Ashes to Ashes (Newt, Maze Runner)

2: The Gathering

"Who are you?" I spat back, his rude question already demonstrating a rather unfriendly and  antagonistic character I judged him to have. 

"Excuse me?" he altercated. "There's two of us and one of you. Spill it."

"What do you remember?" The other boy asked, his tone far more gentle. Quite likable, actually. 

"Lois. My name."

They glanced meaningfully at each other, obviously knowing more than I did.

"Well," I said, profoundly desperate to have more information on where I was; at the time I knew only of the imagined horrors I expected this place to behold. "What d'you know?"

Again, they glanced at each other. Their secrecy and heedlessness to my lack of knowledge perturbed me greatly: I forced down the urge to yell at them with all my unanswered questions. 

"I'm Thomas," the more amiable boy answered. "And he's Minho."

"That's it?" I asked, my impatience and harshness more apparent than I intended. 

"That's it."

The Doors opened with a grand rumble, opening a slit to freedom... Or should I say, a simple entrance. Minho seemed to know precisely where and when it would happen, my foolish self then suspecting him to know more than he let on.

At the moment of our entering, a blonde boy stalked over to us, his face plastered with utter aghast. I noticed in his walk a slight limp. Guiltily, I remember my inattention to it as I thought nothing of the pain he must have gone through to possess the permanent damage.

"What happened?" he asked. "Who the bloody hell is she?"

Thomas ignored the questions in his sudden urgency: "Get Chuck to show her a room, we need to save Alby."

The limping boy's face suddenly paled into a ghostly white. "What do you mean? He's alive?"

"Just come here." Thomas said, already walking away - obviously determined to save Alby, be the hero.

I stood around, the uncertainty of what to do made me feel out of place... Though I was already out of place in this amnestic grassland, wasn't I? 

The blonde boy turned to face me.

"I'm Newt, by the way. Chuck's the chubby one over there," he pointed, smiling sideways in a way that made my stomach awaken with butterflies... It was just hunger, I told myself in a tone of stern dismissal.

Chuck showed me a room in a wooden shack across the field. He was a talkative little boy; explaining the place was called the Glade, and much about it: the jobs, the Box, bringing boys up by the month- but never a girl. Never have they come through the Maze. It was no question then, why the amount of stares and shouts as we walked was so incredible. Incredibly irritating, I should say.

In that pathetic shack, I lay on the bed hard and cold as stale bread, until the swimming daze of questions and blankness pulled me into darkness.

"Uhm, Lois?" I heard Chuck's young voice cutting through my sleep. "There's a Gathering going on... They're asking for you."

The Gathering was a discussion, basically throwing in ideas of whatever anyone thought, regardless of the absurdity. The funny thing was, neither Thomas nor I were allowed to talk until we were asked. At first they discussed his entering of the Maze, how wrong and heedless of the rules it was. I zoned out upon whatever else.

"OK... Now, having that said, what about the girl?" I heard Newt say after a long period having been caught in my thoughts.

"Lois," I stated.

Opinions were thrown around the room like a riot of ping-pong balls.

"Put her in the Slammer! We have no idea what she could be playing at!"

"What the shuck she's doing here, we'll never know. She oughta be thrown out!"

"She's just like us! She only remembers her name. Why punish her for that?" The last one came from Thomas, though he was instructed to stay quiet and unopinionated. I felt a spark enlight - one of sympathy and understanding: from then on I knew I had a friend in him.

"I agree to that; what has she bloody done wrong? Unless we throw her in there just for being a girl." 

Newt. I felt the same settle in me - a great comfort spread warmth through my chest. It wasn't until later that found our bond was so much stronger than that.

Agreements crossed the room. Then objections, some so strong willed and obtuse I wanted to scream my disapproval. The same ignorant suggestion sounded over and over, causing my heart to pound with fear: Put her in the Slammer. I had no knowledge of what it was, but the pure name of it sufficed; malevolence and ominousness unhidden.

"Looks like that's decided then." Newt didn't say it loudly, but somehow it rang in my ears like the undying sound of a gong.