A-Thousand-Words | The Maze Runner - Newt/Thomas

2 | Greenie

"Where am I?" I demanded as I fought against the boy who was persistently trying to give me some sort of check-up or something. I was sitting on a small cot in a hand-made hut, which I had been brought to directly after arriving in that cage.

"Please hold still." he huffed as he took a step back to regain his composure. "I need to make sure you're okay."

"What you need to do is tell me where I am!"

A small creak sounded as the door to the hut was pushed open. Glancing over, I watched as the small, blonde-haired boy from before walked in. "Take a break, Clint." he gestured for the boy to leave the hut. "I wanna ask her some questions. You can finish up later."

I stared daggers into Clint as he gave the boy a thankful smile before exiting the hut. I relished in the small moment of silence I was given at that moment, but it didn't last long before being broken. "My name is-"

"Newt." I cut him off. "That's the only thing I know. I know your name is Newt."

He smiled slightly as he folded his arms over his chest. "Okay, and do you know your name?"

"Of course I know my own name." I snapped. "Norah. My name is Norah."

Newt eyed me with bewilderment, which caused me only to panic more. "Why do you look shocked that I know my own name? Should I not know my own name? What the hell is going on here?!"

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Newt gently placed his hand on my shoulder, giving me time to finally notice his British accent. "I-It's complicated. Most people don't remember their name when they first show up here, but it's good that you do. It's the only thing you will remember, though."

I nodded as my breathing started to slow back to normal. "Please...just tell me one thing. Where am I?"

"The Glade."

In order to calm me down some more, Newt offered to give me a tour of the glade and give me some more information about what was going on. He showed me around the med-jack hut, which was where I had been, before taking me outside in the huge, grassy field. Other huts were scattered about, such as the cooks' hut and the huts where hammocks were hung for sleeping at night.

Newt explained to me that no one knew why they were there, only that once a month a box came up with supplies and a new person that they called a 'greenie.' Except, they had never had any girls come up before, never had two people at a time, and never more than once a month, which were all 'rules' that the other girl and I had apparently just broken.

The glade itself was quite tranquil looking when you got past the part of it being a place where people were forced into. The grass was perfectly green and the trees surrounding the edges were lush and full. The homemade structures all around gave it a rustic and homey feeling, and the smell of food cooking that wafted through the air instilled a sense of comfort.

As soon as the tour had ended, I finally took a good look at the most terrifying part of this whole situation—the giant wall that surrounded the glade and kept us trapped inside. "And that?" I gestured to the wall.

"The Maze." Newt answered. "All we know so far is that it's a huge, complex, changing maze; that, and that it's full of these monsters called grievers that come out when the maze closes up for the night. We don't know what's on the other side, we don't know who put us in here, and now we don't know how much longer we will be able to survive if that box doesn't keep coming back up with supplies."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "That's a lot to take in, but it's better than being totally oblivious I guess. Thanks."

Just as I was about to ask another question about the maze, a commotion from the other side of the glade caught both Newt and I's attention. Jogging over to see what was the matter, we noticed that the girl I had come up with had stationed herself on top of a wooden watch-tower and was throwing things down at the group of boys below. "Leave me alone!" she shouted. "What do you want from me?!"

The boys held up make-shift shields to protect themselves from the falling objects the girl was tossing at them. They kept shouting back at her that they weren't going to hurt her, but nothing they said seemed to calm her down. "It's Thomas!" the boy from earlier called up to her, which surprisingly caused her to stop throwing objects and peek over the edge of the watch-tower. "Okay, I'm gonna come up, okay?"

The girl didn't reply, but only shuffled back further so her face wasn't visible anymore. Thomas looked around before slowly starting to climb up to the top of the tower. Everyone down on the ground waited for a while as Thomas spoke to the girl, but since no one could hear anything, they quickly became impatient.

"What's going on up there?" one of the other boys called. I recognized him as one of the boys who had opened the cage I had been in, but other than that I had no clue who he was.

"Who is that?" I questioned.

"Gally," Newt replied. "Keeper of the builders, and between you and I, a real pain sometimes."

Slowly, people started to clear out as the excitement died down. "Is she coming down?" Newt asked.

"Um..." Thomas stood up and leaned over the side of the tower. "Hey, listen, you guys just give us a second, okay?"

Gally looked up in annoyance at Thomas as Newt shooed away the last few stragglers. "She's scared." I sighed. "And if what Newt told me is correct, you were once new and scared like her, too."

"We have no room for free-loaders." Gally huffed before stalking off somewhere else.

Just as I too was about to head off and find Newt again, Thomas peeked his head over the edge of the tower once more. "Hey, um, can you come up here too?"

I glanced around to look for anyone else he might have been talking to, but I was the only one still standing there. "Me?" I pointed to myself.

"Yeah...she's asking about the other girl she came up with."

"O-okay." I nodded hesitantly. "I can do that."