The men stalked towards her.

"She is so tiny!" boomed a big man with a Russian accent. His bald head made him look kind of funny to Elise. The big man went in front of her and looked as if he was examining her. "You are Spy?"

"Uh, yeah." Elise confirmed with a worried look slowly slipping onto her features. "Who are you?"

"Heavy," said the Russian man.

Engineer leaned towards Elise while on his tiptoes. "That's our Heavy Weapons guy. He's a real brute."

"Little Spy is scared of Heavy?" Heavy asked with narrowed eyes.

"No, not at all," Elise reassured with a weak punch to his stomach. Her hand soon felt like it had fallen off.

"I like her," Heavy said with a wide grin. "You will be good Spy, da?"

"Uh, of course."

Heavy laughed loudly and patted her on her back, almost breaking her spinal chord. He walked back over to the table and sat down with a sandwich on his plate.

The rest of the men remained standing in a circle that surrounded Elise. One of the men, a black man, took a step forward and slung an arm around Elise's shoulders. His breath smelled of alcohol, and nothing else.

"Ay, I'm the Scottish man. Wait, I mean the Demoman. Yes! I blow things up you see," said Demoman. Before he could say anything else, Demoman fell back onto one of his teammates, who ended up throwing him on the floor.

"What is a lady doing in this war?!" barked a large, sturdy man who didn't have an accent.

"Is there a problem with having a woman in war?" Elise asked back.

"Of course there is! Women are meant to be in the kitchen! Not in the fields of death!"

Anger washed over Elise, and with one swift blow to the chin of the man, she knocked the living daylights out of him. Elise was so tired of hearing all those stereotypes about women.

"Whoa, that chick just knocked out Soldier!" Scout cried out with a laugh. "I like her already!"

"I'm the Sniper," a tall lanky man said sort of dismissively as he walked right passed Elise. He had a hat that covered his eyes, and even without it, he still wore aviators that blocked his eyes.

"The Sniper isn't really the social kind of guy..." Engineer said.

All of the sudden, Elise was pulled into a tight hug from a man or woman in a fire suit. His/her mask covered everything, hiding all features and emotions that should be present.

"W-what the hell is that?!" Elise cried out in fear.

Engineer gave a heart filled laugh and patted the thing on its back. "This here is Pyro," he said.

"Hrrre!" Pyro... said?

"What?"

"He says hello." Engineer clarified.

"Mrr nrrm huddah mrrf!"

Pyro let her down and held his hand up.

"Does he want me to high five him?" Elise leant back to ask Scout.

"Yeah, go for it. Pyro's a totally chill dude."

Elise raised her hand and high fived his gloved hand. Pyro gave off a happy sounding laugh and clapped while jumping up and down. He gave Elise one more big hug before walking back to the living room to watch the television that was still on.

"We kind of think he's gay," Scout said.

"Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same..." Elise laughed along with Scout.

"Hey Scout, have you seen the Medic?"

"He's in his office place. It looked like he had some stuff to do." Elise responded.

"Well that explains a lot. I just thought we were missing someone for no explanation," Engineer said with a smile.

After a while, everyone went about to do their own thing and Elise was left with doing nothing. Scout was still standing with her.

"What are you guys doing anyways? Aren't you supposed to be in war right now?" Elise asked.

"Yeah, but today is kind of a break for us, you know? Strong men like us need to be well rested in order to give off a good fight," Scout grinned as he flexed his non-existent muscles.

"So it's just a whole day doing nothing?"

"Yup." Scout smiled at her.

Elise couldn't help but to smile at him. He was cute, in an innocent boy way. Scout kind of felt like a younger brother to her.

"Well, I'm off. I'm going to go to my room." Elise announced to the men.

"See you around Spy." Scout said.

Careful not to step on the unconscious men, Elise headed back to her room.

When she got there, she found a box on the bed, with a note attached.

The note said: "Here's some of your stuff. This was as much as we could gather. Welcome to RED, once again."

A note, probably from Miss Pauling.

Elise opened the box and found many of her belongings. Placed expertly in the middle of the junk, was a picture of a man, the man she tried so hard to avoid. Without thinking, Elise chucked the picture into the garbage, a crack of glass sounding as it made contact. Tears streaked her mask and she wiped them away vigorously with her sleeve. "I'm not letting that bastard destroy my life again."

Elise was laying on the couch, loving the feeling of coming back home after a month away from home. Her eyes were closed, with her arm over her eyes as well.

"Hello sweetheart," he whispered in her ear.

Elise smiled, his voice sending shivers down her back. A cold sensation ran across her throat, a new feeling to her. But this was not a feeling that she should be accustomed to. The sensation of chills went from sensational to a searing pain.

He slid it across her throat, covering her mouth with his other hand.

"Shh, it's time for you to sleep now, my love."

Elise jolted up from her sleep with sticky sweat covering all areas of her body. "Shit," she cursed. She turned to the nightstand and looked at the blurry clock that she had put up a couple hours ago. It was 9:13 pm. She got up from her bed and walked over to the kitchen in her koala pyjamas. Deciding what to get, she shuffled slowly to the extra room that was attached to the kitchen. The room contained the oven and stove along with a sink and a fridge. The area seemed bigger than it should be with what was in it.

She opened the fridge and looked for a little snack. Inside was milk, beer, water, some leftovers, beer, apple juice, an energy drink with a label saying 'BONK!', beer, an apple, beer, and some more beer. Elise took out the apple juice and walked around to the cabinets on top of the stove. She couldn't see much in the dark area, the fridge was the only source of light.

"Here," someone said behind her.

"What? Whoa!" she screamed and turned around, accidentally bumping into Sniper's chest. She leaned back and stared at him. He didn't have his glasses on, only his hat on his head. Other than that, he wore the same clothes that she had seen earlier.

"Are you going to take it?" Sniper asked impatiently. He waved the glass in front of Elise's face.

"Huh? Oh, right," she said taking the glass and filling it with the apple juice. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to say the same thing, but I can clearly see what you are doing," Sniper said as he took the apple juice from Elise, filling his own mug that said '#1 Sniper' across in red. "Cheers," he said raising his mug. Elise clanked her cup with his mug, both of them taking a gulp at the same time. Sniper looked down at her pyjamas and smiled in his cup.

Elise watched in amazement. The guys told her that the Sniper wasn't a social guy, but here he was, drinking apple juice with a stranger.

"What're you looking at me like that for?" he asked still smiling.

Elise realized that she had been staring for a while. "Sorry, Sniper." He tensed. "Where are you from?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he said with a canine-like smile.

"Australia?"

"Yup," he smiled again.

They stood there for a while in silence. It didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable, at least it didn't to Elise.

"Has anyone died?" Elise asked.

"Died in what?"

"In this... this war."

Sniper sighed and took another gulp. "Yeah. We all have."

Elise's eyes went wide. "You've all died?"

"Yup," he replied, popping the 'p' at the end.

"B-but, how?"

"I'll you experience it for yourself." Sniper grinned and tipped his hat with his free hand. "Have a good night, sheila."

"Good night?" Elise responded in question.

Sniper left, leaving Elise in wonder. How could they have possibly survived?

This much thinking tired Elise out. She decided to wonder more in the morning. On her way to her room, she could have sworn she'd seen a shadow of him. But it was all in her head. There shouldn't be any reason for her to miss him.

With her eyelids quickly dropping, she tried to remember what the Sniper had told her. She was way too tired to think and ended up sleeping soundly.