5

*three weeks later* (yes I know, another time-skip)


The box is coming today. It's come up every week for the past month, and I've discovered that I can scribble down requests for things and sometimes they let me have them, sometimes not. I asked for a fridge but got a pretty big esky, which is fine.


I get up from my spot next to my fire, and grab my ladder as I go.


"Hello? Hey is anyone here?" Someone is calling out from the box. I put my hand on the knife I carry in my belt, coming forwards slowly.


I peak over the rim of the box and see a boy standing there, blinking at the sky.


"Who are you?" I ask, one hand still on my knife.


"Name's Alby." He says, lifting a hand to shield his eyes, "and you are?"


"(Y/N), I've been here a month." I don't know why I added that last bit on, but I'm in charge here.


"Right," Alby says, "do you have any idea where we are?" I shake my head.


"Some kind of farm, but it has walls."


"Walls?" he asks, and I shake my head again, dropping the ladder down and fastening it to the hinges.


"You'll see."


Alby is a good climber. He makes it to the top very and extends a hand to me. I shake it.


He's quite tall too, with a shaved head and dark skin.


"Ah," is all he says when he sees the walls.


"Yeah," I say, then pick up my rope from where I put it down. "Come help me get these supplies up and I'll show you around."


It's so much faster and easier with two. I climb back down in the box with one end of the rope and tie it around the supplies while Alby pulls them up and stacks them in a pile. We put them away then I give him the grand tour.


"So," he asks as I show him the barn, "what's outside the walls?"


"I have no idea," I says cheerfully, "but at night they close up and there are these awful noises. You'll see soon enough."


"And you've just been living here for the last month?"


"Yep," I toss a biscuit of hay to the cows, "I have no idea where I came from or where this place and I haven't got any memories."


"Yeah me neither," he shuts the gate to the pen behind me as I dip into a barrel of grain, "I know I know a lot but none of it is personal."


"Yeah, that's what I get too. This place is really weird."


I throw the grain to the chickens and grab an egg out of their nest, checking if it's fertilised. It isn't, so I guess there'll be omelettes for lunch.


I show Alby the gardens, then the shack – which I've started calling the homestead for some reason – and the weapons room as well as the slammer.


I decide to make lunch since it's almost twelve, and send Alby to get some vegetables. We have capsicum, tomato, and carrot now.


He puts the vegetables down on the sink and starts washing them, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Have you ever gone outside the Glade?"


"Well," I say, stopping what I'm doing, "no. I have everything here and I don't want to get lost. I think there are things out there when the walls close."


"Fair enough, but you could map which way you were going right?"


"I suppose." I pour the egg into the frypan I have on the gas stove and watch it sizzle. Alby passes me the chopped and washed capsicum and carrot and I add them in, flipping when I judge the other side is cooked.


When it's done I cut it in half and serve it up, showering mine with a generous helping of pepper. I catch Alby watching and I raise an eyebrow. "What?"


He shakes his head, taking the peeper off me. "I have never seen anyone use that much pepper." He says, and shakes about a teaspoon onto his own food and it's my turn to shake my head.


"How can you even taste that?"


He shrugs, grabbing the fork I hand him.


Omelettes are pretty good food, I decide as I'm washing up the dishes. We have a few more chickens now, thanks to the solitary rooster, although a lot of the time I keep him separate to the chickens.


As I'm putting away the frypan, Alby says something unexpected. "I'm going outside the walls."


I look at him, trying to see if he's joking. He isn't.


"Ok, I'm not stopping you." I doubt I could if I tried anyway. "But," I say, reaching into a cupboard, "you should take this," I hand him a pen, "and I'll get you a compass and paper." He nods, and I go to grab the supplies.


I was confused when I first found the compasses, but now they're coming in handy.


Alby heads off through the South Door, walking swiftly and surely, making notes on his bit of paper.


I can't believe there's another person here with me. I'm not alone any more. And although Alby seems a little grumpy, he's company.


The sun's getting low in the sky and Alby still isn't back. I start making dinner, anxiously checking the doors every few minutes until finally I see a figure jog through them.


He looks puffed and sweaty, so I grab him a glass of water. When he gets to where I am he accepts the glass with a nod, drains it, refills it and drains it again.


"Find anything out there?" I ask, and he scowls.


"It's a bugging maze. We're inside a maze."


"A maze?"


"Yeah, labyrinth, puzzle, whatever."


"What the hell?" I say, mutilating an onion as tears stream down my cheeks. They're from the onion, though I'm pretty angry too. Who puts kids in a maze? Alby looks like he's only about 16 and I can't be much different.


"I know," he says, taking a sip from his third glass of water.


"Why?" I ponder.


"(Y/N) it doesn't matter why, fact is we're stuck in a huge maze!"


"Yeah I know," I reply, scraping the onion into a pot, "it's just stupid."


Alby snorts.


I continue making dinner in silence, until I ask Alby to chop up the pieces of chicken I prepared earlier.


"You kill this?" he asks me.


"No," I say sarcastically, "it just prepared itself for me."


"Ok, ok, I get your point."


I roll my eyes, but smile to show I'm only joking around. He grins back.


We eat at the fire, the flames dancing between us. The food is good, I don't kill chickens very often and I realise that I missed eating chicken. Again with my weird memory loss.


When we're done I wash up while Alby dries, then we head back to the campfire. I lie down I my usual spot and Alby takes a place on the opposite side.


The warmth of the fire on my face makes me drowsy, but I can still hear the noises over the crackling of the flames.


"See?" I say to Alby, "noises."


"What the hell is that?" He asks and I shrug, then realise he can't see me.


"I have no idea and I never want to find out."

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