Chapter Text
She began her new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air. Metal ground against metal; a lurching shudder shook the floor beneath her. She fell at the sudden movement,her palms came into contact with the cold floor and she let out a groan. She looked around but the darkness made it impossible for her to identify anything.
She crawl until her hand came in contact with one of the walls, slowly standing up once more and keeping a touch in the metal to not lose her balance.
She felt another jolt, making her tremble with the effort to not fall. She had no idea of where she was, but she could hear the sound of chains and pulleys, like the workings of an ancient steel factory, echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls with a hollow, tinny whine. All the harsh and sudden movements were starting to make her feel sick with every second that passed.
My name is Kal, she thought. And that was the only thing she remembered about her. It made no sense. She could think and reason, speculate on where she was and what she could do about it. Knowledge flooded her thoughts, facts and images, memories and details of the world and how it works.
She could pictured parks, running around the trees and playing, eating a hamburger, the moon casting a shiny glow in the water, reflecting the stars, swimming in the sea. She remembered a city, lights on everywhere and people going around living their lifes.
And yet she had no idea of where she came from, or how she’d gotten inside the dark lift, or who her parents were or if she had any siblings.
She didn’t even know her last name.
Images of people flashed across her mind, but they were complete strangers to her now, their faces replaced with haunted smears of color.
She couldn’t remember knowing anyone, nor did she recall ever having a conversation before.
The room continued its ascent, swaying; and Kal was getting used to the sounds the chains were making, a constant movement that never ceased.
A long time passed. Seconds, minutes, hours. It was all the same because the journey was feeling like an eternity.
And as time keep passing, her instant terror of being in a dark place with no knowledge was morphing into a strange curiosity. She wanted to know what was happening, how and why. That seemed important for her for some reason. Where was she but more importantly, why?
With a loud noise, the rising room halted; the sudden change jolted Kal from her standing position and threw her across the hard floor. She groaned, as she scrambled to her feet. She felt how the room slowly stopped its movement, until it finally stilled. Everything fell silent, no more chains moving, nothing.
A minute passed. Two. She looked in every direction but saw only darkness; One more time she passed her hands across the metal walls, trying to find something, anything. But there was nothing, only the cool metal. She sighed in annoyance; the low sound echoing all over the place until it faded.
She finally screamed, in frustration and anger. She yelled one more time to see if she would get some kind of reaction. But nothing happened.
She bit the inside of her mouth. After not finding anything at all, her curiosity was dying and the worry and fear were cripping in her again.
She closed her eyes, trying to keep a hold of her breathing and not letting the tears in her eyes fell.
She wanted to scream, to yell for help, for something! But she doubted someone would hear so she instead decided to not waste anymore of her energy into it since it was going to be useless either way.
A loud clank rang out above her, making her look up as she shudderer. Not thinking if it was because of fear or if the cold of the room was finally catching up with her body. It was probably both.
A straight line of light appeared across the ceiling of the room, and Kal watched as it expanded. A heavy grating sound revealed double sliding doors being forced open. After so long in darkness, the light burned her eyes; She looked down, covering her face with both hands.
She heard noises above—voices— making her want to look up again, but even then she couldn’t fully understand what was being said since they were a mass of loud whispers one on top of the other.
Kal was hit with a wave of confusion, blistered with fear. The voices were odd, tinged with echo; and she had a hard time keeping focuse to understand what the voices were saying.
She willed her eyes to adjust as she squinted toward the light and those speaking. At first they were blurry shapes, and then she realized that they were the forms of bodies—people bending over the hole in the ceiling, looking down at her. They were girls, all of them—some young, some older. Kal wasn’t sure of what she’d expected, but seeing those faces confused her. They were just teenagers. Kids. Some of her fear melted away, but not enough to truly calm her. She had no idea if those girls were reliable, or if they’d hurt her. She didn’t know anything.
Someone lowered a rope from above, the end of it tied into a big loop. Kal looked at it and hesitated, but after realizing that it was literally the only way out of the cage she was in, stepped into it with her right foot and clutched the rope as she was yanked toward the sky. Hands reached down, lots of hands, grabbing her by her clothes, pulling her up. The world seemed to spin, a swirling mist of faces and color and light. A big contrast to where she had been not five minutes ago; dark, no way to identify colors and alone.
