This is a disclaimer. There's a ton of fics on here about girl protagonists that are just sooooo predictable, but I wanted to make Jane different. So, no, she's not meant to be entirely relatable and you're not supposed to understand her all that much. She's supposed to be a little annoying. She's supposed to have a bit of a power complex. Her morals aren't always in line and her intentions aren't always good. But I'm sure, somehow, you're gonna find that you can't dislike her. You'll see that here.

also, the new boy in this chapter is Thomas. he still doesn't rmember his name, so it's never mentioned, but i just wanted to clear up any confusion.

It's the first time I've seen the inside of the Box since it dropped me in this hell only a week ago, but this time the sight doesn't make me want to vomit. This time, it's different. The Box doesn't hold the crates and buckets it held when I was in it. It's empty, actually, except for a single teenage boy cowering in its corner.

After everyone cleared out of the Homestead once my punishment was declared, they heard the sirens. I nearly fell back into Minho when they sounded, and if he hadn't whispered, "new greenie?" into my ear in between bells, I would've ran for the Deadheads. But this wasn't any old once-in-a-month greenie. No, this one was a big deal. This one was a week-after-the-last-new-greenie greenie –and that was a first.

Gally drops in. Unlike Newt's gentle approach to me, Gally plays bad-cop. He says barely five words to the boy before he's tugging him to his feet and pushing him out of the box.

The boy is taller than those who surround him, and probably older than most, too; definitely older than me. As his gaze slowly scans the perimeter of the place, I expect him to begin rattling off questions. Instead, he drops into a sprint. Zart shouts something and then everyone's charging after the boy who, mere seconds later, trips and face-plants into the ground.

I'm still standing at the edge of the box, wondering how the hell this all happened so fast. I should probably care more about the greenie than I do, about why he's come up alone, and why he's three weeks early.

At this point, I'm just happy to lose the newbie label.

My minds drifts back to the greenie as I push through the broiled potato on my lunch tray. I can't tell if his arrival was orthodox or unorthodox. I don't know if the Glade usually buzzes with the news of a newbie after he's brought up, but today's been mostly silent.

"You lot mad that the new kid was a boy and not another girl?" I ask with a mouthful of potato. I'm sandwiched between Zart and Callum with Newt and Cricket on the opposite side of the table.

Zart snorts with laughter. "I'm thinking the Creators know this place can only handle so much girlness."

"But I'm the only girl," I say.

"My point," Zart says, and all four boys giggle.

I lean over the table and punch Zart hard in the arm, smiling.

"Ah!" He shouts, retracting away from me with an abrasive look on his face. His hand comes up to rub the spot. "Well, that'll be stiff in the-"

Zart's voice is cut off in my mind when a sharp ringing slices through it. I make a muffled noise of agony and plug my hands over my ears, glancing at the boys. They're all looking at me in concern, but it's clear that none of them are hearing what I'm hearing. My temples begin to throb with pain, making me curl my chin into my chest. When I slam my eyes shut, the pictures begin again.

Just like after Minho said the word "death" in the Maze yesterday morning, thousands of images start flashing through my mind at light speed. I can only register a few.

Lab coats making a half circle around a boy on a stretcher.

My face in the reflection of a chrome tabletop. Blonde hair on my head.

A forest fire.

A gas mask.

A woman pushing an empty baby carriage.

The last is less of a still image and more of a video clip: A set of golden eyes stares at me from no more than two inches away. They blink once, and it stuns me.

Finally, the wretched noise scraping at my ears fades away, and the throbbing in my brain reduces to a subtle headache. Catching my breath, I relax my hands and glance up at those around me.

"Jane?" Newt says, and it's only now that I realize his hand is on my back and he is seated beside me rather than where he sat 30 seconds ago.

I exhale long and slow. "Just…headaches. You know."

I counter his worried expression with a reassuring half-smile and shove a forkful of potato into my mouth. There's an itching in my skull now, and it makes me tick my head to the side.

"What happened?" Zart asks.

My foot begins to tap. "Headaches, ya know!" I shout accidentally, catching the attentions of nearly every Glader in the premises. "Sorry," I mumble.

It seems impossible to swallow the potato in my mouth. The more I chew it, the more it feels like cement.

"Are you okay?" Newt asks. I can feel his hand running up and down the length of my spine and it's beginning to burn.

An unknown force draws my eyes to the edge of the Deadheads. I'm quite far away, but I can still make out the form of a small boy standing there, his eyes locked on me.

