The Twilight Zone

Chapter 7

 Ellie felt her hand reach up to touch her hair.

"We don't have a bed for you."

"I know." Ellie looked at Noah matter-of-factly, her eyes boring into him. He seemed nervous, hit by her glance. Ellie was done being timid, acting scared of everything. "Where can I sleep? I can sleep in Oliver's bed, right??"

"Well..." Noah trailed off again. "Not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you can't sleep in anyone's bed that isn't your own, unless they give you permission."

"Permission? What do you mean?"

 "You need an invite. So someone has to give up their bed for you."

"Oh."

They sat like that, quiet for a minute.

"I can sleep in a vacant one."

"But-permission?" Ellie tilted the end of her thought into a question.

"I have gotten permission from her-I had. But then-" Noah stopped talking, shook his head. "It's really better not to complicate things. I can sleep in one that hasn't been used by someone in some time, and you can have mine. I'll give you the say-so." He began to trudge off, but turned around suddenly. "I still need to finish the tour."

Every bed was pretty much the same, despite the signs. Noah stopped at a bed made much more perfectly than all the rest. Ellie's eyes followed his own to the name on top someone had tried to scratch out. A. M. E. L. She couldn't see any more of the first name. Skip down a line, though, and;

K. R. A.

"Whose bed was this?"

"I'm not supposed to say."

Ellie sounded out the word. A first name on the top line. An unfinished one. On the bottom, a last name. Also probably unfinished.

After fifteen minutes of blankly staring at the sign, she gave up.

"Will you take me outside?"

"Why would you want to go out there?"

"I don't know. This place-It gives me the creeps."

"You're definitely not supposed to be here. I bet Oliver would have loved it." Noah seemed so sure, even though he didn't know Ellie's younger brother. At all.

"No, he wouldn't."

"This place is different for you than it is for all of us. We feel safer here than we ever did at home." Noah shrugged. "You aren't made for this place. For all of us, it's our destiny. For you, it's the opposite. You thought you were doing a good thing taking the bread, but you weren't. Oliver would have been much happier here."

"Not without me!"

"Do you think he's happier in Burrow? You do know you've left him alone either way. Here, he would have friends, and maybe even a life."

"I-"

"They'll find out eventually that he did it, and he probably won't be sent down here."

"Why not?"

"Cause he won't only have stolen something, but he'll have lied."

"What'll they do to him?"

Noah shook his head and sighed, looking at her with eyes that conveyed a sort of pain that Ellie couldn't place, nor did she want to.