So many emotions were crashing inside herself, it was so shocking that she wanted to scream, and cry, and run away from that place even if she didn't know where. But she didn’t do any of those things. She stayed there, freezing in place. The chorus of voices had grown silent, but someone spoke once she was standing in the firm floor.
“Nice to meet you, stick,” the girl said. “Welcome to the Glade.”
Kal stood there, watching everywherr while she stayed in her place, afraid that if she moved her legs would give up on her.
She was beyond confused, and everything felt so strange and unnerving. She felt so cornered, too many set of eyes looking directly at her, waiting for her to do something. But she was too stunned to do anything.
"Hey, we know this is confusing “ the same girl as before kept talking, “ but you can trust us, yeah? We've all been through what you're going through now and – “
“ Where am i? Who are you? What..? “ Kal asked one question after the one so quick she wouldn’t be surprised if no one understood what she said. She aslo didn’t care that she had interrupted the other girl in the middle of her sentence. She had a lot of questions and would like to get the answers from her because nothing made sense and she was getting upset.
“ I was going there,thank you. Maybe don’t interrupt next time” The girls asnwered. There was a sharp tone in the edge of her voice, like she was trying her hardest to not get mad about it and keep being nice.
Kal appreciated the gesture,no matter how small.
“ Sorry” Kal settled with, figuring that it couldn’t hurt to be civil with the girl if the girl was making an effort.
“It’s just… “ She trailed off, not really knowing how to express the insides of her mind and the swirl of emotions going throught her.
“Its alright, we get it. My name is Harriet” She girl said, extending her hand in greeting. Kal took it and nervously returned the handshake. “ Kal. “
“Good. Sonya here will give you the tour now, tell you what you need to know right now” Harriet said, pointing to another girl who had been standing nearby and who came over having heard her name.
“The rest of you, back to work! You can all greet the phytie later.” She yelled, and with one last look at Kal and then to Sonya, who nodded to the girl, Harriet turned around and left.
Kal kept watching the girl as she left, mind wondering over what in hell the word phytie meant.
“Hey, ready for the tour?” The blonde girl – Sonya, if she heard correctly- asked.
Kal kept staring at Sonya, who had her long blonde hair done in a braid, and was smiling a little, like she was trying to show Kal that she didn't have to be scared and that they were good and could be trusted, even when the situation was so unbelievable.
Kal sighed, “ as ready as i’ll ever be. I do have questiones though, lots of them”
“I bet you have. I’ll try to answer them, really. But preferably keep them until the end of the tour.”
“Fine.”
Once the tour was over, Kal only had more and more questions. Sonya had showed her all around the glade,giving her the names of the places and the jobs that we’re done and by who. Kal tried her hardest to pay enough attention to remember all of it, but she knew some of it was already fading from her mind. It was going to take a while for her to remember. Especially the odd words Sonya used, and not the ones that were only used by Sonya who had a weird accent to her voice altogether, but the ones the rest of the girls seemed to use too.
They had entered one of the buildings. The kitchen was there, and three girls that were the ones in charge of the food were handing plates to the rest of the girls. Sonya made a hand gesture that Kal interpreted as ' follow me '. They stood in front of the girls, and one with light brown hair and extremely dark brown eyes looked at her and exclaimed, “ You’re the phytie! What’s your name? Did you get the tour already? How –“ Sonya interrumped the girl with a chuckle.
“ Easy Em, let the girl breath, ya?”
The girl, Em, looked down for a second before she set her eyes on Kal again. “Right ya. Im sorry, just trying to-"
Kal interrumped the girl once more, but luckly Em didn’t seem to mind. “ Its fine, don’t worry. I’m Kal.”
Em smiled a little, and handed both girls a plate. Sonya and Kal took the plates and walked over to a table, and Kal saw how Em seemed to greet all of the girls with big smiles and making small talk.
“Is she always that… nice?” Kal asked slowly, turning her head to Sonya.
“Em? Yeah, pretty much. She tries to keep a positive energy and all that.” She said, shuggring slightly.
Kal hummed, not having anything else to say. Instead she just focused on eating and was glad that Sonya was doing the same. She needed some time to think things over. She still had questions, but the desire to ask them right away died earlier.
