The end of the world came first.

Then the dark, then the cold, and then nothing. There was just pitch black, empty space, a cold void that left her floating in the darkness - falling, falling, falling.

She couldn't remember the day the world ended. In fact, she couldn't remember much of anything at all. Her mind was a blank slate, a piece of parchment once filled with information that had been recently erased.

Her eyes, which had been squeezed firmly shut - by her own will or by force, she wasn't quite sure - slammed open.

More darkness.

For a moment she wasn't sure whether or not her eyes were still closed, because the blackness that pressed against them was so empty that it actually hurt to look at it. It was everywhere, and the panic choked her. Was she blind? Was she dead? Was this what death felt like, everything and nothing all at once?

Just when she thought her eyes would burst from the stars dancing behind them, something swam into her vision: the faint outline of crates and boxes and holy hell were those bodies?

She was pressed against something. Something both hard and soft at the same time, and warm in a way that made her feel sick.

And it was moving.

No - not moving.

Breathing.

Scrambling away from the body beneath her, she tried to put some distance between her and the presumably unconscious figure she was lying on, but the way their limbs were tangled together and the small confinements they were trapped in made it almost impossible.

Her hands landed behind her, and she used the grip on the freezing metal below her fingers to pull herself further away, until - she collided with another body, and then another, and then another.

There was flesh everywhere, the sound of breathing, hot air, skin on skin - she felt sick.

How was it possible that she was hot and cold all at the same time?

Just as the panic threatened to consume her, there was a groan from behind her - a deep, throaty sound - and the figure she had found herself tangled with upon waking up began to stir.

"What the- oomph!" The stranger's head collided with the bars when they shot upright. She would have laughed if it wasn't for the terror thrumming through her veins and the nausea pressing at her throat, building its way up from her stomach. She was shaking uncontrollably when she found a corner to nestle in.

The figure in front of her was very obviously male, if the bulky shoulders and outlines of solid muscle had anything to say. His voice was gruff, deep, and she couldn't decide whether or not to be terrified or overjoyed that she wasn't alone in this.

But there was another problem - now her lack of memory or clue what was going on wasn't the only danger to her. She may not remember much - if anything - about herself, but she was fairly certain that if this stranger was to attack her she wouldn't last two seconds. Reaching down with her fingers to poke and prod at her arms, or more rather the lack of muscle on them, she winced at the confirmation. Yeah, these things are useless.

"What the hell is going on?" His voice was laced with confusion and fear.

There were other groans - sounds of shuffling as the other bodies seemed to rise from their slumber like zombies reaching from the grave. A collection of voices broke the air.

"What the hell?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Where are we?"

"Who am I?"

"Would you idiots please shut up? My head is pounding."

She opened her mouth to insert her own opinion, but all that left her was a strangled sort of sob. Idiot, she thought bitterly, way to make a great first impression. Throughout the darkness, five pairs of eyes landed on her, and she felt all the blood drain from her face.

It was too hot in there, the room was too small, there were too many people - there was hardly room to breathe, and every time she did her arms would brush against someone else's and a new wave of nausea would make its way to her throat.

The stranger who had woken first, all muscles and bad attitude, inhaled deeply before speaking. "Alright, someone had better explain what the hell is going on here."

"I think if any of us knew that we wouldn't be panicking as much as we are." One of the other boys snapped, gripping his hair. The first boy opened his mouth furiously, but the blurry outline of a gangly teenager spoke up.

"Who the hell are you idiots anyway?"

"I don't know, you dickhead, I can't remember anything."

"Me neither. Is this - is this normal? This can't be normal. We're gonna die, aren't we? Holy shit we're gonna die-"

Muscles spoke up again. "So none of us can remember anything? We just woke up trapped here?"

"Where exactly is here?" She spoke up for the first time. She expected more sarcastic responses, but was met with silence. The darkness pressed on her eyes again. "H-hello?"

"We heard you the first time, dumbass."

"Then give me an answer, dumbass." She snarled.

"We're not gonna get anywhere if we keep bickering like a bunch of five years old, we just need to put our heads together and -"

The room began moving. The entire room, crates and humans and all, rattled dangerously thrice before lifting into the air at a speed that knocked her onto her side and made her crash into the body next to her. She scrambled away, sure she was going to faint, as shapes moved around her in the darkness like smoke.

Metal ground against metal and made her wince against the noise, and a lurching shudder shook the floor. There was the harsh sounds of chains and pulleys, like the working of an old steel factory, and it bounced off the walls with a hollow, tinny whine.

