Sadie's POV

Once we were let inside the supposed community's gates, I stopped to stand there for what I thought was only an extra minute or two as I looked behind me, watching til it eventually clanged shut….and jumping slightly when it did.

"Sadie!" Gareth's voice, as if he'd been trying to get my attention for some time now, urgently broke through my apparent trance.

I put my free hand to my chest as I caught my breath. "...Yeah?"

"...You okay?"

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine." I lied.

He obviously wasn't buying it though.

He put his arm around me. "You sure?"

"Fine enough, anyway." I tried to reassure him.

He half smiled as he kissed me on the cheek. "If you say so."

I smiled back at him, genuinely this time, as we continued to follow Aaron to to meet with the head of this community.

The room we were brought to to be interviewed, individually in really did feel like something straight out of a Twilight Zone episode the more I wandered around it, checking it out.

However serious or not I was about my little reference a day or so ago, I really started to feel like whoever this Deanna lady was might just come out, see me and Alex, and wonder why we…..myself, especially, looked like we'd been through hell and back.

Oh, there was no apocalypse. You're just crazy, Sadie. Like that other episode, the one where the guy wakes up one morning to find that no one, not even his own mother knows who he is.

I stood there, still lost in thought, skimming through the all too perfect looking bookshelf til a woman's voice finally broke said train of thought.

"Hello." She greeted, seemingly abruptly…...to me, anyway. "I'm Deanna Monroe."

I nodded, trying to hide my obvious anxiousness as I adjusted Alex more comfortably in my arms. "Sadie…..he's Alex."

She smiled warmly, waving back to him when he put up his little hand to wave at her, before gesturing to the couch. "Would you like to sit?"

"Alright…." I nodded, somewhat hesitantly, as I made my way over.

"Do you mind if I film this?" She asked, catching me off guard again.

"I'm sorry?"

"Our talk." She explained. "Do you mind if I film it?"

Aaaand there it is. "Why?"

"We're about transparency here." She looked at me curiously when she apparently heard me chuckle to myself at the thought. "Something funny about that?"

"You're just gonna have some second thoughts about us if we reeeaally start to go there, is all." I chuckled as I nodded toward her little camera. "...you and whoever else gets to see this."

"Oh, I've talked to a lot of people, Sadie." She chuckled, a little more relaxed than she probably should be. "..granted, it has been a couple years since we've let anyone from the outside in, but you'd be surprised by some of the things I've heard." She gestured to a wall of what were apparently tapes of everyone else's so called interviews. "...You're welcome to see for yourself."

"Ahh, so that isn't your secret porn stash then." I chuckled, noting the names on each of them.

"No." She chuckled, seemingly genuinely, at the joke. "..Goodness no. Nothing like that."

"Well then, that's one mystery solved." I chuckled, glancing back at her little camera set up. "...anyway, I guess you can have at it."

"Are you sure?" She asked. "...We can do this another way, if you'd be more comfortable."

I shrugged. "Nahh, I'll be alright….full transparency, right?"

"That's right." She nodded, pressing a little button on her camera before setting it back up. "So, how long have you been out there? Were you out there since the start, or…." She trailed off.

Puttin me on the spot, right off the bat, I see…...smart, I guess.

"...For about two years now…." I guesstimated, smiling briefly at Alex. "...just about, anyway….."

She nodded as she waited for me to go on.

"...We had a place, somewhat of our own community, at the start….nothing as nice as this." I sort of scoffed, glancing around. "...but it was home….something of a home, I guess."

"What happened to it?" She asked. "...if you don't mind me asking."

"...people took it….." I shook my head, trying to shake the thoughts, as if it would do any good, trying to shift the subject without seeming too suspicious. "...We took it back, but then…" I trailed off, even longer this time, as my mind flashed back through it all.

Images of the insides of those train cars…..the same ones that still haunted most of my nightmares…

What they did to me...what-

I shook my head again, trying to ground myself before it could take me much further beyond that.