Twenty minutes later they were done eating, and just sitting on the table. Most of the girls had left already, probably back to their work. She noticed how hard they worked, and how everything seemed to be so organized. They were a community and they worked as a team a lot.
“Are you alright? You’ve been starin’ into the nothingness for eight minutes now”
“ I’m fine, just thinking.”
“I know its a lot to take in, but for what its worth, you’re taking it pretty well.”
“ I’m actually losing my mind but it’s good to know that i can hide it that well” Kal said dryly, more to herself than to Sonya but the blonde girl heard it anyway. And for some reason she aslo found it funny if the laughter she let go was any indicator.
“ Oh yeah phytie. You're as good as an actress” She joked.
“ Phytie? What does it mean? You and the others said it before.”
“Its just a word we use. Means you’re a newbie.”
“ Who thought of that? Like, where did you get it?”
“uh… I think it was Cleo, but i’m not sure. There are more words actually and we sort of made up together? Its a group thing, really.”
“ Tell me about these words? I think i wanna save the heavy questions for later.”
Sonya smiled, and it looked like she was realived for Kal’s decision.
So they continue talking, with Sonya introducing their words and their meanings – Sonya made a lot of hand gestures with her exclamations, like she couldn’t control her hands and their movements while telling something that excited her or if she found it funny, like making up words with the rest of the girls- With Kal listening closely, chimming in here and there. After, when the slang class was over, Sonya kept talking about the other girls, so Kal would at the very least have an idea of who most people were.
Now she knew a few things about some girls in the glade. There was Harriet, their Leader. From the way Sonya described her, Harriet was a really strong and confident, had no trouble telling the girls to back down if needed. It made sense for her to be like that if she was the leader. Sonya herself was the second-in-command. So it was usually her and Harriet keeping the control and order around. Sonya and Harriet were aslo in the big group of girls to come up first to the glade. She learned that Em, one of the cooks from before had only been in the glade for four months, and apparently a new ' phytie’ came up on the box every month. Sonya told her about Ximena, a friend of hers that was in charge of the builders, and Ximena’s girlfriend that worked as a planter who’s name was Ada.
And Kal would like to keep listening to Sonya talking and telling her stories but she was starting to get tired. The stress of the day finally catching with her body making her want to rest.
Sonya showed her where she would be sleeping. It was in another building, and some girls were already sleeping or getting ready for it. However, in their way to the Kitchen/Dining room – she couldn’t remember the name the girls had giving it- to this other building, the main and bigger one, she saw some girls had set up their sleeping bags outside.
As if reading her mind, Sonya spoke softly, not wanting to bother the rest of the girls. “ we still have space to sleep here in the farmstead, but some girls prefer to sleep outside. So, you’re lucky, you get to choose were to sleep. I reckon that if we keep getting phyties they’ll have no choice but to sleep outside”
Kal nodded, but she had honestly lost the energy to keep the conversation. It felt like her brain was finally catching up with her situation and what it meant, and she didn’t have it in her to keep the politeness thing any further.
Sonya seemed to get it, because she just turned without uttering a word and left the farmstead. She must’ve been one of the few that preferred to sleep outside.
Kal curled up on her sleeping bag, and closed her eyes. She stayed like that for what must’ve been hours, hundreds of thoughts racing in her mind with no way to stop them. She was forced by her own mind to listen over and over how bizzare her situation was.
She aslo had to deal with tons of unaswered questions. Like, where was she? Why was she there? Who had put her and the others there? Who trapped them and why? Was there a way out? Could they find it? Would they be safe? She wasn’t sure about that last one. Sonya had showed her the cementery they had. Four girls. Dead. Wherever she was, it was a dangerous place. She could tell that much.
After a while, her mind seemed to pity her enough to let her fall asleep.
Waking up the next day was harsh. The moment Kal opened her eyes and the fog of sleep having left her mind, the reality of the situation she found herself in hit her. Everything she had experienced yesterday was real, and was still real. She was still in the Area, I still had no memories and everything was just as weird as the day before.
