To try and take my thoughts off the two little bulges which were keeping my attention in the center of the two large mounds on her damp dress, I got up and walked over to the kitchen area. “First, why don’t you tell me what you know. Apparently you haven’t leveled up or anything yet, so what exactly do you know about the situation we’re currently in?”

“Well, I didn’t know anything about levels, or even that stat window thing like you showed me earlier.” She was rummaging around the floor for something on her hands and knees, but I tried hard not to pay attention to her – or the short dress that showed oh so much leg and skin as she did so. To distract myself, I started looking in the sink area for anything of interest. Several stained coffee mugs were the first thing to catch my attention.

“Before it all happened, whatever it was that happened, I was in my ‘Evolution of Language’ class,” she continued on while still crawling across the floor looking for something. “Me and Ms. Evelyn were the only ones in the room; she was my personal tutor for the class; and we were really just chatting back and forth about nothing really. It was a warm afternoon, we’d just gotten back from lunch, and I guess we were just letting it settle before going back to studying. “

Her voice trailed off for a few moments and while she was collecting herself, I let out a little “Ah!” of happy surprise of my own. There, back on the corner of the counter, almost hidden behind the coffee maker and toaster, was a white tablecloth with several eating utensils on it. Most importantly, there were a couple of knives in amongst those utensils. Finally, something useful!

“That’s when it all happened, you know.” Isabella continued on in a quiet voice as if she wasn’t even aware of my interruption. “The first we knew of anything being wrong was from the screaming coming up the hall. Both of us rushed outside to see what was going on, and it was horrible.” She gave up with whatever she’d been doing, and just sat back and wrapped her arms around herself and trembled.

Thinking of what I’d already witnessed with the hall and the shape the bodies were in, I didn’t need for her to tell me what she saw. I walked over to where she was sitting and shaking and just sank down to my knees and wrapped my arms around her. Like a dam suddenly breaking, she threw her arms around me buried her head in my shoulders and just started bawling.

I was shocked at first, but I found myself drawn to pulling her up tighter against my chest and I clenched onto her as well. The smell of wet hair filled my damaged nose lightly, and the warm pressing of her chest against mine, coupled with the warmth of her tears dripping onto my shoulder was just too much for me as well. I found myself clinging to her as strongly as she was clinging to me (probably even more so, considering the difference in our strength levels), and for an unknown period we just sat there and cried on each other.

Even after we’d quit crying on each other, I kept my arms wrapped around her. Just being with another human being was comforting after the last few days, and the feeling of two warm mounds pressing against my chest didn’t make me want to just shove her away either. Being with someone – anyone – would have been nice. Having a warm, curvy, beautiful woman in my arms was just heavenly.

And, she wasn’t trying to pull away either, so I must not have been all bad either.

I stroked her hair and asked her gently, “So how’d you end up in here?”

“Mmtf Emfeln oppyn da doorf in lettem in.” Her voice was muffled with her head still pressed into my neck, and for some reason it made me smile.

Slowly I started rocking her and rubbing her back and making light shushing sounds. “Shhh… It’s OK. You’re not alone anymore.”

“We're not alone anymore, “ I emphasized.

She continued clinging to me as I rocked her, and I’m not certain how much time had passed before I heard the sound of a gentle feminine snore in my ear. I didn’t want to disturb or wake her, so I just sat there and hummed slightly to myself lost in my own thoughts.

It was hours later when she finally stretched against me and then suddenly pulled away. My legs were burning and sore and drool had already encrusted itself to my shoulder. She let out a little yelp of “Ki-yiii,” as she jerked backwards and flopped on her butt in front of me. I’ll have to admit, the view as she laid sprawled back with her knees still on either side of my lap made whatever tingling I was feeling in my legs worth it.

“I’m.. I’m sorry.” She apologized as she was getting up.

“Eh.” I just kind of shrugged in her direction. “It’s no biggy.”

“I’m.. I’m sorry.” She apologized again and turned her back to me.

“Eh?” This time I was slightly confused. Why apologize again? I’d already said it wasn’t anything big.

“I’m sorry!’ She quickly darted off into the room where we’d showered earlier and slammed the door behind her leaving me lost and confused. Had I did something wrong?

I was rubbing my legs trying to get the tingling to stop in them while thinking about what I might’ve did this time to upset her when the door opened to the other room again. “I’m sorry, “ she apologized once more while looking a little flushed as I heard the sound of water swooshing in the commode.

Finally understanding what she was apologizing for, I couldn’t help but bite back a bark of laughter. “It’s OK. When we got to go, we got to go, and we all have to go sometime.”

She blushed and just kind of shook her head and then she moved over towards the vending machine with the busted front. “Do you want something? There’s not a lot left except crackers and some of the candy bars with nuts in them. I’m allergic to peanuts, “ she informed me.

