Anne was happy to see that Newt was in a better mood after their conversation in the Deadheads. The next morning, he straightened things out with Alby. They exchanged smiles and she actually heard him laugh. Not one of those tired laughs she was used to hearing from him, but a real, happy laugh that showed that maybe he wasn't going to be that sad, depressed boy she met when she first came to the Glade. He didn't suddenly turn into a cheery happy person filled with sunshine and rainbows and she completely understood that. He would need time to push back whatever haunted him and she knew or hoped, that everyone would make sure to give him that time.

Just like the Med-jack's job demanded, Anne was busy cleaning up bloody noses and scraped elbows when Newt walked into the room she was in. "Guess who's going to get a weird job schedule?"

Anne looked up from her work, pretending to think. She already knew what was going on. Clint had told her that morning that he was going to a Gathering Nick had called in order to discuss Newt's situation. They had given him almost a whole month of free time because of his injury and now needed to discuss a new job for him.

"You?" Anne asked, after a second, placing a band aid over the wound on the boys knee.

"Yeah," Newt said as the boy, whom she had finished patching up, walked out of the room. He sat down on the bed while she cleaned up. "They held a Gathering this morning and decided I'd just be helpin' around. Nothing much. So, anything I can do to help you?"

"Yeah," Anne said, turning to look at him. "You can start by getting off the bed because there's probably blood on it."

Newt jumped up and off the bed, turning around to look at the white sheets which didn't have even a little bit of blood on it. He turned to her confused only to see her trying very hard not to laugh.

"You should've seen your face," Anne said as she let out a laugh.

"Ha ha," Newt said, though Anne could see a smile tugging at his lips.

Clint walked into he room and upon noticing Newt, smiled at him. "Getting started already?"

"Might as well," Newt said. "What'd ya got for me?"

Clint scratched the back of his head as he thought. "Well, you could restock the inventory. We got new sup-"

"No!" Lincoln's voice called from the other room. "That's mine and Anne's domain! No touchy touchy!"

Anne clapped a hand over her mouth to keep the laughter from bubbling out of her lips. She remembered Lincoln telling her they were inventory partners a few weeks back. He seemed to be taking that very seriously.

Anne walked out of the room and poked her head into the room Lincoln was in. "Maybe Newt could help us."

Lincoln held a hand to his chest, dramatically gasping and widening his eyes. "I can't believe you would do this to me!"

Anne rolled her eyes. "Shut up, drama queen." Then she gestured for Newt to follow her to the small storage room and got to work on putting things up on the shelves. Lincoln joined them a while later, telling them about how he had to clean up a bloody nose caused by someone slamming a door in the poor boys face. He always seemed to have some hilarious story to tell them.

***

Anne stayed up late that night, thinking. Her mind was overflowing with thoughts that threatened to drown her if she didn't sift through them soon. It was a whole blur of topics, but almost all of them came under one title. The Maze. The others were about the weird dream she had had the previous night.

She wondered who the boy and the girl were and why she was for some reason, unable to see their faces clearly. Maybe the people who put them here could do that. They already seemed to be doing extraordinarily horrible things to them so why not add that to the list as well.

Annr thought about why a bunch of people would send innocent teenagers into a Maze filled with deadly creatures. Maybe they weren't innocent. Maybe they were criminals who had done something so horrible that the people outside couldn't allow them to be kept anywhere other than in such a hostile environment. Maybe they were all murderers or cannibals and they just couldn't remember it.

The images her thoughts conjured up were absolutely weird and some were even disgusting. Her mind even manged to conjure up an image that was so detailed just like the memory from the previous night, that she thought it might also be real. It was of a man covered in sores and dark veins that ran up his arms and to his neck. His hair looked like it had been pulled out roughly and painfully and he had bloodshot eyes that looked like a maniacs and his nose was missing. He looked like he was about to launch himself at the first person he could find before proceeding to rip them to shreds.

Anne shook her head, a bit shaken by the images in her mind. She wondered if her imagination was just that good or whether there was the chance that that disturbing image was real.