Kal sat up on her sleeping bag and looked around. The other girls’ sleeping bags were gone and so where the girls, so Kal assumed they had already started to work. She turned around so fast her neck made a cracking noise when she heard someone clearing her throat behind her. When she was able to focus she noticed a girl, still on her sleeping bag. The girl was starting to sit, hands coming to rub at her eyes as she let out a yawn, and her read hair was in every direction possible. The sight was surprisingly comforting, because with the girl sitting there trying to wake up, she realised she wasn’t alone there. She wasn’t the only one just waking up. It was a weird thing to get comforted by, but Kal wasn’t going to analyze it.
“Oh. Hi” Said the girl, suddenly noticing that she wasn’t alone. The girl quickly tried to push her hair back from her face, and Kal could see her struggling to sound casual and not embarrassed, but her newly awakened voice didn't help much. “im usually the only one here when i wake up. You’re the phytie, aren’t you? I guess it makes sense.”
“ Yeah. I’m Kal”
“ Diana. Nice to meet you.”
“ You too.”
“ We probably should get up, breakfast already started I think.”
So they got up. They packed their sleeping bags and headed for the kitchen. The kitchen was full with movement already, girls moving to get their meals and into the tables. It was so unbelievable. Kal didn’t have a way to know the time, but she knew it was pretty early since the sun had only started to rise if the light was anything to go by.
Kal saw Diana walking towards the cooks, chatting a bit with one of the girls Kal didn’t know the name of. Kal instead approached Em who was already holding a plate by the time Kal was in front of her.
Kal thanked her, but quickly stepped away. Em seemed like a nice girl but she wasn’t feeling like interacting with them so friendly yet. She still had so many questions and was still wondering how real all of it was. She had no idea where she was – she knew it was called the Glade but where was the glade exactly? Why was she and any of the other girls there for the matter? How did any of it happened? And what was outside of the giant walls surronding the glade? She had successfuly ingored what was outside of the glade because it seemed like enough to worry about the actual glade at first, but now she woke up and everything was the same as the day before and she couldn’t keep ignoring reality. No matter how tempting it might be.
Kal looked around the tables, trying to find a spot free when she met Sonya’s figure. Sonya who was waving at her to sit next to her. Kal did, because why not? Sonya had already answered some of her questions and it seemed like the blonde would have no trouble answering again today. Or atleast she hoped so. She hadn’t really talked to anyone but Sonya for more than five minutes.
“Hey” Sonya said once Kal had sat down, “how did you sleep?”
“Fine, i guess.” Kal said, taking a sip of water from her glass. “you?” she added, as an after thought.
Sonya shuggred, taking a bite from her fork. “As good as possible”
They ate quietly for a while. Harriet had come to check on Kal and Sonya but left quickly after that and soon enough Sonya was done with her breakfast but didn’t leave the table. And Kal took that opportunity and asked the questions she didn’t have the energy to ask the previous day. And Sonya answered, every question. Kal was glad because she didn’t want to think of how she was going to react if the girls tried to not explain things to her and just expect for Kal to follow them clueless.
Now she had her questions answered, and it was more disturbing than what Kal could have think of last night. They were trapped- all of them- inside a giant maze. A maze the girls have been trying to find the way out for a year now. The creators , the nameless and faceless people that put them here and erased their memories. Kal felt hatred like no other – no that she could remember if she did- for those people. Who gave them the right to do this to some kids?
After all the information that were thrown at her, she was no longer hungry. In fact, the urge to throw up what she had just eaten had set in, so she and Sonya left the kitchen and went out to the Glade.
“I have to admit, i’m surprised you answered everything for me”
“Yeah… we didn’t use to, with the first phyties. We didn't want to overwhelm them with all the bad news about being trapped in the maze and the grievers and just everything . Turns out that not telling them the truth can be very counterproductive, so now we just tell the whole story. Delicately. Unless you tell me I just scared you for life with the answers I gave you, which wouldn't really surprise me. I'm not saying you're easy to scare! Only all this can be a lot but tell the story carefully is at least the general idea, there is still a risk but not much we can do about it. Sheath! I really talked a lot, didn’t i? Sorry.”
Kal just stared as Sonya rambled, trying really hard to understand what the girl was saying. It took some effort, since the blonde could speak so fast and her accent made it harder to understand but Kal luckly could keep up with most of it. She waited for Sonya to end with her ramble, which she did with nervous laughter and looking to the side and not at Kal.
