She began her new life from the inside of a box.

Enveloped in the cold darkness, the girl laid on the metal floor with her arms and legs sprawled out. Her eyes twitched, eyelashes beginning to flutter as the sheer darkness around her slightly began to expose itself. At the same time, she took her first intake of the stale, dusty air, the strong scent of metal going right through her nose.

Her eyes were wide open now, but she was drowsy and felt utter weakness throughout her whole body to move a muscle. She remained calm, but was highly dazed and confused at how the room lightly shook as it ascended.

With a sudden jolt, the room jerked upward and the girl woke from her unconsciousness. Hearing the harsh sound of sudden machinery along with the reckless rattling of chains made her sit up. It was like she was in a broken elevator, or maybe in a factory—but even worse—inside what they were making.

She tried to stand, but the floor shook and swayed, making her feel nauseous. She decided to crawl instead, maybe find a latch somewhere in whatever she was and pull herself out. But there was practically nothing; it was just a square metal box that she was in, a metallic-y elevator thing that she had ended up in for a reason unknown.

She crawled over to the wall she was closest to as steadily as she could and positioned herself against it so she would have something to hold onto for the ride. She had absolutely no idea where this thing was taking her, or why she was in it, or how she had even gotten into the thing for the matter. She was confused and scared, but probably more confused than scared because it just had to have been impossible to end up . . . where she was, from knowing that the last place she knew she was, was at . . .

Nowhere.

She couldn't remember. She thought hard and harder and tried to concentrate at the best of her ability with the screeching noises of the dark lift hurting her ears, but she couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember? Now she was scared. Terrified, even. Her mind seemed to be working properly as she tried evaluating her predicament, but the more she thought the more crazy knowledge flooded her thoughts. She recalled facts and images, memories, the world and how it worked, but the places she was at and the people she was with were imaged as smeared blurs in her head. No details, no distinct recognition of anyone or anything.

Where were her parents? Siblings? Friends? A lover? The thought of it made her mind run wild. Did she have any of those?

The girl tried naming the members of her family, where she lived, anything that would spark some sort of lightbulb in her head to tell her what the heck was going on. But there was nothing. She didn't know who were parents were, or where she came from. And to top it all off, she totally blanked out on who she was.

Her name. What was her name? A nickname? A last name? Anything to define herself?

Mysteriously, unnervingly, the girl could not manage to identify herself. A name, an age, a feature, nothing. Everything stored in her head, everything she had known, gone. It was as if the world stopped working and threw her out of existence.

The room seemed to sway and slow on its speed. The girl swallowed hard and wanted to scream. But all she did was look up that hopefully, magically, the ceiling would just pop off and let her out of this nightmare.

Well, it didn't. Just as it was slowing, with a cranking noise and a jolt, the room felt as if it was thrown off a catapult, knocking the girl off balance and tossing her to the floor with a yelp. She landed rolling into the opposite wall. "Ow!" she yelped. She wanted to cry by now. "Ugh! Get me out of here!"

She placed her palms firmly on the metal floor and brought her knees up. The room was swaying back and forth uneasily, and she tried balancing her weight so eventually she could muster a stand, but it was all too much so she had to sit down. Trembling with anxiety, she backed up into the nearest corner and clung onto herself to feel somewhat safe..

As she sat their silently waiting for a miracle, the girl felt the metal room sway less and less. Tears dared to prick at her eyes. Soon enough, it slowed to a halt. It creaked, klonked, and then it was quiet. Suddenly, red lights came blinking down from the ceiling. Fear came instantly. "Hello?" the girl cringed, and her small voice echoed off the elevator walls.

She waited a minute. Two. It remained silent, the red lights still flickering. The girl considered her environment one last time before hot tears began streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't suppress them any longer. She was terried. "Pleeease!" she pleaded, "Someone, anyone!" The words ripped her throat raw. "What is this? Help me!"

