Wildfire ~ Newt

1.12

One month.

One whole month since she'd come up in that box. Terrified and alone.

Vera stared at the sizzling egg on the stove as she and Frypan went about with cooking breakfast for the gladers. She quietly giggled to herself at she reminisced about her first day in the glade. Sometimes, she cringed at the things she'd done, but never wished to forget, no matter how embarrassing.

"So what time does the box arrive?", she asked the approaching Alby, rubbing his eyes at the early hour.

"Usually late morning, however, you came up towards the evening, so who knows", Alby confirmed, holding out his plate as Vera loaded it with eggs and a pit of pork.

"Ah yes my spectacular late arrival", she huffed as the boys never fail to remind her of her being late for the last month. Teasing her about now being late for everything, even for getting to the kitchen, as if she had anything better to do.

"Hey how's your ankle anyway?", Alby then asked, talk of her own arrival triggering memories of her wounded foot.

"It's great thanks", she grinned, biting into an apple, twirling her ankle out front to show off her flexibility. Not that they'd fussed over it in the first place, she hated being reminded of it. She wasn't sure why, but every time someone spoke of it, a gut wrenching, sinking feeling would appear in her stomach. Vera thought it was most likely due to the reason how she got the injury, and although she couldn't remember, the same feeling would stick with her.

However, today it was different.

Today her ankle felt completely normal for the first time ever.

She hoped it had something to do with all the effort she'd put in to strengthen it. Every morning, after watching the sunrise, she'd done a few stretches and one lap around the glade. It's got her heart pumping, but most importantly and pleasing to Vera, it had also built up the muscle and strengthened each step she took, so her limp was practically none existent. In fact it was non existent as of today.

The only down side was that she couldn't be limp buddies with Newt anymore.

Vera snapped out of thoughts, during which, the boys had continued lining up for food during the time she'd allowed her mind to drift off, so she shook her head, to get rid of the sleep and continued serving them one by one.

She had a lot of work today.

As per tradition, they'd always have a party on the night the new greenie arrived. Finally her title would be passed on to some other unfortunate soul. However, due to this party, Frypan, herself and the couple other boys who were cooks had a lot of food to prepare. No less than a feast would be expected.

So as the day went on, Vera found herself increasingly more busy. She'd had a brief good morning to Newt as she always did, performing their handshake, or if they weren't close enough, practically shouted it to each other from all the way across the glade.

It must've been approaching autumn, as leaves had started falling to the ground, creating a carpet of amber, scarlet and mauve hues. She allowed the leaves to crunch underneath her boots, the fresh, crispness of the air filling her lungs as she dallied through the trees, trying to find more firewood.

Just ahead of her next step, a glisten caught her eye, as something shiny lay hidden underneath the leaves. With her eyebrows furrowed, she bent down, brushing away dirt to reveal a sparkly looking stone.

On the outside it appeared to be an ordinary rock, but on the inside, crystals of violet shone out. She beamed to herself at her find.

"Score", Vera whispered under her breath, happy to have found such a rare treasure. What would she do with it. It was too small to put in into any practical use.