Drying my hand on my shirt in a last attempt to wipe the remainings of the water and the stamp, I entered the room behind Enid. My heart sunk as soon as my dark brown eyes fell on the people inside the room. Some part of me had hoped that it would be only Enid and I, away from the obnoxious noise from downstairs. Had I known there would be others here too, I wouldn't have bothered coming here and instead look for a bathroom to lock myself in. Thinking about it, I could still go away. 

"Carl!" the boy Ron, called out with an excitement that I didn't share. "This is the new girl I told you about! New girl, Carl. Carl, new girl." My eyes wandered off to 'Carl' and locked with his eyes. Or at least, what was visible of his eyes. Brown wavy hair hung over it like a curtain, with some kind of cowboy hat on top of it to finish whatever look he was going for. On his thin lips he wore an unsure smile. 

"What's that?" Ron asked, breaking my contact with Carl. His finger pointed dangerously close to my chest  and in a reflex, my fingers clutched tightly around his. I looked down quickly, spotting my visible necklace. It would have not ended well if Ron had been pointing to something else. I wanted to roll my eyes so far up back in my head, hoping they would get stuck there so that I didn't have to see anything else from here. Was it that odd to be wearing a necklace? Instead of rolling my eyes, I released Ron's finger and took a step back to place the necklace inside my shirt. 

Ron's other hand clutched around his finger in protection, as if I would grasp it again. "It looks like the rose from Beauty and the Beast, right? What's it mean?" He sounded careful. 

None of your business. 

"Does it have anything to do with your name?" Enid asked, moving next to Ron to face me. "Belle? Is that it?" 

Another boy, freckles spread all over his face and black unruly hair, shook his head. "Belle means pretty, right? She doesn't look like a Belle."

 You're not the best looking either, but you don't see me complaining.

"What about Beast?" Ron suggested. "She went all psycho on everyone when she got here, she doesn't talk. Seems like a beast to me." I had to admit, this one hurt more than the previous insult. Imagine, being given a name, only to be called 'Beast', after reacting like a human when you're being abducted. 

The black haired boy nodded, tapping his chin. "Beast, yeah, it kinda has a ring to it, doesn't it?" He looked around the room, waiting for any objection, from anyone but me. I pressed my lips tightly on each other, sending my best glare at Ron and the black haired boy.

Enid stepped forward. "What? We're not going to call her that!" She looked pissed at Ron. "Just because she won't talk, doesn't mean she is some kind of freak!" 

"We didn't say that!" Ron objected. "Beast isn't as bad as freak. Carl, what do you think?'' Curious to what the boy with the hat would say, I turned to look at him. 

He looked from Ron to me and back to Ron, swallowing visibly. "I, uh, I don't know, man." He puffed his cheeks, his deep blue eyes locking into mine, eyeing me oddly. "I mean, she doesn't look like a beast now, does she?" 

"It's not about they way she looks, but how she acts." 

"We haven't seen how she really acts yet." God bless this boy.

Ron and the black haired boy looked skeptically at Carl and Enid backed him up. "Just because she freaked out with Rick, doesn't mean she is always like that. How would you feel when you lived outside the walls the entire time and suddenly had to interact with people?" She looked at the boys. "See? You don't know. I'm not going to call her Beast, just because she was scared once."  God bless this girl even more.

I looked thankfully at Enid and send her a nod that passed the other people in the room. Ron sighed and looked suspiciously at Carl. 

"Fine. Who wants to play first?" He turned to his television and picked up a joystick. 

🌹

Walking behind Enid and Carl, like a duckling following their mother, I followed them as they led me through the place they called Alexandria. Out of all the people of my age, they were the most decent ( and good looking, might I add ). I thought that if I had to choose someone I would spend the entire day with, besides Denise, it had to be one of them. 

The night before, Denise had returned with an overly emotional and unstable mother of Ron, whose name was Jessie. Dry tears were on her cheeks and Denise had ordered for everyone to leave, panic in her eyes, but also a kind of determination. 

The atmosphere in Alexandria had been dull the entire day and none of us seemed to know as to why. While most residents looked at us as we passed them, most of them didn't look at me but at Carl, making me curious as to why. It didn't bother me at all, I even liked it. But Carl didn't seem as one to attract attention to himself.

Stopping by a small pound, Enid sat down on the timber dock, letting out a sigh. "Something is different," she voiced and Carl sat next to her. I sat next to Carl and bend forward to look at Enid. "Don't you feel it? Everyone is behaving weird— even more than usually."

"My dad," Carl started softly, "he was covered in blood yesterday when he got home." They looked at me and I turned to my left, expecting to see someone next to me. As I saw no one, I realised they wanted my expertise on it and I only frowned. I had only been here a few days, of which most of it was stuck in a room. If they wanted an opinion on how everything had changed, it was best if they asked someone who had been in this place longer than a few days. 

Both of their shoulders slumped and I came to realise that they didn't want any of my useless advice or opinion. They wanted me to talk. They needed someone else to talk to, someone their age, who wasn't called Ron or whatever sir 'she doesn't look like a belle to me' was called. I did want to talk to them. I could talk to them for hours, until the sun was setting. But if I talked to them, it was guaranteed I had to talk to more, Rick and Deana for example. They would want me to answer questions I wasn't ready to answer yet, or worse, questions that I didn't have an answer for. 

Don't think about that, Yana, I scolded myself. 

Looking down at my bare legs, I slowly dipped my bare feet in the cold water. Still wearing the same outfit as yesterday — having fallen asleep immediately on Denise's couch and not bothering to take any shoes before I left the house, I actually enjoyed the weather now. It was not melting hot, nor freezing cold. It was probably the most pleasurable thing in this place.  

Back home almost all kids walked bare feeted, actually enjoying the hot pavement during the summer. It reminded me of their smiling faces and brought me slight happiness, thinking about them. They were much and much better than the screaming monsters that go around stamping people here.

"Ron's acting really weird as well," Enid said softly, almost in a whisper. "He wouldn't come this morning and it seemed as if he had cried." A slight feeling of guilt came over me. Despite me not liking Ron, I still couldn't handle it if people cried. Seeing one person cry and there was no doubt I would too. 

Sitting in a silence, I looked at the disturbance my feet caused in the still water, ripples appearing on the surface, reflecting me. Carefully, I moved my body to sit on my stomach, my nose almost touching the water. In a bolt, I hit the water with my arm, splashing Carl next to me. He looked at me with confusion and slight shock, before a grin replacing his glum expression and pushed my face in to the water, making Enid smile in the process too. Their smiles looked much better than those glum looks from earlier. 

As I gasped for air after the sudden dip, I let my body slip in the water, only to surface again. With a mischievous look, I extended my arms to Enid and Carl, grabbing their arms and pulling them in the water with me.