"Sadie." Deanna urged, significantly more concerned now, as if she'd been trying to get my attention for a while.

"Hmmm?"

"...are you okay?"

"Yeah…." I nodded, trying to collect myself.

"Are you sure? We can do this another time if- "

Yeah, that won't make me seem more suspicious. "...really I'm fine, I just...you know, why don't we move on to the next question?"

"Okay." She nodded, attempting to reassure me.

"Thanks….I'm sorry, I just…"

"That's alright." She chuckled, offering me a bottled water. "...you don't need to apologize, I can see you've been through a lot."

I nodded, clearing my throat slightly as I sipped from the water. "...We have…"

She nodded sympathetically as she waited for me to settle a little bit more.

"...Why don't you tell me about your family now?" She finally asked. "...Did you know each other before? Or…"

I smiled a little as I nodded at that. "...Gareth and I met our senior year of high school…..we dated sometime after that and then…" I shrugged a little as I guesstimated the time period "...about a year or so after that, we got married."

She smiled again at that. "High school sweethearts, then."

I chuckled a little at the term. "...feels like a little bit of an understatement, but yeah…" I glanced briefly toward one of the windows. "...yeah, he is my best friend…"

She nodded. "That's the way it should be."

I smiled as I nodded back to her before continuing. "...Theresa, I've known for even longer. She and I go way back."

"I see…"

I nodded. "...I hadn't heard from her in a while, til right about the start of everything, and we sort of reconnected after that."

She nodded again. "..sounds like you were pretty lucky then."

I chuckled softly at that. "...yeah, we were…." I sighed as I thought on it some more.

"...alright, how bout I ask you something?" I finally asked.

"Please." She agreed, surprisingly willingly.

"...Why are you doing this? Letting people in like this, I mean….."

She got up and walked over to one of the windows, motioning for me to follow her as she looked out. "..These people...These people deserve to have a safe environment to raise their families." She smiled as she glanced at Alex. "...your son deserves to have a place where he can grow up."

I sighed, half smiling to myself as I tried to accept the idea.

"We need people like you, people who've been out there, to help us survive. You can help us survive."

I shook my head. "You don't know shit about us…" I reminded her. "...you don't know what we've done out there, the people we've- " I sighed. "...all the people we've hurt….at best anyway…" I looked out the window, myself. "I've done..we've done, worse than that."

"I know enough." She claimed. "...I'm pretty good at reading people."

"Yeah, not good enough." I scoffed.

"I am." She insisted. "Really….I was even going to be a professional poker player before." She chuckled a little at that. "...if I didn't get re-elected, that is."

"Re-elected?" I repeated curiously.

She nodded. "I was a congressperson before all this. Ohio."

"I see….." I started to wander around again, glancing out the windows as I did so. "...another question, then." I added.

"Go ahead."

I took another quick once over of the vicinity. "What is this place? Really, I mean, because quite frankly these whole little spiels of yours are sounding more and more like something out of The Twilight Zone, if you know what I mean."

She chuckled a little at the reference, sighing slightly before she spoke again.

"You're skeptical…..and you have every right to be….you have a family to protect."

I nodded quietly. "I do…...you gonna answer my question now?"

She proceeded to go on this whole little spiel that, much like Aaron's little people are so important spiel, sounded a little to rehearsed for my taste.

Shit like how this was a planned community, and filtration systems….whatever that meant these days. Nothing more than what you could easily find off the back of a brochure.

"...do do do do, do do do do." I hummed with a little smirk when she was finally finished.

"Look, Sadie…" She sort of chuckled. "...maybe nothing I can tell you about what this place is will help you to believe me, and that's okay…..it's a lot to take in."

"..You can say that again." I sort of scoffed.

She smiled back at me, regardless, and looked at her watch. "It's 3:27pm, Sadie…..so, with all that being said, if it's you who's doing the deciding….it's time to make that decision."

I nodded, glancing out the window, then back to Alex, before looking back at her.

"...I'll think about it."