“It’s fine.” Kal didn't know how to comfort Sonya and let her know that the fact that she had answered her questions hadn't scared her to death - I mean they had scared her but she knew she was going to be more scared without any answer- and that she had been delicate while answering, but she tried her best considering she had no memory of interacting with people before. “ You did a great job answering my questions, i promise.”
“right ya”
“hey! That’s one of your words, isn’t it? And the one you said before, sheath.” It was strange getting the word out, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to it.
“Yes!” Sonya exclaimed, with what seemed like a real smile. Kal returned it.
Kal jumped slightly when another person suddenly joined them, she hadn't even heard someone approaching them. Judging from Sonya's gasp she hadn't either.
“ Bloody hell H! Are you hoping to give us a heart attack or something?” Sonya looked at Harriet, that was grinning at the blonde, with fake exasperation.
“Relax S, i thought you heard me honestly, i wasn’t being quiet” The brunette said.
Sonya shuggred, “ What’s the matter?”
Harriet looked back and forth between Sonya and Kal and then settled on the second-in-command. “ Wondering if you have the first keeper for the phytie in mind? The day started already, she needs to start somewhere” Harriet then turned to Kal, “She did explain to you the deal with the keepers right?”
Sonya rolled her eyes saying, “ Ofcourse i did Harriet” while Kal simply nodded in confirmation.
Sonya had explained it. There were jobs to do in order to survive in the glade, and each job had a keeper. Kal was supposed to try with all of the keepers to see which job fitted her better at the end of the month, and whatever job the keepers and the leaders thought fit the best would be her permanent job until they found their way out of the maze.
“So, i was thinking maybe Ximena? She can start with the builders today and see how it goes” Sonya said, more to Harriet than Kal, and the leader nodded her agreement.
Ximena was… different than the girls Kal had interacted with before. Even if her interactions had been short with Harriet, Em and Diana. It wasn’t necessarily bad, she wasn’t mean or anything but she aslo wasn’t being so nice like Sonya had been so it was a notorious contrast.
For the rest of the day Kal worked under Ximena’s eye, and had some minimal interaction with the other builders because they were really busy too. Kal could tell Ximena took her job seriously, and that the rest of the builders respected her a big deal. Actually, everyone seemed to have a huge respect to the builders and Kal assumed it had to do with the fact that they were the reason they had as many buildings as they had. Like the builders had made the Kitchen in a different building so the farmstead could be used to sleep among other things and they wouldn’t have to sleep in the same room where they eat, for example.
However, when her first day came to an end she was exhausted. Besides that, it had been an okay day. She didn’t do terribly at the job, maybe one mistake here and there but above all good. She was a fast learner apparently. Even one of the builders, a tall girl named Ethel, said that she had done well for a phytie .
Kal was sitting on the floor with her back against a tree. She closed her eyes and tried to make her mind stop. It was easy to let herself be distracted while she worked. She only had to focus on the task at hand and didn’t allow her mind to spiral into all the dark thoughts there. Didn’t have to dwell on the fact that she was trapped in a giant maze with a bunch of girls she didn’t know and even if she did know them before, she had no memory of it and neither did said girls. It was a lot of what ifs. She could die here in the glade, in the maze. She could never find her way out, a way home. Home. Did she even had one? A family? A place where there was people missing her? Looking for her?
Maybe this is why these girls work so much, she thought. Working made you forget, even for a little while.
She was startled when she heard a voice close to her.
“Here you are!” She looked up, confused. The girl standing next to her It wasn't someone she knew - neither the name nor having seen her around- so she wasn’t sure what the girl was doing here. “I’ve been looking for you” Alright that answered it, to some extent. It did not answer the why however.
The girl leaning against the tree was blonde, but it wasn't the same blonde Sonya had. Sonya, who had a darker tone of blonde almost a honey tone, this girl's hair was way more lighter, like white and minimum yellow sand color. And this girl’s eyes were green, a really deep green. Just below her left eye, on her cheek, she had a scar. It was a jagged line that started just below the corner of her eye and extended to her nose. Kal became concerned as she began to think about what could have happened to make the girl get a wound deep enough for it to scar. She looked to be 14 years old, maybe 15. One thing was for sure, she hadn’t seen the girl before.
“Who are you?” She finally asked.