“Nah. I’m good for now,” I informed her. “In fact, why don’t you hold off on eating any of those for a bit also. I want to go out for just a bit, and where I’m going you don’t want much in your stomach. Why don’t you come with me?”

She looked a little frightened at the prospect of leaving, and wrapped her arms around her chest. I thought it was quite an appealing look in some ways, and I prepared to offer her some encouragement, but I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t needed. She shook her head, squeezed herself once and then finally nodded. “I’ll have to go out sometime, won’t I,” she whispered.

I simply nodded to her and slowly got up and went over to the counter and picked up one of the serrated knives lying there and gave it to her. I suppose the teachers had things like that so they could cut tomatoes and fruit and such, even though us students were forbidden from even having a decent pair of scissors because they might be a “weapon”. After that, I went over, stuck my ear up to the door and listened.

“You won’t hear anything, “ she informed me.

“Why’s that?”

“Apparently the room here was built with padded walls and a thick door. I think it was to help block out the sound of the students in the halls from disturbing the teachers while they worked or relaxed in here.”

To be honest, I wasn’t certain that I liked the idea of being stuck in a room where I couldn’t even hear the monsters coming. But then again, even if I could hear them, what could I do about it? The only real place to go from here was up to the roof, and there wasn’t any place there to really hide. At least in here, the monsters probably couldn’t hear us, if we couldn’t hear them. At least, I hoped they couldn’t.

As I started to unlock the door to crack it open to list, Isabella stopped me. “Drake, before we do that, can you help me with something. Please!”

“Sure. Whatcha need?” It felt so nice to hear my own name come from another person once again!

“Help me find my glasses, please.”

AH! Suddenly it donged on me what she was doing on her hands and knees earlier. “Sure. I saw them over in the corner here earlier,” I told her, as I went to retrieve them.

“Here.” I held the glasses out to her . “Can I ask, just how bad is your vision?”

“It used to not be so bad,” she told me. “Before those things attacked, I only needed them for reading so my head wouldn’t hurt. One eye was a bit worse than the other and reading could cause me a headache, but now… Now, everything is blurry without them. When I was looking at that stat window earlier, it even said something about a penalty for vision being active.”

“The stat window?” I was confused. Even though the perfume damaged my sense of smell, I was only notified once when it happened. My stat window didn’t keep it listed, or my achievements or anything like that.

“Yeah. It was down at the bottom of the list. Just below the boxes that mentioned hunger, thirst, and some of the other things.” She blushed and I had to wonder exactly what ‘other things’ she had listed on her stats.

Apparently she was getting a lot more information on hers than I did on mine. Maybe it was a result of one of her skills being higher like knowledge? Just thinking about it made me want to spend some points to test out my theory, but I decided against it. CON for me was good enough. I didn’t need a box to tell me if I was hungry (or “other things”). I’d just be happy to have enough life that I didn’t have to die again. I might not know what all the information that the stat window could provide, but I could live with that.

Shrugging, I decided to change the subject as she pulled a few strands of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears as she slid her glasses on. “Can you tell me how you got in here, again? I didn’t quite understand you earlier.”

“Sorry.” I got to say, she’s cute when she’s blushing. “I tried to tell you: Ms. Evelyn opened the door and let me in here once we saw what was going on.”

“So where is she at? Why isn’t she in here with you?” I had to ask.

Isabella shook a few times and then hugged herself again. I think I like that particular habit of hers. It’s quite appealing, in my opinion. “Ms. Evelyn saw another student that she recognized. She ran down the hallway to get them, and I panicked. I shut the door behind me and locked her out….” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “I don’t know if it’s my fault she didn’t come back. Maybe if the door would’ve been opened, they both could’ve made it. I was scared…” She was starting to cry again. “I’m sorry.”

Taking a deep breath, I walked over and wrapped my arms around her once more. “It’s OK. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to, to live. I can’t blame you for that.” Silently she sniffled into my arms and shook her head up. “Just promise me one thing, will you?”

“What’s that?” She sniffled in my arms, but I could tell she was trying to compose herself already.

“Just don’t ever lock the door on me like that. Please.”

“I won’t.” She slowly reached it and wiped the tears from her eyes. “But that’s not one thing. That’s two.”

“Two,” I asked?

“Yeah. I’ve already promised you that I’d do anything you wanted as long as you didn’t hurt or kill me. A Starchilde never goes back on their word you know. It’s our bond. Never locking the door on you is now my second promise, so it’s not ‘one thing’ like you said.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that so I just held her quietly while she got herself composed once again. Are all girls this adorable and confusing, or am I just blessed (or maybe cursed) to find one like her?