“No way! I swear it wasn’t me who took the food from the kitchen this time! I promise.”
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

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@lacey-thelover
“No way! I swear it wasn’t me who took the food from the kitchen this time! I promise.”
Lily held back a laugh but still gave Lacey a confused look, “Don’t believe she did it? What do you think happened, kid?”
She shrugged, feeling her cheeks burn in humiliation. “I don’t know, I mean, I didn’t know her really, but- but people wouldn’t just do that. It would have to take a lot for someone to... you know. Hurt someone that bad.”
He hoped one day soon they would get out of this. Lacey was still young and he couldn’t imagine this was what childhood was supposed to be like. She took it well though, not that she had much choice in these circumstances. He couldn’t picture that the Gladers would be too hard on her. He got the sense it made a lot of them wonder if they had younger siblings or perchance they had been the younger sibling. “You’re a smart kid, Lacey.” he gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry. We all had a tough time in the beginning, but now we’re getting by. I’m sure one day this will all make sense. We’ve got a long life ahead of us. I’m sure of it”. Those were the kinds of words he told himself every day because maybe one day they would become true. He didn’t drop his grin, if anything he raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Plenty?” he chuckled. “You mean we haven’t changed the Sloppers into the Lacey dream team? I like that name better, but maybe that’s me. What do you think? Maybe I could start a petition to change the Med-jacks into the Lacey Dream Team.”
“I dunno, a lot of the other med-jacks aren’t quite as up to fun. And the Lacey dream team would be having a lot of fun. We need more fun around here, I think. Everyone just works all the time and it seems like it’s kinda all just for nothing sometimes.”
As he stood from his bed, he studied at the bird carefully, clicking his tongue before slowly holding his hand out. “Can I see it?” he asks softly, giving her a small smile. “The poor thing’s lucky it didn’t get hurt during the fall. Which tree did you find it near?”
“The one by my hammock over by the deadheads. I don’t think anyone else sleeps anywhere near me over there, so nobody did anything to it, I think. It just fell.” She gingerly put the bird into his cupped hand, showing him where its wing looked a bit crooked. “I think it did get hurt though. Look.”
Newt laughed, “You’re right about that one. I don’t think many people are awake until after breakfast. Fry must put some extra caffeine in the toast or something.” He tilted his head to the side slightly. “Oh? Who do you think is that stubborn?”
“Gally,” she giggled, looking around to make sure nobody could see. “Just about anyone else could be convinced to get up once, I think. Not him though.”
He looked down for a moment, determining what to say. On the one hand he wasnted to assure Lacy that the Glade was safe. The walls protected them from the monsters that lurked in the Maze, and the rules kept everyone in line. At least they did for the most part… Yet, Newt knew that wasn’t fair to the girl. She was younger but didn’t deserve to be treated like a child. So he squatted down, putting more pressure on his good foot, and looked her in the eyes. “We’re going to do our best to make sure nothing like this happens again. We’ll never be truly safe until we get out of this buggin’ place, but we’re as safe as we can be. So even if I have to make rounds around every night and headcount every bloody Glader to make sure it happens I will.”
Her eyes skirted over his expression in search of sincerity, but she knew he was. Newt wasn’t the type to lie, and he certainly wasn’t the type to make promises he didn’t plan on keeping. Slowly, she nodded again. “Okay. Thanks.” She straightened a bit. “If you ever need help with stuff, I wanna help, too. Even if it’s little things.”
“Everyone needs to just shut up about the dangers of the glade. It was one little attack by some jacked up shank, Clare’s never been an angel. Let’s just banish her and get on with our miserable little lives, alright?”
“Look, I don’t think we’re in any real danger either, I just... I don’t believe that she did it.”
He caught her drifting off, even if for just a second and patiently smiled. He was most guilty of drifting off in conversation, his head constantly in the clouds. Her question took him by surprise. She was young and he associated that sort of youth with a harmless curiosity but he also assumed that the Gladers never really wanted to create such conversation. “Me?” he questioned, going into a thoughtful daze. He took a deep breath in thought, going through all the moments that had struck a cord with him, that had dragged out a feeling of nostalgia from him. “That’s a toughie. Hard to say without sounding too cliche.” he added before seeming to settle on an idea or two. “All this.” he pointed to the sky, “Like your remembrance of snow, doesn’t feel too right to me but not in a bad way.” he tossed that idea aside, content on another idea that had blossomed. “But sometimes— When I meet with the rest of the Keepers and the Leaders and thinks are quiet… And lighthearted. It reminds me of something, I can’t place it yet. Maybe I will one day. Or maybe I’m going crazy. Whatever was before this— I don’t think I was mister congeniality. Not like you.” he elbowed her softly. “You must have a fan-club of sorts.”
