Teresa and the Med-Jacks

Newcomer

A/N: So this was a dare between my friends and I, and if you want to read their versions their accounts are newt_theglue_  and Newt_Lover . Also, a lot of the first chapter of this story is taken from the original book by James Dashner. Written from the P.OV of Thomas.

The alarm finally stopped after blaring for a full two minutes. A crowd was gathered in the middle of the courtyard around the steel doors through which Thomas had just arrived through yesterday. The grinds and rattles of the rising lift brought back the memory of his nightmarish trip the day before. Chuck appeared next to him.
"I can't believe that you'll only be a greenie for one day. It's so unfair," Chuck smirked at Thomas. He blinked back.
"How do you know it isn't just supplies coming up?" Thomas replied.
"The alarm doesn't go off when that happens," Chuck answered, simply. "The supplies come up at the same time every week."

The faraway creak of a door closing caught Thomas' attention, and  turned around to see Alby and Newt heading over from the Homestead. They both looked exhausted.
Alby and Newt had reached the crowd and pushed themselves to the front, standing right over the doors that led to the Box. Everyone went silent.
A muffled boom announced that the bizarre elevator had arrived.

Thomas watched in anticipation as Newt and Alby took positions on opposite sides of the shaft doors—a crack split the metal square right down the middle. Simple hook-handles were attached on both sides, and together they yanked them apart. With a metallic scrape the doors were opened, and a puff of dust from the surrounding stone rose into the air.

Newt leaned over to get a better look into the Box, and Thomas did the same, leaning forward as far as he possibly could, hoping to get a glance at the newcomer. With a sudden jerk, Newt pushed himself back into an upright position, his face scrunched up in confusion. "Holy ...," he breathed, looking around at nothing in particular. Shock and surprise covered his face.
By this time, Alby had gotten a good look as well, with a similar reaction. "No way," he murmured, almost in a trance.

A chorus of questions filled the air as everyone began pushing forward to get a look into the small opening. What do they see down there? Thomas wondered. He reflected on the reaction he received when he arrived in the Box. It was nothing compared to this. Thomas began to worry it was something bad.
"Hold on!" Alby yelled, silencing everyone. "Just hold on!"
"Well, what's wrong?" someone yelled back.

Alby stood up. "Two Newbies in two days," he said, almost in a whisper. "Now this. Two years, nothing different, now this." Then, for some reason, he looked straight at Thomas. "What's goin' on here, Greenie?"
Thomas stared back, confused, his face turning bright red, his gut clenching. "How am I supposed to know?"
"Why don't you just tell us what the shuck is down there, Alby?" Gally called out. There were more murmurs and another surge forward.
"You shanks shut up!" Alby yelled. "Tell 'em, Newt."

Newt looked down in the Box one more time, then faced the crowd, gravely.
"It's a girl," he said. Everyone started talking at once; Thomas only caught pieces here and there.
"A girl?"
"I got dibs!"
"What's she look like?"
"How old is she?"

Thomas was drowning in a sea of confusion. A girl? He hadn't even thought about why the Glade only had boys, no girls. Hadn't even had the chance to notice, really. Newt shushed them again. "That's not bloody half of it," he said, then pointed down into the Box. "I think she's dead."

A couple of boys grabbed some ropes made from ivy vines and lowered Alby and Newt into the Box so they could retrieve the girl's body. The Gladers stood around waiting. No one dared admit they couldn't wait to see the girl, but Thomas assumed they were all just as curious as he was.

From deep in the shaft came Alby's voice shouting that they were ready, and Gally and a couple of others started pulling up on the rope. A few grunts later and the girl's lifeless body was dragged out, across the edge of the door and onto one of the stone blocks making up the ground of the Glade. Everyone immediately ran forward, forming a packed crowd around her, excitement hovering in the air. But Thomas stayed back. The eerie silence gave him the creeps, as if they'd just opened up a recently laid tomb.

All the boys glared at Thomas, as if it was his fault. Newt and Alby had forced their way through the crowd, and lay at the girl's feet. Thomas somehow managed to get at glance at the girl. She was pale, but despite her paleness, she was really pretty. Silky hair, flawless skin, perfect lips, long legs. It made him sick to think that way about a dead girl, but he couldn't look away.

Suddenly, her body short forward into an upright position.

"Where am I?" She said, her voice barely audible. Nobody answered, clearly dumbstruck by the awakening of an originally thought-to-be-dead girl. Her eyes were wide, and she suddenly clutched her stomach, and howled in pain. A few Gladers jumped in fright, but as soon as it had started, her scream stopped. She had fainted.

Thomas would've expected shouts and questions, arguments. But no one said a word; all eyes were glued to the girl, now lying there as if asleep, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. She was very much alive now.

Alby cupped his hands around his mouth. "Med-jacks!"
Thomas wondered what that was, but instead was abruptly knocked aside. Two older boys were pushing their way through the crowd—one was tall with a buzz cut, his nose the size of a fat lemon. The other was short and actually had gray hair already conquering the black on the sides of his head.

"So what do we do with her?" the taller one asked, his voice much higher pitched than Thomas expected.
"How should I know?" Alby said. "You two shanks are the Med-jacks—figure it out."
They must be the closest thing they have to doctors, Thomas realised. The short one was already on the ground, kneeling beside the girl, feeling for her pulse and leaning over to listen to her heartbeat.

"Who said Clint had first shot at her?" someone yelled from the crowd. There were several barks of laughter. "I'm next!"
How can they joke around? Thomas thought. The girl's half dead. He felt sick inside, her cry still lingering in the back of his mind. Alby's eyes narrowed; his mouth pulled into a tight grin that didn't look like it had anything to do with humor. "If anybody touches this girl," Alby said, "you're gonna spend the night sleepin' with the Grievers in the Maze. Banished, no questions." He paused, turning in a slow circle as if he wanted every person to see his face. "Ain't nobody better touch her! Nobody!"
It was the first time Thomas had actually liked hearing something come out of Alby's mouth.

The short guy who'd been referred to as a Med-jack—Clint, if the spectator had been correct—stood up from his examination. "She seems fine. Breathing okay, normal heartbeat. Though it's a bit slow. Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say she's in a coma. Oh wait, she bleeding. Jeff, help me find the wound."

His partner, Jeff, stepped forward, and kneeled down too. Thomas' gut clenched, and he wondered if greenies normally arrived bleeding and wounded. Then again, this was not a normal case. They started searching her body for wounds while the small puddle of blood seemed to increase very slowly. Her clothes began to turn grossly red. Snickers could be heard from the crowd but they were quickly silenced by a glare from Alby. Clint finally spoke up.
"We can't seem to locate the wound. We better take her to the Homestead."

Alby nodded. They lifted her with a quick jerk, almost throwing her up in the air—she was obviously a lot lighter than they'd thought—and Thomas almost shouted at them to be more careful.
"Guess we'll have to see what she does," Jeff said to no one in particular. "We can feed her soupy stuff if she doesn't wake up soon. But you would have thought we'd found the wound by now."
Then he and Clint shuffled off to the Homestead, the girl's body bouncing as they went, and the other Gladers finally started to talk about it, scattering as theories bubbled through the air.

Thomas watched all this in mute contemplation. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. It was Chuck.
"That was different. I wonder what the blood was about?" He told Thomas. He didn't respond, instead turned and headed towards the Homestead. For some reason he could not put his finger on, he knew that he had to be with the girl.