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Pine.
There aren’t any pine trees in the Glade.
“Uhm,” Gally muttered to himself, squinting under the harsh heat of the sun during midday as he surveyed the tree-line. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
If Gally was some jumped-up scaredy-shuck, he would’ve gasped at being snuck up on. But he wasn’t. “The- the trees. I got those… y’know, flashes?”
Chuck bit his lip, doing the absolute worst at hiding a smile.
Why was Gally wasting his time explaining things to some stupid little slopper?
He stomped away, not waiting around to watch as Chuck scurried away to tell some near-by track-hoes that he got the jump on Gally. Instead, the lanky builder turned his gaze back to the scope of green and brown just thirty feet away.
'Flashes' weren’t a good enough explanation. It was more of a… memory.
“No, that doesn’t fit either.”
After a few more steps, the oppressive burn of sun-rays couldn’t touch his neck, replaced with the cool fingers of shade, and Gally was suddenly aware of the tacky sweat clinging to his back, making the shirt stick to his skin uncomfortably.
No pine.
Gally isn’t even sure what this shucking tree is supposed to look like. All he really remembers is the smell.
“… I can’t believe I’m gonna do this.” Gally moaned out as red coloured his ears and he walked up to the closest tree and took a big whiff of the bark.
A loud bark of laughter erupted from behind the builder, and this time he really did startle.
Startled right into the tree.
“Are you jacked?” Chuck was, once again, snorting at scaring Gally, but this time the slinthead was on his chunky butt, shaking on the ground.
Gally cradled his already crooked nose delicately, grateful not to see any blood on his hand, and started to advance on the quaking greenbean. “Slim it you shucking-!”
“Wait, wait!” Chuck threw up his hands, trying to gain control of his wide smile, “Before ya kill me, I gotta know what yer doin’?”
The heat was probably getting to him (the blush on his cheeks not just a sunburn at this point though). Why else would he pause in his decimation of the twerpy little klunk?
Chuck was staring up at him, big brown eyes still teary from mirth, and grinning sweet enough to make a person’s teeth rot. He certainly painted an endearing picture.
Yeah, Gally probably had heat stroke.
With a very put upon sigh, Gally crossed his arms and answered stiltedly, “I’m trying to find a tree.”
“What tree?”
“A pine.”
“And, what? Your eyes stopped workin’?”
Gally was gonna burst a vessel. “I don’t know what it looks like.”
As they were talking, Chuck’s snorts gradually lessened, and his round face was morphing into something resembling intrigued. “So, you’re having, like, a sense memory?”
Gally’s face scrunched up, the context of the smaller boy’s question lost on him for a second, and then he nodded in answer.
“You… ” Chuck started, then he pouted in thought, “You don’t remember what it looks like, but you remember what it smells like?”
Gally nodded again.
Chuck lit up like a Christmas tree-.
“That’s it!” The builder shouted excitedly. “Christmas tree! A pine tree is what I’m-”
It had been on the tip of his tongue for days now. Like an itch at the back of his throat; this formless idea pounding out a strange and wordless song. The most tangible thought in regards to whatever past he had before. Before this maze, and before he was even sure of his name. Now he had the words, the vision to grasp on to.
“I remember fir trees.”
Gally blinked out of his reverie.
Chuck’s confession had been his quietest statement all day, and instead of the happy exuberance Gally assumed was a natural state of being for the kid, now he was eerily sober.
Biting at his chapped lips, Gally looked away, feigning nonchalance, “Never heard o’ those.”
“They smelled nice, but died fast outta the ground. At least, I think they did.”
Both boys grew silent, not necessarily sad, but it felt wholly uneasy to Gally just then. The mystery tree was figured out, but now he had so many more questions because of it (like, what the shuck was even Christmas). Judging from Chuck’s troubled expression, he was feeling the same.
Honestly, it took far too much personal effort on Gally’s part not to just sock the greeny in his face for nosing in on his business, and making him feel all vulnerable, and other stupid feelings that he didn’t need to waste any time on. But-.
But.
“Good that.” Gally grumbled out.
“Wha?”
And there are those damn, big, baby eyes again. Why’s Gally such a softy today? He lumbered over with one last huff, then held out his hand for Chuck to grab onto. The greenbean took the peace offering without any hesitance, and it seemed his cheer was returning. Gally rubbed at those brown curls vigorously and steered the little glader back out into the sunshine with him.
Chuck groaned with the first step out from under the protection of the leaves and shielded his already peeling face, “Ugh! Shouldn’t it be colder by now?”
Gally quickly removed the amicable touch from Chuck when they emerged near the same gang of track-hoes from before, finally noticing Zart casting them a quizzical look, but Gally ignored it. He almost walked away from Chuck right then and there just because seeing the other boys working reminded him that he left an unfinished project just sitting near the bunks.
Certainly not because Chuck helping him remember his flashes was unnerving him.
Nope.
He didn’t leave though. “Whaddya mean it’s supposed to be cold?”
“Well, whenever I think about those firs-”
“The trees?”
“Yeah. I think cold.”
Gally rolled his eyes, “Hate to break it to ya shank, but it’s been nothing but hot in the Glade, and I’ve been here for years. Only sun and warm rain has hit these heads.”
“Just wait than,” Chuck proclaimed, resolution glazing over his eyes. “The seasons will change.”
Gally chuckled meanly, “Yeah, and a girl will come up in the lift!”
***
The sobbing wasn’t quiet; wasn’t attempting to be quiet.
Of course, no one one at their new home-stead would’ve been able to hear it anyway, so far out in the surrounding forest, with the light drizzle of rain pattering down over the tree-tops. The cries were choked out around sharp hiccups and wet sniffs, sharply contrasting against the noise of the world around them.
Gally had been feeling a dull, throbbing migraine for the past few days to accompany his sour-sick stomach-ache. Renewed memories and put-together moments on a constant loop since their arrival in his mind weighed him down, and the guilt was worn like pale face-paint in the fire-light.
The things Gally had down in the maze- the people lost along the way… he had been making progress in learning how to live with his mistakes, to try and be a better person for the few he had left.
But the memories came back.
They were supposed to fill a hole. Fill all those irritatingly empty spaces craving knowledge just out of his grasp.
Now these memories consumed the space, overflowing to the point of physical pain. Gally’s head was heavy with everything he ever wanted and now-
He just wanted it to all explode out and away; seep out of his ears to be washed down with this biting cold rain.
Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so sick and so angry.
Gally flexed his numb fingers hard against the tree bark and took in one big gulp of air. Fresh, clean air, so different from the Maze and from the Scorch.
With each breath came a clearer head and the rain started to actually sound soothing. The way it drip-drip-dripped onto and in-between the slick leaves, down the soft branches and slowly to fall and soak into the damp, green earth.
The crying had stopped.
Gally’s eyes snapped open, the first sight to greet him after an innumerable amount time was Thomas, staring blankly back at him.
The other boy’s face was ruddy from crying, and no doubt the chill from the temperature, and his new clothes were muddy and practically soaked through from sitting on the ground so long in the uncovered clearing.
They held the stare for only a moment before Gally had to look away, when he noticed Thomas’s white-knuckled grip holding fast onto a little carved-stone figure.
Bile burned at the base of his throat.
Gally tore his gaze entirely away from the former-runner, desperately hoping to fixate on something- anything- that didn’t make him immediately think of-
Fir trees were all around them.
Gally collapsed to the grassy floor and expelled the little he had in him of the morning’s meal.
“Merry Christmas, Chuck,” Gally heard Thomas whisper brokenly to the last gift he ever received from his baby brother.