For the first few seconds after the Box stopped, all I could do was squint into the light and try not to look like a guy who was about to either pass out or start swearing at the sky.
To be fair, both reactions would have been earned.
Faces hung over me. Too many faces at once. Boys, teenagers, older guys. Some were grinning, some were openly staring, and some were looking at me like they were already deciding whether I counted as trouble. Above them was a patch of blue sky so bright that after the metal dark below, my head spun for a second.
"So, shank, you climbing out on your own or do you need a ceremonial rescue?" somebody called down.
"Don't expect too much from him," another voice said. "He can barely blink yet."
A few of them laughed.
The slang hit almost as hard as the sunlight. Faintly familiar. Unpleasantly recognizable. Right. Another confirmation. Subtle work, universe.
I raised one hand to shield my eyes and pushed myself fully upright. My legs trembled a little, but they held. That was something.
"If this is your warm welcome," I said after clearing my throat, "I'd hate to see what counts as rude around here."
Somebody above the edge of the Box snorted.
"You hear that? The shank's got a mouth."
"And probably teeth too," somebody else added.
"Maybe even a brain. Could be a rare model."
The laughter rolled a little easier that time, and the tension around me shifted by a degree. It didn't disappear, obviously. But it eased just enough to tell me I hadn't completely failed the first local test of don't look useless.
I planted a hand on the rim of the Box and stood. The world tilted immediately, the light stabbed at my eyes, and the air hit my lungs with a rush of warmth and openness that felt almost unreal after the metal stink below. Grass, dirt, sweat, old wood, and something frying somewhere in the distance.
For some reason, that smell hit harder than anything else.
Because it was too real.
Too alive for a hallucination.
Too ordinary for a nightmare.
Which meant this wasn't a dream.
Two hands suddenly grabbed my forearms and hauled me up. I tensed on instinct, but didn't fight it. A second later I was out of the Box and standing on solid ground.
My legs almost buckled. Not from weakness exactly. More because my body still hadn't caught up with the fact that it was standing in open air instead of a vibrating steel coffin.
I straightened and finally saw the Glade.
For one short second, the whole world seemed to hold still.
Massive stone walls rose on every side so abruptly and unnaturally that something in my chest tightened just from looking at them. Gray, towering, impossibly tall, stretching upward until my neck already hurt trying to follow them. Between those walls lay something that looked like a courtyard, a camp, and a rough little settlement all at once: wooden buildings, beaten dirt paths, gardens, fenced areas, people, lots of people, and in the middle of all of it, the feeling of a life built out of scraps and stubbornness.
It really was the Glade.
Not a scene from a movie.
Not a page from a book.
Not some fuzzy memory from another life.
The Glade.
Real.
Something inside me went cold.
Because I remembered one simple truth much too clearly: nothing good had ever come attached to that word.
"Easy there, greenie," a voice said from my right. "Don't piss yourself. We don't hand out spare pants."
I turned.
The guy who said it was smirking like he personally managed the camp's supply of bad jokes. A few others stood near him, each looking me over in his own way. Some with ordinary curiosity. Some with mockery. Some with the kind of irritation that was already there before I'd even done anything.
Damn it, even without names it was all too familiar.
A crowd of boys. A sealed world. A new greenie. Slang. Walls. The Maze. Everything fit together so perfectly that I was starting to feel entitled to a refund.
"I have options?" I asked.
"Yep," somebody behind him answered. "You can cry, pass out, or puke. Newbies usually pick one."
"Impressive selection," I said. "But I think I'll skip surprises for today."
A few of them laughed again.
I noticed a tall blond guy shift forward at the front of the group. There was a slight hitch in the way he stood. Not dramatic, but noticeable. Beside him stood an older Black guy who wasn't laughing at all. He looked at me calmly and hard, like someone used to deciding very quickly what to do with a new problem.
And yeah, that was the moment the last stupid shred of denial finally died.
Because I was pretty sure I already knew who I was looking at.
Not even by name yet. By role. By weight. By the way the others kept checking them without meaning to.
One of them was the center of order.
The other was the support that kept that order standing.
Alby and Newt.
And if that was true, then things were really bad.
Because that meant everyone else existed somewhere nearby too.
I cut the thought off hard.
Not now.
I did not need to sprint that far ahead. The current level of disaster was already more than enough.
"Move it, shanks," the Black guy said quietly, and somehow everyone heard him.
The crowd shifted with obvious reluctance, but it shifted. Not completely, of course. The most curious ones still hung around, pretending they just happened to be nearby. But the ring around me loosened.
The blond guy glanced from me to the Box and back again, like he was comparing notes.
"You can walk?" he asked.
British accent. Also familiar. Great. Just great.
"It'd be awkward if I couldn't," I said.
He snorted.
"Then we'll test that."
The Black guy looked me right in the eye.
"What's your name?"
The question hit harder than it should have.
I opened my mouth.
And nothing came out.
Because there it was again: the hole in my head.
Not a dramatic pause. Not a mysterious act. Just blankness. Clean, cold, familiar blankness.
Something changed in the faces around me. The suspicion sharpened.
"I..." I started, then clenched my teeth.
Nothing.
Damn it.
"Don't remember," I said at last, honestly, which somehow made it even more irritating.
A wave of murmurs passed through the crowd.
"Another one with no memory."
"No way, really?"
"Like it ever happens different, shuck-face."
The blond guy narrowed his eyes, but not unkindly. More like he was measuring me.
"Relax, shank. It's like that for everyone."
For everyone.
Right. Of course. Helpful reminder.
It did not make me feel better.
The Black guy watched me for another few seconds, then gave a short nod to himself, like he'd checked off something on an internal list.