She could vaguely hear the voices of the boys around her shrieking in fear and panic - one of them was throwing up in the corner - and the blast of freezing air that hit her as the room spiralled towards the heavens made goosebumps appear on her arms.

Tears began to roll down her face. Bright lights, white and eerie, started flashing from somewhere behind the walls, illuminating sections of the room in dizzying streaks.

"Are we in a box?!" She shrieked as she scrambled to her feet, but the rattling of the crate they were trapped in sent her tumbling to the floor again. The skin on her hands and knees bled.

As quickly as it started, everything stopped moving. Silence enveloped them once more. The sudden change jolted her and tossed her into the wall behind her.

"What – what just happened?" The gangly boy asked.

"I have no clue."

"Okay, someone needs to figure out what the fuck is happening right now."

"That's what we're trying to do, dipshit." She rolled her eyes, climbing to her feet. The first thing she wanted to do was get out of the goddamn box and put as much distance between her and those strangers as possible. "Does anyone know how to get out of here?"

"Everyone feel around for a way out." Muscles ordered, climbing to his feet. Most of the boys, although they varied in height, were too tall to comfortably stand in the limited amount of space they found themselves in, and so were in charge of feeling around the edges of the box and the walls in order to try and find a way out.

Along with one of the shorter boys, she was in charge of searching the roof.

It was a lot easier said than done in the pitch black.

Her fingers caught in a groove in the centre of the roof, something shaped suspiciously like a handle. "Hey, guys. I think - I think there's something here. Someone come help me get this open."

"What did you find?" Muscles asked, edging towards her.

"It feels like a handle, but I'm not quite sure."

"You think this thing opens up from the top?"

"I think we should find out." She shrugged. "On three."

Light cracked into the box, along with the glorious smell of fresh air as the doors swung open. The sky was a piercing blue, not a single cloud staining the surface. The light from the sun was practically blinding, and she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. The air was neither cold nor warm, the kind of weather that you could wear a t-shirt or thick winter coat and not feel a difference.

"Jesus Christ, that's bright." A voice came from behind her. Now that the darkness was no longer an issue, she glanced around at her companions, failing to recognise any of them.

Muscles, as she had taken to calling him in her head, looked to be around seventeen years old. He was dark skinned and powerful, with a jaw traced with slight stubble. His dark eyes seemed to critically analyse whatever they landed on. He stood beside the gangly boy, who looked to be around sixteen; freckles smudged his cheeks, thick brown hair wild and curling around his ears.

A red headed boy was crouched in the corner, his pale face white and smothered with freckles, and the boy beside him looked to be about sixteen. Thick dark hair that curled around his face and a strong jaw. The final boy - all pale skin and wide blue eyes, no older than twelve - looked terrified.

And she didn't know any of them.

Muscles reached up and hoisted himself from the box, grunting slightly as he did, and the others were quick to follow his lead and venture into the unknown.

"You coming, pipsqueak?" He looked down at her, offering her a hand. She was quick to take it, but something about the feel of his skin pressed against hers made her stomach roll, and she retracted her palm quickly when her feet landed on solid ground.

"What on Earth is this place?" The redhead asked, green eyes wide as he glanced around.

Frowning, she did the same.

They stood in a vast courtyard of sorts, several times the size of a football field, it seemed - a great big expanse of land that stretched an equal distance from where they stood in every direction. The floor of the courtyard was mostly grass, but there were patches of huge stone blocks and cobblestone dotted about towards the edges, many of them cracked and filled with long grasses and weeds.

In one corner, there was an odd, dilapidated building, made of wood and practically falling to pieces. A collection of benches sat inconspicuously out front. Where there should have been windows there were instead two twigs crossed over each other. Yes, because that's going to do a world of good against insects and the bitter cold, she thought. If there was a bitter cold at all. The weather felt fabricated almost, stale.

A few trees surrounded it, their roots like giant hands digging into the rock for food. A forest full of thick, towering oaks stood proudly in the other corner and stretched to a few metres short of where they stood, creating a dense, dark woodland. In another corner of the field there was nothing - just empty space cordoned off by what looked to be fencing that had been thrown together at the last minute. The final corner of the courtyard was filled with wooden pens holding a collection of sheep and pigs and cows, and the air reeked of dirt, manure, and pine.

Her eyes travelled skyward, and a choked gasp caught in her throat.

Towering over them, menacing in their extreme height and overall size, were four walls. Four gigantic slabs of cracked stone overflowing with ivy, parted by an even gap directly in the centre of each, all stretching towards the heavens and caging them inside their new prison.

The six sole inhabitants of glade shared a look, faces taught with terror, and only one question running through each of their minds.

"Where the hell are we?"