Not that she was interested in talking with him or anything, plus he seemed awfully invested in whatever it was he was doing with that notebook.

“Holy shit she’s alive!”

Nisha turned towards the sound of the voice. It came from a small man, much shorter than everyone else. His skin was pale and just sort of blended in with his sandy brown hair and grey eyes. He wore a T-shirt advertising “Some Band” with jeans and simple trackers, the entire look a complete distinction from the medical scrubs and or business casual wear of the other group members. Finally someone dressed normally.

Finley came and stood next to him and immediately started moving her hands and fingers in gestures that Nisha did not recognize, but could tell were purposeful. The man nodded along, gesturing his own responses and questions and Nisha just stood there, silently watching their conversation. She wished she knew what they were saying, she had learned a few BSL signs in primary school, but never enough to hold a conversation. Plus that wouldn’t even be applicable here, presumably. The short man had two blue hearing aids on both his ears, and added with the signing Nisha figured it was probably correct to assume that he was, at least, hard of hearing.

“Do you feel alright?” He asked her, making her look up for her position on the floor she had been staring at while she thought.

“I feel fine. Seriously why does everyone keep asking me that?”

The man gave her a slightly confused look and turned to Finley, who relaid Nisha’s response.

“Oh I don’t know, maybe because we thought you died and didn’t want to deal with disposing a corpse?” He said without malice in his voice. Instead he smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Sam by the way.”

Nisha smiled in spite of herself, Sam’s crooked smile was weirdly infectious. “I’m Nisha. Are you deaf?”

As soon as they shook hands Sam grinned even wider. “Sure am! This is great!” He said excitedly. “Now that we know each other's names, it means we’re friends now!”

Nisha raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how friendship works.”

“Well I’m pretty sure it is, who is right? No one knows.”

“There has to be some official guideline to friendship based on culture. There’s no way knowing someone’s name detonates friendship.”

“No one knows.”

Finley giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand and Nisha turned her amused raised eyebrow based expression onto her instead. She simply shrugged.

Nisha was about to pull out her phone and search up wether or not simply knowing someone’s name made them your friend, just to prove Sam wrong, when Alex cleared his throat.

“Attention! Attention! Everyone!”

Every person present, excluding Sam, who Finley politely nudged and pointed to Alex’s direction, looked up.

“Great! Now that we’re all together now-“ at this he gestured towards Nisha and smiled warmly, who, uncomfortable with the attention, awkwardly put her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. “-And until James figures how to get us out of here, I figure we might as well get to know each other better!”

Nisha immediately shot her hand up.

“Is it mandatory?”

Alex looked like he aged five years in a couple of minutes. “I’m not going to force you to talk to anyone, of course-”

Nisha was already gone, sitting down next to Sam, who laughed lightly at her, and directing her attention elsewhere.

The woman with the black plait had her arms crossed, and was eyeing Nisha warily. She radiated some sort of force that Nisha couldn’t really put a finger on. It was like tiny little hands were coming off of the woman, poking, prodding, and entering their way through Nisha’s being—her life force. She found the feeling entirely unpleasant, as if she were a bug under a microscope, or a prisoner in interrogation. She locked eyes with the woman, giving a small look that could be loosely translated to ‘what gives?’ But the woman simply rolled her eyes and turned away from Nisha to the other half of the room.