CH. THIRTEEN
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This Greenie is a little more difficult than the other boys she has worked with so far.
"What's out there?" The boy, who seems around the age of fifteen, points at the open Doors. He has been asking about it the whole day, and it's pissing her off.
Joan groans without shame. "Don't ask me. It's none of our business."
"How old do I look?" He then asks, running a hand through his locks. His hair is so blonde that it could be white, along with his pale skin.
"Like fifteen," she replies. "And I?" With that question, she realizes she never asked anyone about her age, or her features, or anything related to it.
"Fifteen," he says in full confidence.
"Nah."
"Definitely."
"I'm at least seventeen!" She protests.
"No, you're not," he says. "You're fifteen. Maybe sixteen."
"If you're that good at ages," she raises an eyebrow, "then tell me how old the guys you've met so far are."
"Newt's seventeen. Alby is eighteen."
The girl runs a hand down her face, not agreeing to this at all. She's not shucking fifteen. Minho and Newt would be two years older, because they're seventeen for sure (even with Newt's babyface, you can tell). And Alby three years! Camil one or two, too!
"If Newt's seventeen, then I'm twenty-three!"
He shrugs.
"Who is my age?" She then wonders. "Who you think, at least."
"Me, I guess. And the grumpy guy over there. Perhaps... what's his name? Hank? And the boy I worked with in the Bloodhouse."
What.
"Gally's not fifteen," is the first thing she says. "He's at least eighteen."
His eyebrows shoot up. "What makes you think that?"
"He—" she stops. Frowns. "He is... tall."
"Yeah, but not eighteen. Boy barely has a stubble."
Alright, he has a point. But she really didn't consider Gally being fifteen.
Her eyes widen. He was thirteen when he came up in the Box! And everyone else must've been awfully young, too. Gosh.
"Would you finally tell me me what's out there?" His eyes are focused on the Doors again.
"It's not my job to tell you that."
She has learned that Alby is very strict with telling others about the Maze. In fact, he only wants him or Newt to explain it to the Greenies. No one else.
"Can I check it out?"
"No. Listen to the rules. Never go outside the walls."
"I saw you kick a guy yesterday. That's also a rule. No harming," he says. "So what's the difference between us?"
"I'm cooler."
He gets up, ignoring her reply. "I'm checking it out."
Then she gets up too, taking the kid by his shirt. "You didn't hear what I said? Don't go fucking out there unless you want to get yourself into deep trouble."
He pushes her hands off. "Fine." And sits back down.
They continue working for a good twenty minutes. He mumbles about how much his hands hurt until she decides they need more flowers, so commands him to follow her.
"If you want more people in your job," he starts, "perhaps be a little nicer to the new ones."
"Perhaps stop acting as if you're the boss here." Joan kicks a small stone out of her way. It lands in the lake with a plop. "Come on. Pick some flowers that are pretty. I'm sure we can use 'em."
She can't deny this place cheers her up. It's beautiful as always. The flowers are colorful and bright, spread everywhere around the lake. Maybe she'll take a swim later.
Humming, she collects flowers, places them in her basket, repeat. She'll make the ones she doesn't use into a bouquet, for her hut. Or—
A loud, screeching roar. Her head snaps up immediately. An alarm goes off in her mind. Hallucination?
She hates that she has to make sure of that, because she can never tell wether it is a hallucination or not.
Then she turns to look at the Greenie, wanting to check out if he heard it too, only to find out he's gone.
"Motherfucker." She jumps up as fast as she can. If something happens to him, she'll get blamed. And she can't add that to the amount of times she already got warned she has to watch out before she'll be thrown into the Slammer again.
A last of his body disappearing between the walls is all she catches. Shit. She turns her jogging pace into a full run, and soon she also vanishes between the giant stones.
She has no time to look around. Just gotta catch that guy, no matter how interesting the tall walls are, or how scary this darker place is.
"Hey, Greenie!" Her yell echoes through the place, the anger in her voice clearly hearable. "Get your ass back here!
But his shadow disappears behind the left corner. Gosh, this is bad. The place is bad. Definitely not to her liking, so she takes the idea of ever going in here to get stung back.
"Greenie!" She runs as fast as she can, attempting to remember the turns she takes. "You're dumb for doing th— are you shitting me?"
He's frozen in his place, staring up at an enormous, inhuman thing. Joan doesn't need much time to realize it's a Griever. And neither does she take the time to inspect it.
"Come on!" She grunts. A hard pull at his arm, but it doesn't get him out of the trance. "Gosh, move you idiotic—"
"That—" he stammers, pointing a shaky finger at the Griever.
Her stomach does a flip. "Come on. Hurry before it— watch out!" She pushes him with such force that they both fall to the ground, her arms scraping against the ground.
"Fucking run!" She yells at him. It's awfully irritating, that he's not moving. And as long as he doesn't, she can't either. She can't leave this annoying kid. "Run! Go, go, go! Ever heard—"
But she cuts herself off by avoiding the a giant metal leg, rolling over the ground. The boy is lying on his back, eyes wide at the Griever that hangs above him.
Green smile constantly drops onto the frightened Greenie. The Griever makes a low sound at him, moving closer in a way that makes Joan's stomach flip again. "Move!" She screams, but he doesn't.
So she has no choice but to throw herself in front of him, holding her arms up to protect at least her face, where blood is soon dripping on. A scream rips from her throat at the pain in her wrist, and when her eyes open, she watches the Griever pull its leg out of her arm. It freaking pierced maybe halfway through.
She tries to sit up, but it sends a pain she has never felt before through her wrist, and she falls back down with a cry. "Go!" Joan tells him. If he also gets hurt, this was for absolutely nothing. "I'll be behind y—"
Another scream. This one is louder. It fades into staggered breaths, as if her oxygen is cut off after every inhale. It does feel like that.
There's so many pain all over her body that she can't even feel where she actually got hit, or stung, or whatever else just happened. She can barely think. Her back arches so her hurting spine moves off the floor, which only seems to scrape more skin off her body, but it doesn't help.
Her muscles shake. Eyes open and close and then roll back before she's gasping for air. It feels like so many things at once... electric shocks, burns, broken bones, needles. It's unbearable.
She can't hear anything or see anything or anything at all. Just the pain. Pain, pain, pain—
It slashes through her throat too, once she screams again. Is someone shaking her to make the pain worse? God, it hurts so badly. If this is getting stung, she takes it back. Immediately.
"Everything's going to change," it's a female.