Chapter Three

When all of us were inside Foland walked away talking with a copper haired boy.

"Hey."

I turned and looked at the blond boy. He was much taller than me but not as much as Foland was.

"H-hi," I don't know why I stuttered, I just haven't spoken to anyone since this started.

"My name is Sebastian," he sticks his hand out and I shake it.

"Riviann."

There is a moment of silence before he speaks again.

"Sorry, I'm not that good at this social thing. Come we need to introduce you to everyone."

As we walk through the halls of the school it's easy to see that it is, was, a beautiful building. Their school was all centered around an open courtyard . The floors were open all the way up to the ceiling, a big skylight on the top. Sebastian leads me up the stairs to the third floor and into a large lounge like area. There are 4 other people here, the other two that came back with us, another boy with sand colored hair and a girl with long black hair with purple hair dye at the bottom.

"Hey, you're back did you find anything?" Asked the boy with sandy hair.

"No we didn't see anything, but we also ran out of time." Sebastian answers to the boy.

I peak around from behind him to look at the boy.

"Who is that?!" The sandy hair boy blearts out obviously surprised.

"Oh ya so we found her by the west district, she's not infected. From what we know at least." The copper haired boy responds to the sandy haired one.

"Hi my name is Riviann."

He looks at me then back at Foland," did you agree with this Foland? You know that we don't have any more room or even food to continue bringing in people. I mean the only reason we let Seb stay was because he was a practicing med student."

"I agree," the black haired girl says, "if we keep bringing people in our food supply will run out quickly and we'll have to go out on food runs more."

"I can go on supply runs, I can make myself useful, I've learned my way around the infected," I say trying to convince them that letting me stay would be a good option.

Then the door to the lounge opens again and in walks a black haired boy, a girl with short blond hair with faded pink colored highlights, and a girl with wavy brown hair.

"Thanks for bringing all the infected in town to the entrance guys," sarcastically states the boy as he walks over and flops onto one of the beige couches wiping blood off of his arms with a towel .

"We're lucky, if we didn't bring the key for the back gate we would have been trapped outside," says the girl with brown hair.

I knew she looked familiar but her voice just confused my suspicion," Isabell?" I ask, stepping out from behind Sebastian.

"Riviann? Omg!" She looked shocked, surprised.

I ran up to her and hugged her tightly and she did back. I went to school with Isabell in middle school to freshman year. Then she couldn't go to school because she moved to the city.

"I can't believe you're alive," she said amazed," your area was the first to be totally obliterated.

"You know I couldn't let myself die yet, I outsmarted them."

We let go and she held my shoulders," I'm glad you made it out. Do you know what happened to Evelin? Lana?"

"No, I was on my way to school when I saw them then I ran as far as I could and took shelter in an empty house for like 24 days."

"You've been alone this whole time?" The copper haired boy replies.

"I have," Bell lets go of my shoulders and lets her arms rest by her side.

I turn to look at the copper haired boy," ya I also was trying to gather information on the infected"

This is when Sebastian cuts into the conversation as well," really did you learn anything important?"

"Well I-"

"Have you all forgotten what we were just talking about?!" The black hair girl says and the whole room is looking at her silent except for Foland who is quietly in thought.

"We can't keep her here, we're running out of food, and we don't need more dead weight around here!"

"Catherine we can't just kick people out!" Bell comes to my defense," We need as many people to survive this apocalypse as possible and I don't think it's fair to just kick her out!"

"If you're so keen on her staying here why don't you both leave together? The only reason you're still here is because Neal is your brother!"

"That's enough Catherine," Foland says to her.

"Thank you Foland, at least one of you is being sensible," Bell says.

"Don't misunderstand my interference Isabell, I'm not on anyone's side but I'm not going to allow Catherine to call all the shots. If we are going to decide we'll hold a vote, as the group leader I'm not going to vote on anything."

Bell and Catherine both look away, obviously not enthusiastic. Neal I remember Bell talking about him before, but none of the boys here look like him. Then the door opens for a second time as a tall boy that looked like Bell ran in yelling.

"Foland! Jade I can't find her!"

"Calm down Neal, when did you see her last?"

"I saw her this morning and I waited for her to show up for patrol, she took so long so I went on my own, and when I got back I couldn't find her!"

"Ok everyone we'll have to postpone this meeting till tomorrow for now the girl stays. Everyone get in a group to search."

"Come with me Rivi," Bell says before Catherine steps in.

"Absolutely not! I don't trust you, let's lock her in here until we decide what to do with her."she says glaring at us.

" That isn't necessary Catherine, I already made up my mind. She is no prisoner. I'll take her in my group with Leo."

The black haired boy throws his head back and sighs loudly," lets go we don't have time to waste," Foland says asking with his hand for the black haired boy to follow us.

Everyone spits into groups, each had one of the girls, probably to keep them away from each other so they won't start a fight. I walk behind Foland and the other boy named Leo stays behind me probably so I can't sneak away when they're not looking. We looked around the 3ed floor, since that's where everyone made their rooms. We walk up to one with a small heart engraved in the door. Foland slides the door open and walks in. He looks through everything, I stand back by the door not comfortable looking through other people's things.

"So what are we looking for?" I ask

Leo who also started looking around for answers," A note anything that could be a clue to where she could have gone. I'm not seeing anything Foland."

"Hmm, let's start looking down the halls."

We walk down the halls and check the open classrooms, but we still find nothing. Foland leads us to the ground floor and we search the cafeteria. As we're about leave to the next room I spot something on the ground under the storage room door in the cafeteria. The other two we're talking to each other, so I approach the door and bend down to slide out the object. It was a photo of Neal and a beautiful girl with dark skin and bright hazel eyes.

"Hey guys. I think I found something."