Let Me Be Your Shelter (Being Re-Worked)

Day 61: New Friends

Two months ago I entered the Glade without a single memory, frightened, overwhelmed, and alone. It had been sixty one days and I still couldn't remember a single moment before I had arrived in the Glade, and yet in just sixty one days I was filled to the brim with new memories. Some of them were good; like the time the boys and I spent an entire day playing an extreme version of tag out in the rain, or the evenings I spent alone, just lying in the grass and looking up at the stars. And some of them were bad, like the day Gally got hurt, or the day I had spent caged inside the Pit.

It had been sixty one days, and maybe I was still a little frightened. I was scared of snakes. I was scared of the Grievers. I was always on edge after what Mikey had done, although I still didn't know why. I was scared to lose the people I had come to care for. I was still scared of the Box. But I was no longer scared about how I was going to survive. I was no longer overwhelmed by every little piece of information that was thrown my way. That felt like progress.

It had been sixty one days, and I still felt alone, although it was a different kind of loneliness. No matter what I did, now matter how well they treated me, there was always going to be some small divide, even if it was just a biological one . I wished it didn't matter, but it did. There were things they would never understand about me, as there were many things I would never understand about them. But,  one thing I had learned in such a short span of time, was that in the end that doesn't really make much of a difference as long as we were supportive of each other, and we had empathy for each other. And in that way, I supposed that I was less lonely. I was their equal, and that was clear the moment I was finally able to open up to them . As much as I hated the creators for putting me in the maze, I often found myself thanking them for putting me there with Newt, Gally, Zart; in some ways I was lucky. They were my friends, and the closest thing that I might have ever had to family.

It had been sixty one days and that meant it was time for a new Greenie. Once again, my hopes to have another female in the glade were sadly dashed. Ben was the next to appear in the Box. My first impression of him was the same I had of Minho. Scared out of his mind, a loose canon, a bit arrogant, and hungry as hell. Between the two of them they probably could have swallowed all of our crops in an hour. It was no surprise to anyone that they had become close friends in a matter of seconds. They bonded over their love of food, being the two newest members of the glade, and above all else, teasing me. Of course Minho's antics were something I had gotten used to. He was more like a big brother than a total nuisance like he had been when I was first getting to know him. He spent a good deal of time that day teaching Ben how to push my buttons.

But, while it was nice to have a fresh face in the glade, Ben's arrival was easily the most dull thing that happened on Box Day. The more exciting development was the goats. Yes, Ben came up with a pair of goats, and we spent all day talking about the what we were going to do about our new friends.

"Look I'm telling you guys," Minho began. We were all sitting around the fire pit after dinner attempting to wind down from a long day; Everyone except for Mikey who never spent much time around any of us anymore. I sat with Newt and Gally to my left, and Bach to right. Everyone else, including Minho, sat on the other side of the empty fire pit. "Let's just fry 'em up right now! I am so tired of eating lettuce, corn and rabbit." Zart, Newt and I all rose eyebrows at the Runner. "It's not that I don't appreciate vegetables okay? But I need meat, real meat."

"We can't kill them," Newt said rationally. "They're no good to us if they're dead."

"I beg to differ," Gally smirked. "I think they'll taste pretty freaking good."

"You know what else tastes good? Goat's milk," Zart pointed out. "If you kill them now they'll be good for one or two meals. If we keep them longer we can use their milk. Not just to drink, but for cooking too."