I force the potato down my throat. There's no way the boy is a Glader here. He's small enough to be only five or six years old, and I've never seen him around before. He wears a gray button-up jacket that must be two sizes too big, and a little black hat. I can't shake the feeling of familiarity he strikes in me.

"Jane?" I hear Newt at my side. I glance over at him but quickly look back at the small boy to ensure he'll still be there even when I avert my eyes.

"I think I'm gonna go take a walk," I say calmly, facing him.

"Are you sure you're alright? You look like you've seen a bloody ghost," He says. At the comment, I glance back at the small boy who is frozen in his spot.

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, yeah. I'm just tired. And I have a headache. I need to get away for a bit."

"You're acting weird. Do you want me to come wi-"

"No!" I shout. It's another accident. I look back over at the little boy.

"The hell does she keep looking at?" Cricket mumbles in the background.

"I just…I need to be alone. I'm fine, okay?"

Before Newt can get out another word, I hastily kiss him on the cheek for reassurance and slip away.

My eyes don't move once from the little boy even as I bump and slip through all the bodies in my way. Once the path finally clears, I start to jog. I don't know why. It's clear the boy isn't going anywhere soon, but I feel like I have to be with him as soon as possible. He becomes a clearer image as I get closer. His jacket isn't only two sizes too big, but also flecked with dirt and more ripped than it is put together. It doesn't look like he's changed out of it in days. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, but his complacent expression doesn't change, even after I shout "hey!"

Just as I'm finally close enough to tell the color of his eyes, he back steps and disappears into the Deadheads. My feet stall and I'm temporarily stunned. I was so ready to reach out and touch him, to find that he is really real, really standing there. But it's clear to me now. No physical being could disappear that quickly.

I've never felt closer to losing my mind.

The word 'stiff' runs through my mind on an endless loop and I begin to sob about the lack of sense it all makes. The further the problem reveals itself to me the further I slink back into my own confusion. I can't help but wonder if this has ever happened to another greenie.

I want to wail. I can feel the heat of the noise brewing at the bottom of my throat, so I slap a hand over my mouth. My face is hot. I'm certain I'm about to hyperventilate. But then a twig snaps somewhere just feet from me, and my breathing nearly stops.

I step into the Deadheads, praying to whatever's above that I will see the boy again. But I never do. The snaps continue until they lead me to the tree I've carved the words 'death' and 'float' into. My eyes are puffy and swollen in their sockets but they roll nonetheless. I should've guessed where this was leading.

It's clear to me that the Creators are having me slowly decode a list of words, which will ultimately lead to either the end of the experiment or the end of us all. And it scares me to death to know that, even if I don't want to feel out my pocketknife and use it to carve the word 'stiff' underneath the other two, I still will.

And I do.

The curve of the f is difficult to etch and it annoys me to think that I have to do two; that is, until I stab the bark for the start of the second when I hear an odd sound in my head and my body freezes.

It's an incredibly odd sensation. There's a mumbling I can hear, but it's not my ears that hear it. It's implanted in my head somehow and drives out my own thoughts. I listen to it for minutes on end, desperately trying to pick out any words in the incessant whispering, but there's nothing audible. Then, with no warning, it stops.

Not a second after it ends does a voice speak up from behind me.

"Oh!" It says, clearly surprised.

My mind flashes back to the time Ben attacked me in the Deadheads, and I spin around with my pocketknife held in outstretched arms. It slices the air just centimeters from the boy's neck, and he stumbles back at the sight of it.

"Woah woah woah," He sputters, nearly falling over as he backs up. "Relax relax."

I groan and drop the knife back to my side, raking a hand through my hair.

"You scared the shit out of me," I huff. This kid's surprise greeting has suddenly sent me into a fury.

The boy drops his guard and he stands up straight now. I realize he's tall –really tall –and then I realize that he's the tall newbie from the box this morning.

"Don't you mean klunk?" He asks, chuckling a bit at his own joke. When he realizes my face won't shift from its hardened scowl, he clears his throat awkwardly.

"So, uh, I hear you're the only girl here. Jane, right?" He says.

His face reminds me of a puppy from some unreachable memory in my past. The fleeting remembrance just makes me angrier.

"State your business," I growl. Instinctually, I step in front of my carvings on the tree, hoping he hasn't noticed them.

"I'm… new here," He says. He's choosing his words carefully.

"I know that," I snap, the knife in my grip becoming sweaty.

