Ella 12

"How do you handle it?" Eli and I sit together in the cafeteria. From across the table, Eli's eyes linger on me. My hands shake as I try to force myself to have the pea soup. It's my first day out of the hospital.

I shrug. If I don't think about the pain, it isn't happening. That's what I tell myself. I'm older now than I used to be, so I'm able to brush it off better than I could've when I was five, like the rest. Now, I'm ten. I thought they would've been done by now, but they aren't.

"They only try every four months now," I offer. "A couple hours a year is worth my name."

"I don't remember my original name anymore," he tells me. "I just know it isn't Eli."

"I remember yours," I have a smirk on my face.

His jaw drops. Last time I saw him, his hair was shorter. Now, the long brown mess hangs over his eyes. I don't like the look. There is a space between us now that wasn't there before.

I can't tell if he believes me or not.

"Don't tell me," he begs.

"I wasn't going to," I bring the bowl up to my lips, but my hands shake. Drops run down the side of the bowl.

"Crap," he jumps over the table, sitting down next to me. He takes the bowl from my hands and uses a napkin to clean up my face.

"You know, we are allowed say shit," I tell him. "They won't torture us over it."

He rolls his eyes, dropping the napkin down. He leans against the table, shaking his head at me. "I don't get you."

I don't expect him too.

"Just tell them you think Emily is your name," he instructs. "Then they'll stop."

I couldn't. I know how much power the name holds. "They'll stop sooner or later. I've been having more seizures when they try. It puts the smoke man off the whole thing."

Eli puts his hands in his lap, staring out into the cafeteria. He loves to people watch. Mostly because we've been allowed to eat in the cafeteria less and less, so every time we are here is an opportunity that e can't waste.

Lately, we've spent more time with the Smoke man and less time with the others. Eli and I were never hotshots to begin with, but fewer people talk to us now than before.

"You can't know that he'll stop," he remarks. "We aren't even going up for another five years. They are still building the Maze."

I shrug. I don't particularly care what WICKED does and doesn't do anymore. My hands shake as I drink a swig of water.

"Emily," a man comes up behind me. I can feel his presence.

I get out of my chair, shoving my food forward. The bowl crashes against the ground. Shards of glass and soup coat the floor. The cafeteria goes silent.

The man doesn't tell me why he has come to collect me. I have it figured out.

I know people are staring at me when I leave, but I don't care. This isn't my fault.

My heart races and suddenly I'm sitting straight up. That wasn't from the Changing. I can remember the words more now, and the textures of the world. It was a not-dream-like dream. Perhaps not even a fabrication, simply a manifestation of the past repeated. It's all too confusing. I don't want to think about it.

From closer to the door, I can see the Violet girl sitting with a lantern lit. She is the only one awake. It takes a bit of energy to get myself to my feet, but I walk over to her. I sit on the ground next to her. Eyes fluttering close to mine, I try to catch their beautiful colour in the dim light. It seems impossible that we are together.

"You're awake," she smiles. "I didn't think you would be for a while."

I shrug. Maybe I didn't either, but that's just the way it is. I'm awake now, and everyone else is asleep. I guess that even if their eyes were open, and they were walking and talking, they'd still be asleep. At least now they know about the experiment, and the dangers around us, but there is still so much they've yet to discover.

There's a lot I also don't know.

"You think more are coming?" I ask.

She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. Her hair cascades in front of her, her normal braid taken out of her hair. "I wish they were."

The rain continues to beat down against the windows, as does the wind. Sometimes it feels like the walls to this building might shatter.

"You never explained how you got back," her legs are crossed one over the other. Folded perfectly. There is too much precision in the movements. She was always small but always intentional. This is her in a bigger body.

"I walked," I answer, because that is honestly how I journeyed here.

The rain drums against the roof top above us. It is a sound that I try not to let blur into the background. Unlike air conditioning, I can't remember hearing the patter of rain before. It is a sound I would like not to forget.

After all, the present will soon become a memory. Once it does, I will actually be able to pay attention to it.

"What did you remember about him?" She asks.

"Who?"

"Emil," she answers, quietly.

I don't know what to tell her. Though I remember him, I don't know him. His values, and beliefs, and opinions are all lost to time. Also, they are lost to the dirt that these girls buried him in. Our shared history is trapped in my brain, between a side that remembers remembering, and a side which has forgotten everything.

"I didn't know him very well, but I watched over him. He was sick."

"Sick?" I ask. I know she is talking about Eli, but I don't bother correcting her on his name. "How do you mean?"