A loud crank rang out from above and the girl jumped, peeking her head up to see a straight line of light appear across the ceiling of the room. She stressfully wiped her eyes and her tear-stained cheeks with her arm. She cautiously eyed the light and became filled with fear and worry once more. Something was out there.

A heavy grating sound began, and the girl watched as the light expanded. After so long in the darkness, the light had quickly stabbed her in the eyes and forced her to cover her eyes and look away. She was so terrified of the unknown that she didn't dare moving an inch, but that didn't keep her body from shaking with anxiety.

There were muffled voices coming from above—they echoed louder as the light came through. Fear squeezed in her chest.

As her eyes started to adjust, the girl took her hand away slowly, looking toward the light and those speaking. At first she could only see shifting shadows, but they soon turned into the shapes of bodies—people bending over the hole in the ceiling, looking down at her.

It only took one to shout "It's a girl!" before the whole crowd stared down and pointed.

"What?" several male voices said in unison.

"What she look like?"

"How old is she?"

"Maybe it's a gay guy with long hair."

"You're the gay guy with long hair, shuck-face."

"She hot?"

"I'm callin' dibs!"

"No way, dude! I want her!"

The girl just sat there, lost and confused, her mouth agape as she looked up at the foreign faces. She swallowed hard and glared upward, eyeing them closely as their faces cleared. They were boys, all of them—some young, some older. What surprised the girl was that they were all teenagers. Kids. That should have made some of the fear go away, but instead, the girl tensed up more at the thought of a bunch of hormonal boys kidnapping her. That didn't sound so friendly.

A tall kid emerged from the crowd. He had to be sixteen or so. His hair was blond and shaggy and lightly draped over his milky-brown eyes. He was thin and lean, with strong arms and long legs. He kneeled down at the opening of the box, pursing his lips in awe. "I don't bloody believe it . . ." he murmured in a thick British accent, "A girl." Then he called, "Are you all right down there?"

The girl sunk herself into the corner of the box and hurriedly shook her head no. She choked out in a scared yet defensive voice, "Where am I?"

Nobody answered. Instead, somebody lowered down a rope into the box. Next to the British kid appeared a dark-skinned boy and another light-skinned dude, who both had to be a year or two older than the British kid.

"Grab the rope, we'll pull you up," the dark-skinned boy said.

The girl hesitated at first. Then, after a minute or two of contemplating whether to join the strangers, she slowly got up to her feet and walked into the light.

"Take a look at that shank."

"You mean, shankette."

A couple boys snickered and chuckled at that comment.

"Shut up, all of you," the light-skinned dude snorted.

Shank? Shankette? What the actual? the girl thought as she formed a grip on the worn-out rope. She stepped her right foot into the loop of the rope, and before she could make the "okay" sign to pull her up, she was firmly tugged into the air, too fast for her to suppress her little squeal at the sudden movement.

A lot of hands then reached down, grabbing the girl by her clothes as they yanked her over the sharp edge of the dark box. The light-skinned dude had grabbed her from beneath the shoulders, giving her something to grab onto as she was lifted out of the claustrophobic box.

A storm of emotions nailed her gut as she propped her feet into the long, delicate grass. The helping hands didn't stop swarming around her until she stood up straight and balanced herself. With that, the chorus of voices had grown silent. Her mouth hung agape and she eyed her surroundings with big bold eyes, while slowly rotating in a circle, absorbing the bizarre environment of wherever the heck she was.

She and her fellow strangers stood in a vast courtyard several times the size of a football field, surrounded by four enormous stone walls, each covered in trails of thick ivy. The walls had to be hundreds of feet high and formed a perfect square around the area, each side split in the exact middle by an opening that, from what she could see, led to passages and long corridors beyond.

"You ain't gonna find your fantasy dream castle here, Greenbean," a scratchy and mocking voice said, and several boys laughed.

After taking in what she could without getting to the urge of wanting to cry, the girl looked back toward the boys.

"What is this place?" her voice quivered.

Countless people stared.

"Nowhere good," the dark-skinned boy said. "Welcome to the Glade."
__________

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ good enough. 

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~Amanda