The Rogue Variable

Chapter twenty-seven

I lay awake in bed, newts figure beside me, his arm wrapped around my waist. I could feel his chest heave with steady breaths, signaling his slumber. My eyes stared up, into the rickety ceiling, consumed by darkness. The silence that settled the glade was deafening, only interrupted by the occasional griever.

Their calls sent jolts through my bones, as if they were mocking me. Reminding me every single night, that they had taken someone I loved. There had been a burial for adam, body or not. We had crowded around his grave, and I have to say, I wasn't the only one who shed tears.

The night after we laid him to rest, the Grievers had been extra loud, their shrieks echoing throughout the glade, causing gladers to huddle together, out of fear and mourning.

But what had me awake was what Thomas had said. It was impossible that he'd been here before. Maybe, in his past life he was an outdoors person, thus seemingly relating to his new lifestyle. His new personality merged with his own. But something told me that wasn't true.

Something told me that Thomas had spoken the truth, surprising me, and I believe himself. I tried to revisit the memories that I had been having, but I noticed that most of names I ever hear, seem to disappear from my mind. Like when you load a website, it's there for a second, but then something might redirect you.

And there it was again. My knowing of how the world worked, yet couldn't place exactly how I knew. Had it been that I was at the library, doing a research paper for the history teacher everyone hated? Or could a friend and I be trying to illegally watch the latest movie online?

Then again, did I have friends? A family before all this? Well my memories explained as such. I knew Adam before, and Gally was my brother. But something tells me I didn't exactly agree with having my memory wiped, and being sent to hell.

Someone must've kidnapped me. Someone must've kidnapped all of us. Shouldn't there be a government or something to stop that? Anyway, it shouldn't be that hard to detect a stupid giant sized maze. Where are they gonna hide it, in the basement?

That made me think of greater possibilities, what we were hear for. What if we were all criminals, and this was the only prison for teenagers. The grievers outside make us stay inside, like prison guards. And perhaps its a maze, everything about this place a puzzle so we don't go brain dead as we fulfill the rest of our worthless lives.

People like chuck, though. I hardly think he could kill a rabbit, let alone perhaps murder someone in cold blood. But the memories, if I remember correctly, Adam and I could talk with our heads.

Maybe I had imagined that part, in my longing for him. The memories seemed to wink out of my head as soon as I awoke. The most probable option is that we were in an experiment.

Maybe all these kids were geniuses, and were being tested to their limits, to see if they could survive. If they won, maybe they were the new human species, like a forced way of evolution.

But that didn't seem to explain why all boys, and why I'm the only girl. Perhaps, instead of mixing all girls in boys, I was a guinea pig. I way to see if they'd interact or poke me with a stick. And I have to say, they did both.

Still, all my thoughts returned to Thomas. I remembered the dream of Adam and I. We said names, a girl and a boys. Something about, cooperating. But it couldn't be Thomas. No offense to the kid, but he looked as ordinary as any other glader.

The only one out of ordinary, was me. Maybe I was a mistake. Maybe they hoped as soon as I set foot in this contraption all the boys would think of me as a danger, and kill me.

Maybe... Maybe that was it! That I was a problem for the creators, thinking the boys would act differently at my arrival, thought that death by the gladers would solve all their problems and keep their conscious's clear!