She thought about that. “I kinda understand what you’re saying,” she agreed seriously. “When I first came up in the box... I mean, I freaked out, I- I guess everyone kinda remembers that who was there, but once I started looking around it was like- like deja vu. But the longer it’s been, the more I don’t know anymore.” She shook her head. “It’s- it’s hard to describe.” She smiled, glad he lightened the conversation with that last comment. “I do not have a fan club!” she giggled. “Plenty of people don’t like me.”
He looked down, realizing she was still talking to him. “In the maze?” He asked, looking past her to see where she might be focused on. “Hugs and puppies Lace. Hugs and puppies.”
“ Why not ask one of the runners a question like that?”
She shook her head. “No, not the maze. Outside of the maze. I mean, this can’t possibly be all there is, we all know it. The world’s still out there, and for some reason they feel like they’ve gotta hide it from us. Which makes me think about it a lot.”
“I wish I could sleep through the day; definitely would feel more energetic after.” And definitely not as sluggish as he felt waking up. “But I suppose you’re right. If everyone hated mornings then nothing would get done.” It was half true since others, like himself, hated mornings but got up to do their work anyways. “Maybe your positive attitude will spread to others.”
“Doubtful,” she giggled. “Half the Glade looks like zombies for the first couple of hours. And there are some people I don’t think I could get to change their mind in a million years.”
He felt bad for the harshness of his voice, but there were some things that he needed to stay firm on, even if it hurt others to hear it. “We’re going to take care of her best we can and find the person who did this to her, okay?” Newt answered, his voice a little more gentle, yet still stern, than before.
She nodded in understanding. It was difficult when nobody would tell her anything, they all felt like she couldn’t handle knowing what was going on. And she was tired of no real information anyways, so she’d gone to Newt. “The Glade’s safe, right?”
Open
"I know it had to of been something else, the creators are probably behind all of this. They might be trying to get us to turn on one another, If we don’t have faith in each other we don’t have much of anything."
She nodded. “I mean... nobody saw a person do it. Maybe they got one of the beetle blades to be dangerous or something. If they can make Grievers, they can make other scary stuff too.”
”Not.” He said grinning down at the girl before letting out a yawn. “Mostly because everyone is lazy and tired and don’t have as much as energy as you do. Not to mention that usually its nicer getting a few more hours of sleep than listening to birds but I agree with you, its nice.”
She smiled, glad that at the very least he agreed with her that it could be nice during the mornings. “You think I’ll sleep that much once I’m your guys’ age?” she asked, suddenly apprehensive. She liked being up early. But everyone seemed so tired all of the time around here once they were about fourteen or older.
”— A crush? Of course I don’t have one that would be … shucking weird.”
“You do, I think you do. Come on, you can tell me who it is. I can keep a secret.”
“Oh, you know? How do you know, hm?” He rolled his eyes before responding, “Besides the fact they’re prone to punching people in the face, nothing, they’re angels.”
“They don’t punch people in the face!” She was a bit hurt, she worked with builders all of the time as a bricknick, sometimes was even shuffled over to them to help with some of the stuff that was higher up and hard to get at by the bigger builders. A lot of them were her friends. “I’m not saying they’re perfect, but they definitely didn’t kill anyone anymore than you did, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
”Sometimes sure but I don’t like hanging around after the bodies buried — rather be anywhere but the deadheads really.”
She frowned. “Why’re you a bagger then? That’s... I mean, I know it’s probably not fun, but if you hate it so much... how’d you end up being in charge of it?”
“Good. I didn’t mean to snap at you, I’m just tired of hearing about it.” Meg pursed her lips hoping that she hadn’t upset the younger girl too much. She actually didn’t mind Lacey and she didn’t want to say anything horrible to her. “Did you do all of your work today?” She asked trying to change the subject.
She nodded. “Yeah, we got the roof of the homestead fixed this morning. Not that it would really matter that it could leak, since it never rains here, but it was starting to bother me that the hole was there anyways. Plus we made more bricks today, which was actually kinda fun.”