"All right. Move."
"To where exactly?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Somebody nearby smirked.
"Oh, this one's quick."
"Is that good or bad?" I shot back.
"Haven't decided yet," the blond said.
And for just a second, something in me loosened.
Not because I felt safe. There was nothing remotely safe anywhere in sight. But because the conversation was real. The world was answering me back. I was still a person, not just a body dumped out of the Box.
I moved with them.
The grass under my feet felt springy and a little damp. Somewhere to the left, smoke and food drifted through the air. To the right were rows of crops, and beyond them wooden buildings, sheds, work areas, maybe all of the above. Boys were moving everywhere, all of them busy: hauling crates, fixing things, carrying water, arguing, laughing. There was life here, rough and ugly in places, but undeniably alive.
That only made it worse.
Because when a nightmare starts keeping a schedule, it becomes a lot more convincing.
I looked up at the walls again despite myself. Between two enormous stretches of stone I could see an opening, and beyond it, shadow. Even from a distance it felt wrong. Like a mouth.
The Maze.
The word answered immediately in my head.
I looked away before anyone noticed how hard my attention had snagged on it.
That part felt especially bad, because underneath the fear there was interest.
Not tourist curiosity. Something deeper. Almost physical. A pull to get closer, to see, to understand, to test it.
And that scared me nearly as much as the walls themselves.
Because somewhere in the wreckage of my memory sat another piece of knowledge.
It wasn't just that I'd be allowed in there eventually.
I was going to want in there.
Badly.
"Watch where you're going," the blond threw over his shoulder.
"Doing my best," I said.
"Doesn't look like it."
"Your architecture is distracting."
That got a more visible smirk out of him.
The Black guy in front didn't even turn around.
"You talk a lot," he said.
"Temporary condition," I replied. "Once I understand what's happening, I'll become mysteriously quiet."
A few boys behind us laughed out loud.
"No, we don't need that," one of them called. "Keep the defective one."
"Go work, Frypan," somebody else shot back.
Names, nicknames, tones, routines, all of it kept dropping neatly into place. I grabbed at details almost greedily, like if I collected enough of them I'd somehow get control back. It didn't work. If anything, the opposite happened. The more things matched, the sharper the feeling became that this wasn't just a dangerous story.
It was a story that already had a main character.
And I really did not like how close to that role I seemed to be standing.
If I wasn't already in it.
If I wasn't—
No.
I cut the thought off before it could fully form.
Getting dropped into The Maze Runner was already bad enough.
But if it turned out I wasn't just one random Glader and had landed in something much worse, then I could officially start screaming.
Too early for that.
They led me past a long table under a shelter, past a fire pit, past a row of uneven wooden structures that looked like they had been assembled out of boards, stubbornness, and threats directed at architecture itself. Eyes kept catching on me from all directions. Some only for a second. Some in a way that felt sticky and unpleasant.
I was already beginning to understand the cost of novelty in a place like this.
A new person here wasn't a gift.
A new person was a variable.
And closed systems never liked variables.
"Hey, greenie," someone called from my left.
I turned.
A boy of maybe thirteen or fourteen waved at me with the enthusiasm of someone who might have personally ordered my arrival. Round face, quick eyes, curiosity with almost no filter.
"Don't die in your first hour," he announced seriously. "Or I'll lose a bet."
I blinked.
"That's encouraging."
"I do my best."
"Chuck, shut up," somebody said wearily.
Chuck.
The name landed in my memory immediately.
I looked at him a little more carefully, and another jolt of recognition went through me. Yeah. That one felt familiar too. Not as a picture exactly, more like the shape of a person: loud, clingy, harmless, and way too open for a place like this.
"Nice to meet you, Chuck," I said.
"You have no idea what you just got yourself into," he replied with the pride of someone who genuinely considered himself a natural disaster.
"Actually, I kind of do. That's what worries me."
He laughed like I'd made a good joke.
If only.
We went a little farther before they finally stopped in front of a larger wooden building that looked like it had been built out of planks, stubbornness, and threats.
The Black guy turned to face me fully.
Up close, his stare pressed even harder. Not angry. Just heavy, focused, used to responsibility.
The blond moved to one side, resting more on his good leg.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
I kept quiet too. Partly because I didn't want to say anything unnecessary. Partly because I was still trying to sort everything I'd already seen.
The Glade was real.
The slang was real.
The Maze was real.
Chuck was real.
And the two guys standing in front of me were probably exactly who I thought they were.
Which meant my chances of being some random extra were slowly but very steadily sinking.
Finally, the Black guy spoke.
"Right now, you shut up, listen, and don't act smart. Got it?"
I met his gaze.
"Under the circumstances, that sounds pretty reasonable."
The blond gave a quiet huff of amusement.
"Progress already," he said.
I didn't smile, but I wanted to.
Because, strangely enough, that was the exact moment one simple truth hit me all the way through.
This wasn't just a world I'd once read about.
It was a system of people, habits, looks, roles, and routines that had existed long before I got dropped into the middle of it.
And if I wanted to survive here, then waving half-remembered canon around was the worst thing I could do. First I needed to become part of that system.
At least enough that they stopped seeing me as dead weight.
The problem was, one ugly feeling kept growing stronger the longer I looked around.
I might not get to be dead weight.
Too much matched.
Too cleanly.
Too precisely.
Too on time.
I still didn't know my name.
I didn't know exactly where I was in the timeline.
I didn't know how accurate my memory of canon even was.
But for the first time, I was scared not just of the world itself, but of my place in it.
Because if I got one very important conclusion wrong, somebody could end up paying for it later.
And from what little I remembered, the price here was never small.