She shrugs, her shoulders uncertain. "He just wasn't happy the whole time I knew him." Every word which comes out her mouth is slow. She whispers, but she would whisper if everyone was awake. Her voice is just too loud and commanding otherwise. "He kept asking me for Emily. Do you know what he meant?"

I find myself frozen solid. Did he remember?

"Course, something awful happened to him," she tells me. "On the first day, Marie was supposed to keep track of them while we decided what to do about the boys, but Emil wandered into the Maze. He came back, and never was the same again."

So, maybe he did remember me. Like an echo in his brain. Maybe he got sliced by a Griever and didn't undergo the Changing. It would be a crazy coincidence, but maybe he shot himself at an angle too. Doesn't seem likely though.

"I don't know what he is talking about."

She furrows her brow. "You said, when you first got here, that his name was something like Emily, but wasn't Emily."

"Emil is like Emily," I tell him. "Maybe he was just confused. Maybe he was trying to say Emil."

She smiles, faintly, almost like she can believe me. "Yeah. It would make sense he was calling out for himself. He seemed pretty lost."

I feel lost too. I had hoped he'd be with us and then I could find him too. He isn't, and I can't. Maybe I haven't even found the Violet girl yet. I don't recognize her in Sonya's skin, even though she looks the same. It's been years we've been apart, and memories ripped away. Maybe she is quiet, and maybe she sits perfectly, but her shoulders are slouching with a weight that I have never seen. I don't know who she is.

I was expecting that once we got out of the Maze, the world would finally catch up with my brain because I know things that none of the others will ever know again. The farther along we get though, the more I'm realising that the few pieces I had were not half the puzzle. The puzzle is the size of this desert.

"I miss him," she tells me. "He was kind."

From what I remember, Eli was kind. He was also nervous. Although, maybe he changed in the time Sonya knew him. I am nothing like the Ella that popped up into the Glade. Now, I'm angrier, I guess. More determined, maybe. I am not who I was born to be, but I am not who I've become. The real me, the one without a name that starts with an E, was lost somewhere far off.

"I miss him too," I look at her, my eyes falling softly on her skin.

She seems to be about to drift in and out of consciousness. She leans against the wall next to the door, keeping her eyes closed.

"Do you mind keeping watch?" She asks, casting me one final glance. "I need someone to take up after me, but I don't have the heart to wake up anybody else."

I nod slowly, smiling at her. She doesn't see this though, as she leans back, keeping her eyes firmly shut. It's another minute before she slowly drifts off into a slumber.

Though I want to sit here forever, watching her chest rise and fall, I can't. There is work to be done. I walk away from the door, searching the room.

I know she is in here.

She is on the ground. I gently kick her, and she turns her torso shooting up. Teresa stares at me, a sour expression taking over her whole face. She must know that I know who she is, and what she has done. We both know what has happened.

I crouch down next to her, leaning over top of her. "I know who you are."

"You don't know anything," she shakes her head back and forth.

"I know what you've done," I continue.

She crosses her legs, her face inches from mine. I wait for her to break, but she doesn't. "I have done nothing that you wouldn't have."

"That's a lie," I cut in. Although I don't remember it entirely, I know who she is. I know her role, and I know it could've been mine. I didn't want it. I can't believe she did.

"WICKED is good," she tells me.

Maybe deep down, she knows that isn't true. I hope she doesn't believe it anyway. Although, I wouldn't put it past her to trust them so blindly.

"Don't follow me," I stand up, looking around the room. The air is claustrophobic. I need time to think. My feet move myself out the doors, and into the night.

It's quiet out, and my feet crunch against the ground. In the night, sounds are magnified, becoming louder and louder with each passing step. The moon is fully out, and it's the first really one I've seen in a long time. The stars are out too, and they swallow me whole.

The Violet girl is here, but Eli is gone. I must let the news sink into my skin. I don't know how he died, and I don't want to know. Thinking about it makes my throat hurt. Once, he and I meant something to one another. I don't know what though.

And I can't bare to be with Teresa. Part of me wants to just go back to Group A, but I won't leave the Violet girl again. I promised I would find her. I told her that, and I told myself that, so it must be so. We will be together again.

"Are you one of us?" A woman asks, her back hunched over. Her feet lag behind her with every step. "You're a Crank, girlie?"

I don't know who she is. Someone is snickering behind me. My head spins, staring up at a man. He is licking his lips as he looks at me. I don't know who he is, nor do I know what he wants. So, I shove through the pair of Cranks, and run as fast as I can, and as far as I can.