A/N. Hello all! The story you're about to read is quite long, which is why I'll tell you a few things up front. You know, so you wouldn't have to waste a bunch of your time on this only to realise it isn't what you're looking for.

The story is from Thomas' point of view all the way through. You will not see anyone else's POV. It's in third person, past tense. This is important: Newtmas is very slow to happen. Both of them are quite traumatised from their pasts, and I personally don't see how the two would get together any sooner that they do in this scenario. There are no violent fight scenes or anything like that in this fic. To be honest, it would be rated PG if not for Thomas constant swearing in the first third of the story. (All he does is drop a few f-bombs, really.)

The idea is similar to the original one. The boys are trapped in the Glade and there's no way out. However, some things have been changed, and I'm sure you'll notice them while you're reading. I thought I'd mix it up a little bit, haha. I also suggest to ignore the author's notes because every now and then I mention things that are about to come in future chapters but end up not happening because I've decided to either cut them or present them in a different manner. Which reminds me: if you're looking for a blushing and stuttering little Newt here, you're in the wrong place.

A low groan escaped the boy's lips a second after he hit his head against something cold and hard. His hand flew up to touch the spot which now throbbed in pain, but luckily, his fingers couldn't find any traces of blood.

Okay, relax. I'm fine. As he lowered his hand and tried to stand up on his somewhat shaky legs, his eyes opened in hopes of figuring out where the fuck he was and why. He regretted it a mere moment later. A highly uncomfortable sensation hit his eyes at once, as if dozens of tiny needles had made it their mission to poke his eyeballs out of their sockets.

In the following two seconds that he managed to look around, he noticed two important things in succession. First, darkness surrounded him from all sides, not even the smallest specks of light making an appearance anywhere. Second, the first statement proved wrong—white, fiery particles came out of what seemed to be the room's walls, illuminating the whole place enough for him to realise he was in a lift of sorts, the kind of a lift that people used way back.

He closed his eyes with perhaps a bit too much force, but he didn't care; he just couldn't keep them open for any longer. What felt like tears formed behind his eyelids and—no. They weren't tears, couldn't have been; they didn't seem right... He would've even gone as far as to say they consisted of a substance thicker than water, if only just. The feeling wasn't by any means good, and he wanted it out of his eyes, fast.

But that was out of the question because opening his eyes would've been far worse than just tolerating the strange liquid. His hands clenched into tight fists, and he swallowed hard, only now sensing the fluid was in his mouth, too. Although it seemed to have no taste whatsoever, and it refused to leave his mouth for good, the act of swallowing did help him with one thing.

His sense of hearing. Perhaps his ears had been plugged or perhaps the action itself had somehow drawn his subconscious' attention to the abnormally quiet world around him, but the point remained the same: whatever had happened, his hearing was back.

Sound crashed into him with full force, almost knocking him back down again. It seemed impossible he hadn't heard the loud, scratchy noise before that particular moment. But it made sense. He had established the fact he was in a lift seconds earlier, so it shouldn't have come as that big of a surprise to him.

Another few seconds passed before it hit him. I'm stuck in a moving lift, and I'm not even sure if it's going up or down. How did I even get in here?!

His breaths became shallow, and his heartbeat sped up as his mind went into panic mode. Oh my fucking God, the lift's gonna crash, isn't it? That's why there were sparks coming from the walls...

I'm gonna die.

Everything went blank for a while. The next thing he knew, his fingers hurt like hell and probably bled from trying to break free from the death trap he was in. The walls were made of metal, so his pathetic fingers couldn't have possibly done any damage to it, but that specific part didn't register in his mind.

The sparks hurt as they hit his hands, his fingernails were in a horrid condition, and he felt light-headed. He couldn't remember the exact moment when he passed out.

"D'you think he's alive?"

"Of course he's alive, you shuck-face! Have they ever sent up a dead kid?"

"…well, yes, yes they have."

"What the–"

"Relax, he's just messing with you."

"No… I'm not. I've been here for a long shuck time, and I'm telling you that–"

"Slim it! I think he's waking up."

Silence.

"Guys, maybe he really is dead?"

"No, he's n–"

"But look at his hands! They're covered with bl–"

"You should go down and look for his pulse."

"Me?! Why don't you go and–"

"Because I don't–"

A sigh could be heard. "Step aside, you bloody cowards."

Another silence erupted as somebody made their way towards the seemingly lifeless body.

Just moments later, a soft thump was heard.

"Yeah, he's alive all right," said the same voice after placing two fingers on the boy's neck. "But his pulse is a little too weak… Hmph. I think we should take him to the Den. Where's Clint?"

For no obvious reason, the boy's fingers dug even more to the unconscious one's neck. "Oh my– Guys! The pulse's becoming weaker! Where the HELL is Clint?!"

.oOo.

Wow, that sure was one hell of a dream, thought the boy first thing upon waking up. Can't remember the last time I saw anything like it… I've always been able to move– wait. Have I?

His heart skipped a beat when he tried to recall any actual memories of ever even seeing a dream. He knew for a fact that he indeed had seen them before, but he just couldn't bring himself to think of any particular dreams.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the unimportant thoughts, and opened his eyes. For one reason or another, he had half expected to be blinded by the light above. He quickly realised it wasn't going to happen – there were no lamps in sight and barely enough light for him to be able to look around.

With a groan, he brought his hands up to rub his eyes, hoped it'd help to sharpen his sight. HIs head hurt. But it was more like in a good way; the way one feels after waking from a long, refreshing sleep.

He blinked a few times in hopes of making those annoying little black dots go away. He let his hands fall back down, only to feel a sharp pain in his chest. The f–

"Hey there, Greenie. You scared us pretty bad out there, you know, with the dying and whatnot. You might wanna not do that again anytime soon."

