Dangerous

Chapter 5

I had never been so happy to see food in my entire life.

Rodney had failed to mention that classes ran for five hours, and I hadn't had breakfast. It was close to two o'clock when I was finally released from Current Events and I practically sprinted to the cafeteria, following the signs attached to the hallway ceiling.

The cafeteria was eerily silent. I basically skidded to a halt as soon as I was inside the double doors. Teenagers sat shoulder to shoulder in even rows at gray tables, silently eating. Every once in awhile, one would get up and walk robotically to the nearest trash can, dump the food in it, and return to their seat. I walked as silently as I could around the edge of the cafeteria, feeling numerous pairs of questioning eyes on my back. Guess I wasn't blending in as well as I had hoped.

After receiving my food, which looked not nearly as good as I had wished, I turned around to look for a spot to sit. The silence was almost disturbing, and I wondered if these people were robots. Eat with fork, eat with spoon, take a drink, repeat. It was almost the same process for every person. I was about ready to ditch and just forget about food for today when a girl sitting at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria waved at me. In a massive singular motion, all heads in the cafeteria swept towards her, but she pretended like she didn't see them. She waved again, and I shook my head out of my state of shock and slowly started to walk toward her. At least she seems nice.

The clicking of my boots on the tile was much too loud, and the softer I attempted to make my steps, the louder the noise became. All heads were now turned toward me, and I had a sense of deja vứ from Physics class this morning.

The girl had a small smile on her face as I hesitantly sat down beside her. She was short and lean, with hair cropped to just below her ears. Her brown eyes sparkled, and I wondered how she could keep her positivity in such a dreary and depressing place as this. Everyone at her table gave me small, encouraging smiles. I tried to smile back.

"You looked like you could have used some help there," she said, flashing a grin. "I'm Liz. Everyone this is..."

"Jessalyn," I said quietly, aware of the echoing even the smallest bit of noise made in the large room. Liz apparently didn't care though, as she laughed loudly, throwing her head back. Her friends around her burst into giggles at her sudden outburst.

"Don't worry. All these guys are practically robots anyway," she said, inclining her head toward the rest of the cafeteria. "Too afraid to take even a simple step out of line. I don't like to live that way. I figure I'm gonna get sent out soon so why not have the best life I can while I'm here?" She shrugged nonchalantly.

I just looked at her for a second, before a grin touched my face. Her positivity was contagious. She grinned back at me.

"I think you and I are gonna get along fine, String Bean."

It was my turn to laugh. "I think we will too, Munchkin."

*** so this story has officially been entered into the Wattys 2017!! I'm super excited!! 

Please let me know if you're liking the story so far by voting and/or commenting!

p.s. I know this chapter is very short, some of the chapters are, this story was actually a story I wrote in my junior year of high school for a creative writing class, where we had to write a novella (60 pages or more). So some chapters are shorter than others, but I will try to update quickly to make up for it!

thanks guys!