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PROLOGUE
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Being alone was exhausting, to say the least. So, for the first time, she had decided to venture beyond the walls that confined her and stepped into the maze behind them.
It had all gone smoothly, for a short period of time, until she came face to face with a vile-smelling, gigantic creature that wanted nothing less than to have her killed. So she ran. She ran until she couldn't anymore, trying to remember the way back to the safety of the walls.
She was so close, close enough to taste it. As she jumped off one ledge and tried to land on another, she slipped. Her hands clasping around the vines, sliding down the walls and cutting her hands in the process; until the vines fell short, about a few feet in the air, and sending her frail body falling and landing onto the hard stone below her.
Her head had ricocheted off the stone, blood spilling from the wound and forming a puddle around her. She had stayed there, for God knows how long until the alarms had blared in the Glade and a new Greenie arrived. He had stepped out, searching around, until he found a lifeless body in the opening of the maze with blood around her hair. So far this was the first Glader he had found, and perhaps it was just those two for now.
He had stayed with her, bandaging up her head and checking up on her routinely to make sure that she was still breathing.
Until she woke up, without moving all she could get out was one word. One word that had plenty of meaning, just not to them.
"Rosa."