A small red light beside her window caused Anne to turn towards it. Her eyes were squinted in an attempt to see through the darkness. She had a single candle in her room, but had already blown it out so it was dark other than the small mount of light provided by the lit torched near the Homestead. The red light moved and she heard light clicks like metal against wood as it did. She moved closer to examine it further and saw what appeared to be a metal bug the size of her palm. She recoiled away from the thing when it turned towards her, the red light shining right into her face.

There had been something written on its back in bold, black letters. A simple word or rather an acronym, that sent a chill down her back.

W. I. C. K. E. D.

That didn't sound like it could be anything good. She looked back towards the window and saw the creature crawling away and out of sight. She peeked out the window, noticing small red lights, identical to he one she had seen just now. There must be lots of those, whatever it was, running around the Glade. How had she not noticed it before. With a sigh, Anne crawled back into her bed. She tucked her knees to her chest, kicking away the sheets despite it actually being cold. She was tired and she knew she should sleep. She would have to wake up early in the morning no matter how much sleep she manged to get.

Anne closed her eyes but opened it the next second when the image of the man with the sores and bloodshot eyes popped into her mind. She opened her eyes wide, and too frightened to stay in her dark room much longer, climbed out of bed. She reached under her bed and pulled out her shoes and quickly pulled them on before rushing to open the door.

She tried to be as quiet as possible, knowing that everyone else would be asleep by, but failed horribly when the door emitted a loud creak as she pulled it open. She winced and froze in place, thinking someone might have woken up. But when no sound came from any of the rooms, she stepped out onto the corridor and started walking towards the door, leaving her door open. She didn't want to make any more noise.

Happy about the fact that the door leading out didn't make any noise, Anne stepped out onto the lawn, letting out a sigh when she felt the cool breeze on her face.

She cast her eyes around the Glade where she could see boys fast asleep. Some of them had hammocks tied up to trees near the Deadheads and others slept on blankets near the Homestead. Overall, they all looked peaceful and a lot happier than they did while awake.

Anne was wondering whether she should just head back to her room, now feeling very silly about the fact that she had frightened herself with her imagination when she spotted someone walking towards a tall structure built by the Builders. She remembered Gally telling her it was a sort of look out tower that the Baggers could use or just some place where they could 'chill.'

She frowned, unable to identify the person just by seeing his silhouette. He was climbing up the structure, head tilted up as he made his way to the very top where he leaned slightly against the railing as he cast his eyes around the Glade.

The boy froze when his eyes landed on her and Anne frowned. He looked familiar. She squinted her eyes again, trying to see through the darkness. It was easier to see his face now since the light from the torches near the Homestead cast a slight glow on him. It was Newt.

Newt raised an arm up and waved her over. She only thought about it once before heading towards the structure. It was tall. Very tall. Anne held tightly onto anything she could reach until she reached the trapdoor that lead to the very top. She pushed it open with her hand and climbed up onto the landing.

Newt was still standing near the railing where he had been standing before, but had now turned around to face her. "What are you doin' up so late?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Okay, fair enough," Newt nodded. "I can't sleep. You?"

"I'm pretty sure I scared myself," Anne answered simply, surprisingly not embarrassed to admit it to him. They were friends and she had faith in him to not laugh in her face.

Newt looked amused by her answer. "How do you manage to scare yourself?"

"I was thinking about this whole place and why we are here and imagined the worst case scenarios," Anne answered then frowned as she continued. "And then I imagined a terrifying looking man. Or more a zombie than a man actually."

"So, a guy with green skin and a thirst for brains?" Newt teased, holding his hands up towards her. "Me want brains."

Anne just rolled her eyes. "More like bloodshot eyes and sores all over the body with missing chunks of hair. And a missing nose."

"That is really specific," Newt said slowly, a frown on his face. "And creepy."

"Yup," Anne mumbled.

"C'mon," Newt said after a second of silence, gesturing for her to come over to where he was standing near the railing. He turned around to face the Glade. "It's dark now, but you can see the whole Glade from here."

She slowly walked to the railing and looked down once before shaking her head, quickly leaning away from the railing and taking a step back. "Nope. That's just terrifying."

Newt chuckled, amused by the expression on her face. "You're afraid of heights?"

"No," she shook her head again. "I'm afraid of falling to my death."

"That's the same thing."

"It really isn't."