“ I’m Cleo. Harriet told me to come and get you. You’re gonna miss your surprised staying here all lonely with thw trees, stick”
“What? What surprise? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kal couldn't help but notice the use of one of the Glade girls' made-up words.
“That is exactly why it’s called a surprise.”
Kal rolled her eyes but stood up nontheless.
“why haven’t i seen you before?”
“I was there when you came up in the box yesterday, you probably didn’t see me with all the crowd. And im one of the few that chooses to sleep outside.”
They started to walk through the little forest inside the glade, and it shocked Kal realising how deep she had walked in when she looked for a place to have some time alone.
“I talked with Ximena, you know?” Cleo said suddenly, “ She said you did pretty good in your first day with her group”
Kal felt a pinch of pride at the comment, but didn’t comment on it further. Instead, she asked another thing that was on her mind.
“what’s your job?”
Kal apparently did okay with the builders in her first day, and she still had to work with them for a few days before rotating and starting to work with the next group until they can find the most favorable job for her skills. She was a bit unsure of which work they would give her, and if she’d be okay with it.
Because no matter how much it might help to distract her mind, she only truly wanted to get out of the place, of the maze. She wanted to be free and have her memories back. She needed to leave the prision she had been put into. And for the brief explanation of the jobs that Sonya had told her, there was only one job that was guaranteed to search for a way out. Becoming a runner. She knew the others job were as important, they’d be dead without them. But being a runner meant actively look for a way out. And though Kal hadn't told anyone about it, she kind of wanted that job position over the rest.
“Oh i’m one of the runners” Cleo said, gaining all of Kal's attention with that simple sentence. “Anyway, we should hurry. They’re waiting for you”
“Yeah, you haven’t told what that surprise thing was about yet” She really wanted to keep the conversation about the jobs going but if the way Cleo changed the subject so quickly made it seem like she wasn’t so willing to talk about it. Reason why let the conversation change its curse.
“And i’m not going to! Misses the whole point of it”
“You could tell and i’d act surprised once im there”
“Rather not risk it.”
Chapter 2
Notes:
Hii !! Sorry it took so long, but i've been busy with school and irls stuff. However im really excited about this story so i will continue to write this.
Hope yall enjoy this one, and i'll be posting the next one soon!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Once they were out of the forest Kal could see all the girls. They were grouped, some in circles and others in pairs but relatively close to each other, talking and laughing.
It was a stark difference from what Kal had already witnessed regarding the girls' behavior.
“What’s going on?” She asked puzzled, looking at Cleo.
Cleo was looking around to the girls before her eyes settled on and a grin formed in her face. “C’mon, follow me” She said, walking off without looking back.
Kal followed. She was curious about pretty much everything. A few steps later she realised where -or on who- Cleo’s eyes had been staring at when she saw Harriet and Sonya talking to each other in the direction Cleo was leading them.
“Hello my favorite commanders!” Cleo exclaimed, somehow getting between Sonya and Harriet with an arm outstretched around the shoulders of the other two girls.
Harriet rolled her eyes but Kal noticed a hint of amusement behind them, Sonya just shook her head with a chuckle.
“ Here’s the phytie! Told you i’d find her.” She said.
“So, care to explain what’s going on now?” Kal asked looking at the girls standing in front of her.
It was a bit intimidating, one versus three sort of thing. Clearly, they weren’t going to fight or anything but it was obvious the girls had known the other longer whilst this was Kal’s second day in the glade. She had a right to be nervous.
“We know this is your second night here but this is sort of a group welcome to the glade thing?” Sonya said hesitantly. “ We’d have made it the first night but the tour took longer than usual and you were really tired and we thought it best to let you rest “
Kal looked at them without saying anything back. She didn’t know what to say. It was nice enough that they all they postponed their 'welcome' to let her rest but she didn't know how she felt about the welcome part either. Welcome to what? A giant maze with monsters? A prision you couldn't escape?
“What Sonya was trying to say,” Harriet added. “is that this is for you to get to know us better and for us to know you as well. We’re all trapped here and we need to be a team and work well together if we want to find the way out of this place.”
“Oh.” That actually made sense. Kal nodded at them with a small smile. “Thats great. Thanks for put it off, I don't think I would have been good company last night.” Not with all the thoughts and fears her mind was being forced with. Not with all the unaswered questions.
