-8-

"Will!"

"Will!"

0-11 heard the shouts nearby, seeing the three lights. She had been hiding in this strange place for a long time now ever since the death of that kind man who was killed by the Bad people who were after her, but this place was not like the place she was used to; she had never been in the outside world before.

She was cold.

She was wet.

She was tired.

Worse, she was lost.

She had been walking through this place for hours after hiding as quickly as she had left the kind man's home after he'd fed her, although she hadn't been able to answer any of his questions. She didn't know the answers herself; there was a blank place in her mind following her escape, and she didn't remember anything about anything, even how to say complicated words even if she knew she had the capacity.

But she had to keep moving; she had to escape from the Bad Men before they killed her like she had seen that woman murder the kind man; two of the bad people had tried to stop her, pointing guns at her before she used her gift to kill them instead and get away.

She had been wandering around for a long time, and then she had begun to get wet; the shirt the kind man had loaned her was soaked, and she was cold, soaked to the skin.

She did not know where she was. This place was not like the bright, warm place she had grown up in, and it was not long before she became lost. And then she found she was no longer alone.

"Byers! I've got your X-Men 134!"

0-11 crinkled her face into a frown, wondering what that meant as she edged closer. To her surprise, she saw three lights. Instinctively, she kept away, trembling with both cold and terror that these were the Bad people out to kill her.

"Guys, I really think we should turn back," one of them said.

"Seriously, Dustin?" Another scoffed. "You wanna be a baby, then go home already!"

0-11 frowned.

Home?

How many times had Papa said the place she grew up in was 'home' when she knew it was not?

"I'm just being realistic, Lucas!"

"No, you're just being a big sissy!" The voice, this Lucas, said back.

"Did you ever think Will went missing because he ran into something bad?" Dustin argued. "And we're going to the exact same spot where he was last seen? - And we have no weapons or anything?"

0-11 quickly worked out these were not the Bad People, they were someone else's, and they were looking for someone, but who she didn't know, but she would have to be careful around them. She instinctively wanted to stay away from them, but her stomach growled. She took a step closer to get a better look, deciding to see if she could get a closer look and make her decision from there.

Unfortunately, her unfamiliarity with the place she was, meant she didn't know how to keep quiet.

Something SNAPPED underneath her feet, and she froze in fear.

"Dustin, shut up," one of the voices said, leaving 0-11 frozen, wondering if they'd heard.

"I'm just saying, does that seem smart to you?" This Dustin didn't seem to have heard her, but now she was closer she could see there were three of them and they were not bad people.

"Shut up. Shut up. Did you guys hear that?"

0-11 slowly made her way closer to them, seeing them shine their lights one way before another snapping noise had them swing around, and suddenly she was blinded by harsh light similar to the light she'd seen earlier, but what scared her the most about this light was it was just as unnatural as the light in Papa's home, and she blinked rapidly in the glare.

She hoped they were not bad people, and they helped her.