinnest of breaths. "Where... where am I?"

Ada felt her throat tighten. She remembered asking that same question. Remembered the silence that had answered her. She wouldn't let him face that same void.

"You're in the Glade," she said. It didn't answer anything, but it was all she had. "I'm Ada."

The boy blinked slowly, breathing rough. The sun glinted off his eyes—eyes that were soft, disoriented, but full of a kind of instinctive gentleness that made her chest ache unexpectedly.

"Nick," he murmured. "I think."

Ada nodded, the smallest smile touching the corner of her mouth before she could stop it. "Nick. Okay."

His gaze drifted across the field, taking in the lake, the forest, the crates near her shelter. Confusion knitted his eyebrows together. "It's just you?"

"Just me," she said quietly. "Until now."

Nick's breath stuttered. He looked at her again—really looked this time—and something in his expression shifted. Not pity. Not fear.

Relief.

"Thank God," he whispered.

Ada swallowed hard.

She led him away from the Box, toward the shade of her shelter. Nightmares of the Maze lingered in her body like bruises, but she forced her posture strong, forced her breaths steady. He was weak; she could not be.

Nick's legs shook as he walked. She slowed her pace without making it look like she was slowing her pace, guiding him gently toward the lake. He knelt beside it and splashed cold water onto his face, gasping at the temperature.

Ada crouched a few feet away, watching him carefully—gauging his coordination, his breathing, the way his eyes sharpened as the shock began to clear.

He finally looked back at her, and his gaze caught on her arm.

Her bandage had bled through.

His eyes widened. "You're hurt."

Ada instinctively tucked her arm behind her, jaw tightening. "I'm fine."

"That's not—"

"I said I'm fine." Her voice cracked sharper than she meant, and Nick flinched slightly. Ada closed her eyes, exhaling slowly. "Sorry. I just... I don't want to talk about it right now."

Nick studied her for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. We don't have to."

The trust in his voice—so simple, so unforced—hit her harder than she expected.

Ada rose and offered him a piece of dried fruit from her stores. "Eat this. Your head will feel clearer."

"Thanks," he murmured, taking it.

She turned toward the crates and began sorting tools again—more for distraction than necessity. Nick joined her after a few minutes, watching her hands, watching the way she organized the world around her.

"You've been alone here all this time?" he asked quietly.

Ada nodded. "Four weeks."

Nick blew out a slow, disbelieving breath. "You did all of this by yourself."

She didn't know what to say. Praise felt strange now. Unnecessary.

"I had to," she finally answered.

Nick looked at her with something like respect shadowing his exhaustion. "I... think you saved my life. If I'd woken up alone, I would've lost it."

Ada didn't want to admit it, but the truth warmed something in her chest that had frozen the night in the Maze.

Instead, she said, "We'll figure things out together now. You don't have to do this alone."

Nick held her gaze, and for the first time since the Maze had taken a piece of her, Ada felt the faintest crack in her armor.

Not weakness.
Not vulnerability.

Relief.

Something shifted in the air—small, but real.

The Glade was no longer silent.
No longer empty.
No longer entirely hers to survive.

She wasn't alone.

"Come on," she said, pulling herself to her feet. "Let me show you the lake. And then we can talk about the Maze."

Nick froze. "The Maze?"

Ada glanced at the walls, her pulse flickering. "You should know what's out there."

He swallowed hard. "Did you go in?"

Ada's fingers instinctively brushed the bandage hidden against her side.

"Yes," she whispered. "I did."

Nick didn't press further, but his eyes held questions he was too afraid to ask.

Ada turned toward the center of the Glade, the sun warming her shoulders, Nick's footsteps soft behind her. Her body still hurt. Her arm still pulsed. Her breath still caught when she looked at the Maze.

But now there was a second heartbeat beside hers.

And for the first time since the Box opened beneath her, the world didn't feel impossibly large.

She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Welcome to the Glade," she said softly.

Nick managed a tired, lopsided smile.

"Guess we're in this together now."

Ada didn't say it aloud, but she felt it:

Someone had finally come.
Someone who could stand beside her.
Someone who made the Maze feel just a little less massive.

And it changed everything.