"Okay."

I've become impatient. "Well? Are you hard of hearing or are you gonna answer my question?"

The way his face hardens at my remark is so obvious, I can almost hear the muscles in his face grinding.

"Hell, is everyone in here this damn rude all the time?" He nearly shouts at me. "Do you all just go around arguing all the time for no reason? How does anything ever get done? Elf-boy says the second rule here is that no one hurts anyone but I'm finding it hard to believe any of you can go a day without punching another person. So forgive me if I just wanted some peace and quiet for a damn second." He exhales, his face red. "It feels like I'm about to explode."

I'm surprised with the way he's challenged me all of a sudden, when just a minute ago he looked equivalent to a puppy.

"What's that behind you?" He asks.

Warning bells chime in my head and I move to cover as much as the tree as I can.

"A tree."

He begins approaching me, his eyes searching the bark behind me for something he won't find.

"No, there's like letters or-" in the middle of his words, I feel his hand lay lightly on my arm and I know he's trying to scoot me away from the tree. The simple gesture brings my blood back to a boil.

In a second, I grab his arm and twist it behind him, pinning him to the tree. I stand behind him with one hand digging deeply into the skin of his twisted arm and another pressing his face into the bark.

"You're gonna have to learn to stop asking questions," I say.

I hear him breathe out a small chuckle, and then he's somehow pulling his arm from my hold and twisting us around until it's my back pinned against the tree.

I don't get it. Either he's as inhumanely strong as I am, or he found some soft spot in my tactics. The latter is unlikely.

He's got both of my hands clasped in just one of his and he holds them above my head. The bark of the tree scrapes roughly against my wrists. His other hand is on my waist, holding me in place.

He's got a sadistic smirk on his face. "What makes you think I'll listen to you?"

My eyes glance down to his lips for a millisecond. When they flick back up to his eyes, I notice they're a superhuman shade of gold. In an instant, the scene flips back to the pair of eyes I saw just minutes ago in my vision at lunch.

When I realize they're exactly the same, I internally gasp.

"What?" The boy asks, looking at me with concern.

"What?" I repeat.

"You just said oh my god," He says.

My eyebrows furrow. "No I didn't."

"I just heard you say it."

"I didn't say that. Not-" It hits me. "…Out loud."

His eyebrows stitch together as well. I wonder if he's come to the same conclusion I have, but before either of us can say any more, a new presence joins us.

"Jane," Newt says, his nostrils flaring. He's standing mere feet away, his arms crossed and his mouth set in a line.

I'm aware of the way this must look to him. The new boy's body is nearly pressed into mine, and we've been whispering like we've got some secret to hide. Luckily, he has fast reflexes and drops my hands the second Newt spits out the J in my name, stumbling back. I make a mental note that he isn't the most agile greenie.

"We weren't doing anything," The boy blurts out, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Did I ask you, Greenie?" Newt snaps.

"Well-"

"You've got half a tour to finish. Go find Alby," Newt demands.

The greenie glances back at me just once more, and then begins slowly trekking out of the Deadheads.

"Greenie," I call before he's gone too far, watching him stop and turn back to me. "Come find me later."

His eyes shift quickly to an angry Newt, but he nods nonetheless. A minute later, he's out of view completely.

"Come find me later?" Newt repeats, clearly annoyed.

I laugh a bit. I knew Newt was going to do this: become territorial after just one kiss. And I can't say that jealous isn't a good look on him, because it is, but it'd be dumb of me to tie myself down to one single boy just days after we met.

Think of it like this –we're all trapped against our will in a maze crawling with bloodthirsty monsters, and the only way out is hidden in an indecipherable map inside of my head. So, life sucks a little. Forgive me if I try to make my own fun by toying with boy's emotions.

And, well, the greenie is kind of cute.

"It was platonic," I groan, pushing myself off the tree trunk and beginning to step in time with Newt back into the Glade.

"Do you have to flirt with every guy here?" He asks.

"God, stop being so dramatic. And, for the record, no, I don't have to, but it is quite fun."

Newt looks unamused.

"See the thing is," I stop walking and make him turn to me. "I'm the only girl here. And as long as that is true, I can be a flirt, and I can be hardheaded and rebellious and nosy and you're all gonna put up with it whether you like it or not –because I'm the only girl you've got. See, I'm small and probably annoying and not of much help here, but I've still always got the upper hand on you all. Funny, isn't it?"

He rolls his eyes. "Remind me again why I like you?"