Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The early morning haze loomed over the hushed sounds of the gladers stirring and snoring in their hammocks. Friendly and familiar sounds of chirps and a low buzzing filled the empty space as the sun begun to rise into the early morning bliss.
Alby approached Thomas' hammock, startling him with a shake to the shoulder and immediately putting his hand over his mouth, so he wouldn't wake any other gladers. "Follow me." Alby whispered, continuing to beckon him over as he walked away. Thomas' eyes were wide trying to recollect his thoughts as to what he had just dreamt of before he was so suddenly woken when nobody else was up yet, but still he got up from his place in his hammock, and put his boots back on and followed after the leader.
"It's peaceful isn't it?" Alby started, Thomas trailing after him as they walked through the grass. "I know it's hard to believe, but it wasn't always this way."
At this Thomas noticed the knife that Alby held by his side, a wave of confusion washed over him when listening to what he had to say afterwards. "We had dark days. We lost a lot of gladers to fear. To panic. But we've come far since then. Established order, made peace."
"Why are you telling me this?" Thomas asked, his eyebrows screwed, looking from the works of the glade, then back to Alby.
"Because you're not like the others. You're curious. But you're one of us now. You need to know what that means." He responded, handing Thomas the knife and enclosing his fingers around the handle, then turning his body so he was facing the vast stone walls, littered with inscriptions.
Thomas scanned his eyes over the names that covered the wall and finally landed on one that sat directly in the middle. EMMY. He turned back to Alby with the blade pointing to the name, "That's Emmeline, right? She was the first one here?"
With a slow nod Alby replied, "Yea ... one of the first. We came up as a group of five, I came up with her. It was a very hectic month, the first. Having five strangers with their memories wiped put in god knows where. But Em managed to pull us together, keep us sane, stop us from loosing our minds over this whole concept...this wall was actually her idea. I remember her saying 'It'll be like our version of a family portrait, collecting names here', and ever since then we've been doing just that, it's our own tradition I guess."
Thomas nodded, turning back to the wall, then asking another question, noticing some of the names had been crossed out, "What happened to them?"Alby let out a small breath. "Like I said earlier, we had dark days Thomas."
And with that, he lifted the blade up to the stone and started to carve out his name.
_________________________________________
"Has anyone tried climbing to the top?" It was now later in the morning, all the gladers were up and in full swing with their jobs. Thomas had started to test out each of the jobs on offer, and was in the process of trailing being a trackhoe, under the guidance of Zart and Newt.
