Chapter Text
She woke up, surrounded by darkness.
She could hear metal grind against metal. She shuffled backward on her hands and feet. Her back struck a hard metal wall; she slid along it until she hit the corner of the room. She sank to the floor, hoping her eyes would soon adjust to the darkness.
With another jolt, the room jerked upward like an old lift in a mine shaft.
Harsh sounds of chains and pulleys echoed through the room. The lightless elevator swayed back and forth, making the girl nauseous and a smell like burnt oil invaded her senses, making her feel worse.
Victoria, she thought. Wait, is that my name?
That… was the only thing she could remember about her life.
She didn’t understand how this could be possible. Knowledge flooded her thoughts, facts and images, memories and details of the world and how it works. She pictured snow on trees, swimming in a lake, a busy road with traffic piled up.
And yet she didn’t know where she came from, or how she’d gotten inside the dark lift, or who her parents were. In fact, she didn’t even know her last name or one person she knew, or recall a single conversation.
Victoria grew immune to the ceaseless rattling of the chains that pulled her upward. A long time passed. Minutes stretched into hours, although it was impossible to know for sure because every second seemed like an eternity.
With a groan and then a clonk, the rising room halted and the sudden change threw Victoria across the hard floor. As she scrambled to her feet, she felt the room sway less and less until it finally stilled. Everything fell silent.
A minute passed. Then, two. She looked in every direction but saw only darkness.
Victoria backed into the corner once again and shivered.
A loud clank rang out above her and she sucked in a startled breath as she looked up. A straight line of light appeared across the ceiling of the room, and Victoria watched as it expanded. A heavy grating sound revealed double sliding doors being forced open. After so long in darkness, the light stabbed her eyes and she looked away, covering her face with both hands.
She heard noises above—voices—and fear squeezed her chest.
“It’s a girl!”
“Why is there a girl now?”
“Woah, she’s hot!”
“She’s kinda cute...”
“Dibs!”
“You can’t call dibs on a person, John.”
Victoria was hit with a wave of confusion mixed with panic. The voices were odd, tinged with echo; some of the words were completely foreign—others felt familiar. She could see shapes of bodies—people bending over the hole in the ceiling, looking down at her.
They were boys, all of them—some young, some older.
Someone lowered a rope from above with the end of it tied into a big loop. Victoria hesitated, then stepped into it with her right foot and clutched the rope as she was yanked toward the sky. Hands reached down, lots of hands, grabbing her by her clothes, pulling her up. The world seemed to spin, a swirling mist of faces and color and light. A storm of emotions wrenched her gut, twisted and pulled; she wanted to scream, cry, throw up. The chorus of voices had grown silent, but someone spoke as they yanked her over the sharp edge of the dark box. And Victoria knew she’d never forget the words.
“Nice to meet ya, shank,” the boy said. “Welcome to the Glade.”