He hadn't realised anyone else was in the room with him, so naturally, his first reaction was to jump. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, trying his best to not let the other boy become aware of his surprise. "And where the hell am I?"

In the dark, it was pretty difficult to make out where the voice was coming from, but somehow he managed to do just that. The boy stood just a couple of meters away, his back against the wall and his arms crossed. Despite his attempt to give off vibes of intimidation, it seemed impossible for anyone to be afraid of him. His height couldn't have been more than 160 cm, and judging by his posture, he felt pretty uneasy himself.

"We'll get to that in a minute. But first, what's your name?"

The boy in bed felt the need to sit up straighter. However, before he could even move himself properly, the pain in his chest worsened, convincing him to give up on that idea. "My– What's this got to do with anything?"

Shortie came a few steps closer, his eyes never leaving the other one's. "Just answer the question, alright? What's your name?" With every sentence spoken, he seemed to gain more confidence.

It still wasn't enough to intimidate anyone, though.

"God, I wake up in a creepy-looking room, and instead of telling me what has happened, you ask for my name? Don't you think there are, oh I don't know, a few slightly more important matters to discuss? Like why the fuck I'm injured? Or where I am?" He stared into Shortie's eyes, eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. Shortie stared back. "Okay, fine. Not that it's any of your business, but my name's…" Blank. "My name's…" He shook his head violently, trying to come up with something, anything, but nothing came. How can I not remember my own name?

"Yeah, I figured that much. But we have to call you something until you... you know. How about Thomas? That sound good?"

The boy – Thomas – gave him a slight nod. What else was he supposed to do? How could Shortie take his memory loss so easily? As if it was normal?

"That's great because you wouldn't have had a choice in the matter anyway. Moving on - since you can't remember your own name, you probably don't remember anything else, either, right?" He sat on a chair Thomas hadn't noticed was beside his bed, rested his hands on his knees, and looked at him expectantly.

Shortie must've been fourteen, fifteen the most. He had dark skin, black hair, and the lightest shade of brown eyes Thomas had ever seen. It almost made him want to ask if he was wearing contacts.

Thomas searched his mind for an answer; he hoped to find even the tiniest memory of anything, really, but didn't succeed. He shook his head in confusion, and asked the same question that had been circling his head for a while now. "What's wrong with me? Why can't I remember anything? Did I have a concussion or–"

"Hey, it's okay," said Shortie. "There's nothing wrong with y– Don't give me that look; just hear me out, okay? There's nothing wrong with you because," he made a small pause before continuing, "nobody who ever comes here remembers anything." His eyes scanned Thomas'. "I know, it's weird as hell, but that's just the way things are."

Thomas tried to distract his panicky mind—what kind of a place is this? Is he lying to me? Am I in a reality TV show? I am, aren't I?—by examining his surroundings. He himself was on a bed of sorts, but that much he had already figured out earlier. The room was quite small, as it only had room for his bed, a chair, and one weak-looking table. The room was made of… wood? Sticks? There was no window; the small amount of light in it must've come from the cracks in the wall. And then there was that boy.

"But on the bright side," tried the said boy to continue the conversation, "your name'll come back to you in a few days, so don't worry 'bout it much, okay?"

"What's your name, though? You still haven't told me." Not that I particularly care.

Shortie cracked a smile. Though, he still seemed a bit tense. "I guess I did forgot to mention it, didn't I? I'm Clint."

"Oh," was all Thomas managed to say. He had a ton of—ones that were much more important than Shortie's name—but he didn't know where to start.

"So do you–"

"Why does my–" began Thomas at the same time Shortie did.

Shortie nodded. "You first."

Thomas couldn't help but feel awkward. "Why… why does my chest hurt? I mean, every time I move, I feel these spikes of pain...?"

The smile on Shortie's face faltered and then disappeared altogether. "Er, yeah, about that. Ah, how should I say this… You sorta like… stopped breathing at one point and um… we had to somehow get you breathing again, you know?"

"So, what you're saying is that…"

"We may have damaged a couple of ribs of yours, yeah. I'm real sorry 'bout that, but we figured you with broken ribs is better than you with no pulse."

"I agree with you on that one," said Thomas while moving his gaze away from him. Did I really stop breathing? Why?

"Wh–why did I quit breathing the first place? Was something blocking my airways or...?"

"No, nothing like that. To be honest, we aren't sure what happened – one moment you were breathing and the next you weren't – but you were hella lucky we noticed it as fast as we did."

"Yeah, well–"

A door slammed shut somewhere close by. Thomas' eyes fell first on the room's door, then on Shortie. The latter cast a nervous glance towards the door. "I– I should probably go. You need some rest anyways, so I'll just…" He stood up and left the room before Thomas could've come up with anything to say.

Why did he get so nervous all of a sudden? Is he in trouble?

"Clint," said a deep voice.

"Gally," answered Shortie, his tone icy cold.

Thomas wasn't stupid; he knew he faked it, tried to put on a tough act. Because try as he might, he couldn't keep the slight quiver from his voice.

A groan. "The name's Galileo, shuck-face. You know that as well as anyone."

By the silence and a barely audible gasp for air that ensued, Thomas found it likely this Gally guy had hit Shortie. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He was torn between jumping out of his bed and going out there to see what was going on and staying where he was in case either of them would say something that'd help him to understand the situation.

"Get up! It's time we get moving."

Clint mumbled something in response, and on that second, Thomas flew off his bed. Adrenaline helped him to ignore the pain completely, and he didn't even notice he didn't have a shirt on.

He opened the room's door on the moment the front door closed.

He'd missed his chance.