“I gotta go talk with Ximena, feel free to join us later phytie! “ Cloe said, “Do try to speak with some of the girls though, they’re not so bad!” Kal assumed she was joking, but there wasn’t much she could say back since Cloe left before anyone could give an answer.
Harriet rolled her eyes at Cloe, but she was smiling softly. It was clear they were friends. “She’s right, you should go talk with some of the girls. It might seem easier to be alone but believe me, being alone is not something you want here Phytie” She turned around, tapping Sonya's shoulder lightly as if to indicate that they should leave and let Kal talk to the others. And Sonya seemed to get all that, making a couple of steps following Harriet – who was already walking away- before she turned around and quicky made those steps back to be infront of Kal.
“You were good company yesterday, phytie.” She said, her voice gentle and sincere.
It made Kal smiled brighter, “Thank you.” Was all that she managed to let out. It looked to be enough for Sonya, who turned around and trailed off after Harriet, her own smile staying even as she anf Harriet walked away.
Kal stood there, taking deep breaths to calm down and get ready to get to know the rest of the girls. She looked around, and sighed in relief when she spotted Diana sitting with two other girls. She made her way toward them and as she got closer, she recognized one of the girls being a part of the builders. Kal didn’t know the girl’s name but she had seen her earlier when she was working with the builders.
“Hey there stick!” Diana exclaimed when Kal was close enough to them. “Come sit with us”
So Kal did. And they talked.
First, Diana had introduced her to the other girls.
The girl Kal had recognized as a builder was named Ethel. Ethel had her dark hair tied up in a bun, and Kal noticed that the girl's entire face was covered with freckles. She couldn't be any older than the other two, that seemed to be fifteen years old. It made Kal wondered what she looked like. She had no idea. She only knew her hair was black and long, but that was it. Maybe she could ask one of the girls to tell her.
Ethel was aslo the last phytie until Kal, so she was still trying to understand the glade and the maze and it made Kal feel better because until that moment it felt like she was the only clueless and scared one.
And the second girl, was Ada. Kal had already heard about the planter from Sonya so it was nice to finally meet her. Ada was really nice, she told Kal about how it was being a planter and living in the glade was like.
She mentioned Ximena a few times, and every time she did she would smile and her hazel eyes would lit up, like just the mention of her girlfriend made her shine with joy. It was odd, considering where they were and their life, Kal wouldn’t have expected any of them to be happy but Ada seemed to feel happiness and love with Ximena, and that was comforting. It meant not everything was lost yet. It was hope.
Diana had come to the glade with the first big group of girls, and she was the keeper of the docs, they tended injuries to the best of their abilities, with the things they had.
The time passed and Kal barely even noticed, absorbed in the moment.
Ada had left to sit down with her girlfriend and other girls, and not much after Ethel stood up too and left. Kal saw her sitting down next to Em, in the bigger circle of girls.
“Diana, can i ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“What do I look like?”
That got Diana’s attention. The girl looked at Kal amazed but didn’t comment on whatever her mind was thinking. Instead she shifted on the floor, so her body would be facing Kal and looked, really looked at Kal.
“You can’t be older than 15. Your eyes are brown, you have a mole on your right cheek, i’m not sure about your height though, but i’d say its pretty standard. Is that enough or do you need more?”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks.”
“No problem. I thought someone would have told you about your looks by now”
“I don’t know… I hadn’t even though about it until recently. Guess my mind was too busy dealing with…” Kal made some gestures with her hands to indicate the entire Glade and the maze.
“Yeah. You’re taking it pretty well, all things considered.”
Kal’s mind flashed to Sonya saying something similiar to her. Was she really taking it that well? She had been so scared yesterday, her mind in a constant state of freaking out a bit more with every new thing she learned about the place. And it was barely her second day at the glade. She could admit to herself thar while she was scared about the entire thing, her fear had been slowly but surely morphing into a different thing. She wanted to get out of that place. She wanted to find who she was, why was she sent here and by who. Who had done this?
“I’m gonna go get something to drink. Do you want anything?” Diana asked, standing up.
“yeah, thanks.”
Notes:
Kudos, comments, thoughts are appreaciated
FilisMaze on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Feb 2022 02:00PM UTC
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Bluereign on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Feb 2022 10:28PM UTC
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