He tried to get her to come near the railing again, and after several minutes spent begging, she caved. Anne gripped onto the wooden poles so hard that her knuckles turned white. She felt dizzy every time she looked down but when she didn't focus on how high up they were it wasn't that scary.

"I wanted to say thank you," Newt mumbled after a second of silence, eyes cast down as he played with his hands nervously.

"About what?" She asked, a bit confused as she stepped away from the railing.

"Alby said you talked to him," Newt explained, "and you told me how stupid I was being too. So thanks for that."

"You're thanking me for telling you you're stupid?" she joked, a smile on her lips. Newt rolled his eyes at her, nudging her side with his elbow.

"You know what I mean," he said, a hint of a smile on his lips.

"I know," she said. "You just needed a little push, but I have a feeling you would have talked to him eventually anyway."

A comfortable silence spread between the two of them as they both stared up at the sky. Anne was able to forget, for just a moment that they were stuck within a maze as she stared at the glistening stars in the night sky.

Anne's attention was drawn back down when she noticed a red light, identical to the one she had seen near her bedroom window a few minutes ago. She looked over at it, seeing the small bug like metallic creature from where the light came crawl around. It appeared to be watching them.

Newt noticed her curiously eyeing the creature and spoke up. "That's a Beetle Blade."

"A what?" Anne asked, turning to him.

"A Beetle Blade," Newt repeated. "We think they have tiny little cameras. Ya know. So the Creators can watch us. There are loads of those little buggers around here."

Anne wondered why she hadn't noticed the creatures before because Newt was right. There were lots of them around the entire Glade. She could see the small red lights coming from them. "Creators?" She asked after a second.

"That's what we call the people who sent us here."

"Oh..."

When Anne turned back to look at where the Beetle blade had previously been, it had already crawled away, climbing down the poles at a fast speed.

"You know..." Newt wondered after a beat of silence. "You won't be the Greenie anymore in a few days."

Anne turned to him, only realising that just then. She had been in the Glade for over three weeks. The first two were spent doing different jobs, one each day. She could still remember her first day trying out to be a Medjack. The third week had passed away in a blur and it was nearing a month since her arrival in the Maze.

"Do you think it'll be another girl?" Newt wondered.

"I hope so," Anne mumbled. "Then maybe I'll have someone to talk to."

Newt raised his eyebrows at her. "And here I thought we were such good friends."

"That's not what I meant," Anne said quickly, panicking when she thought she might have offended him.

"I'm gonna have to find Gally and give him the news," the corner of Newt's mouth twitched as he fought a smile, "and Lincoln too."

"Hey, you guys are the greatest friends I've ever had," Anne said. "I mean, I can't remember, but still."

Newt didn't say anything. He seemed a little surprised by what she said. Then, a teasing smile formed on his lips. "We love you too."

Anne laughed and Newt joined in a while later. His laugh was something she knew she loved hearing and it seemed to release some of the tension in both his and her body as well. They ended up talking for almost an hour, though they did spend sometime just staring into the distance, content with just being in each others presence.

It was only when Anne let out a yawn that Newt declared that it was late and that they should get some sleep since they all had to get up early as usual. But as she made her way back down with Newt's presence behind her, she knew that they would be coming back to that spot again and she looked forward to it.

×××

This is almost 3000 words, wow!!!

I'm actually kind of happy about this chapter. She got to actually think which is something I'm planning to include more often from now on. And she saw something. Or imagined it... And she talked to Newt! Yay!

I also want to explain something. When I read this book, I feel like it's a bit rushed and I want to explain that. I didn't give any details about her doing dozens of jobs because it's common in all fanfictions and many readers don't like that. Skipping over that ended up with about two and half weeks of her time in the Glade being written in an undetailed manner, but I'm hoping I've made up for it in the other chapters somehow. I really hope you guys understand!

And the actual plot of the story is going to be here soon (I'm so excited!). Right now, it's about her developing relationships with the other Gladers and I hope I'm doing a somewhat good job with it? Writing relationships is so harrrrd!

And questions!

What do you think she saw? Was it a zombie from plants vs zombies (lol)

Do you love Lincoln and how dramatic he is?

How much do you want Minho and Anne to have a conversation already?

Is this how people become friends? Are they being too friendly? Help! I mean, they've been around each other for a month...