Chapter 2
Gally rocked back onto his heels and stumbled backwards blinking quickly. I pulled myself to my feet and looked at my surrounding warily. The boys had formed a semicircle around me, blocking my exit through the passageway, making me feel like a cornered dog. The boys were looking back and forth between Gally and me with confused expressions across their faces.
"Hey" an older African-American boy, who held a sense of leadership and control, pushed his way to the front of the crowd. "Listen greenie we're not going to hurt you okay? My names Alby"
I refused to say anything, just looked around fleetingly before bringing me gaze back to Gally's. I couldn't tell if he remembered who I was; his face was full of masked confusion.
Alby took a slow step towards me "Do you remember your name Greenie?"
I immediately stumbled backwards a few more steps, my head was spinning. I couldn't compute what was happening. I just wanted to get away from wherever I was. I didn't feel safe I felt like a caged animal being hunted.
"Listen your gonna have to talk sometime greenie, we're not going to hurt you, you're safe, so just calm down."
I looked back up and saw the Gally had pushed his way back through the crowd to the front.
"Her name is Sage." He announced "And I think she's my sister." I felt relief wash over me.
Apparently nobody else was as happy as I was that he knew me because there were immediate shouts of surprise and accusation shouted at us. I retreated a few more steps backwards.
"What the shuck are you saying Gally?" Alby asked, once the shouting had initially died down.
He sighed "Her name is Sage, and she's my sister. I remember her."
There was another outburst of shouts, but it was quickly silenced by Alby.
"You remember her? Do you remember anything else?"
"No, I don't, just her, but there's no shucking memories, just that she's my sister." Gally looked unhappy with that, although it was the same for me as well.
"What are we going to do with her?" one of the boys from the crowd asked "Why did they send a girl, we've never gotten a girl before."
"I say we lock her in the slammer, like she's a normal Greenie, it don't matter that she's a girl."
"She tried to run into the maze, who's to say she won't again."
The boys continued talking and arguing amongst themselves as if I wasn't there. The majority of them, except Gally, seemed set on locking me in the "slammer" I didn't know what that was but it didn't sound particularly enjoyable.
I was contemplating what I should do next when I noticed another opening in the walls, on the far side of the clearing. If I could get enough of a head start I knew I could make it to them and out of this place without them catching up to me.
I cautiously took another step slowly backwards, but the boys were still too busy arguing amongst themselves to notice. I suppressed a grin and I took one more step, still no reaction. I knew they wouldn't stay distracted forever so I took a deep breath, turned and ran.
I must've gone over 300 yards before I heard shouting from behind me, and I knew that was as much as a head start as I would need. I pushed my legs to move faster and stride as long and they could. I inhaled crisp air through my nose, to quench my burning lungs, but I didn't stop running. I didn't even look back. I felt adrenaline kick in and I began to run even faster. Within 30 seconds I had crossed the entire clearing and I was bursting into the stone passageways and continuing to run through them. The wall stretched high towards the sky, and I could barely see the top of them when I tried to look up. The passage ways began to split off into other passageways that split off into more. I had no clue what direction I was going in so I just ran.
Left, right, right,left,left,right,left,left,left,right,right,right,left, and it continued until I hit a dead end.
My pursuers' yells and footsteps had faded long ago, so I just sat in the corner, put my head between my knees and tried to catch my breath, which only took a few minutes. I straightened my legs out in front of me, stretching my muscles when I noticed a bulge in the side of one of the combat boots I was wearing. I slowly unzipped the side, there was a small pocket sewn into the side of the boot. I carefully slipped my hand in and pulled out a small, sharp knife.
Confusion flickered though my mind as I examined it closely. I didn't have the foggiest idea as to why I would have a knife in my boot unless whoever sent me here, thought I would need it. Thinking about all of that made me wonder what I even looked like, so I began examining myself. I appeared to have long legs, they were longer then my torso, but I didn't think I was overly tall, all of the boys had been taller than me back in the clearing. My legs were clad in loose dark green faded jeans, my feet in black combat boots that went midway up my calves and my shirt was a loose dull grey tank top. My hair, from what I could see of it was dirty blonde, fell in loose curls past my shoulders. I held my knife horizontally in front of me to try to get a glimpse of my face, using the blade to see my reflection. As far as I could tell I had blue eyes and a light sprinkling of freckles, the rest of my face was pretty standard and unnoticeable, normal sized eyebrows, nose, lips as far as I could tell.
I was in the process of setting my knife down and deciding what to do next when I heard footsteps echoing though the passages, getting louder and louder every time they hit the ground. I pushed myself as far back into the corner as possible and covered my mouth to try and quiet my breathing as much as possible, as the pounding got closer and closer. I could feel my heart begin to race, and my arms begin to tremble. I closed my eyes and listened as the footsteps grew even more loud and then stopped.
I slowly opened my eyes. There was a boy standing in front of me. I vaguely remembered seeing him in the clearing. He was tall and lanky with a mop of blonde sweaty hair.
I lifted my arm and held my knife out in front of me, when he began walking towards me "Don't you dare come any closer." I tried to sound strong and determined, but my voice shook unintentionally.
He held up his hands as he stopped moving "I'm not going to hurt you Sage, you can put the knife down." He said with a thick accent
I shook my head and he took another step closer to me "I said stop!" I commanded, still brandishing my knife in front of me.
"Okay, okay" he said quickly and stopped moving. "I know you're scared, and trust me I know what it's like."
"You don't know anything about me." I snapped, and to my surprise, he laughed "You might be surprised how much you're like all of us."
I immediately opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off "We've all been where you are right now, granted we all didn't run off like a bloody klunk head into the maze, but we all woke up in the crate and we all remembered nothing. We were all bloody scared and confused, but you need to let us help you, you have to trust us."
"There is no way in hell I'm going to trust any of you!" I spat out "You wanted to lock me up in the slammer, whatever the hell that is, it doesn't sound pleasant"
"Alright, alright Greenie calm down, there's no need to be getting yourself all worked up." He sighed "We usually put all the green beans in there until they calm down its just standard procedure to keep em safe."
"Safe? From what?" I interrupted again
"well to keep em from running off into the bloody maze, like you did, see now their ain't no point in locking you up anymore., since you already did."
"Why do you have to keep them out of here, it's nice enough." I stated looking around at the walls.
"You ask a lot of bloody questions green bean, and right now I'm in no place to tell you."
"Well I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."
The boy sighed and ran his hand through his sweaty hair "I'll tell you what Greenie-"
"My name is Sage stop calling me Greenie and Green Bean its annoying" I crossed my arms and glared at him
"Alright fine, Sage, I'll tell you what, if you come back to the Glade with me, and you'll get your bloody answers, and I promise I won't let any of the shanks lock you up in the slammer."
I pondered it for a minute, before pulling myself to me feet "Alright......" I realized I didn't know his name
"Newt" he supplied
"Aright Newt we have a deal, I held out my hand and just when he was about to shake it I pulled it back "but answer one question first."
He nodded "fine."
"What's so bad in here that you have to lock people away so they don't come runnin' in?"
"Well it might seem pleasant now but when nightfall comes the doors close, and the grievers come out, and trust me you want to be safe and snug in the glade when the doors close, no one has survived a night in the maze. Ever."
I nodded "Fine lead the way, but if you go back on your word and they do lock me up or try and hurt me, or make any decisions regarding me without my permission, you'll be the number one name on my list and I will use my lovely knife here to cut off your balls while you're sleeping understood?"
The color drained out of Newt's cheeks and he looked absolutely terrified before he regained his composure "You got a lot of spunk Gre-" he corrected himself "Sage, you might just fit in around here."
I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, before I noticed and forced my lips into a straight line as Newt continued and stared jogging "now let's get moving the doors are going to close in about an hour and we've got a long way to go."