"Well, that sucks. I'm going back outside. With any luck maybe one will eat me." She was holding back tears as she walked calmly out of the building. "Idiot. Completely moronic. You should know by now to keep your own mouth shut."

Ray silently urges Zach to go after her. Zach agrees and heads out, taking his backpack and his jacket. He walks after Selene, muttering to himself how he likes flying better. When he gets to Selene, he says, "So I have come to make sure you don't die."

(Zach is the opposite of another of my characters, who can fly but they are terribly afraid of flying after getting hit by lightning.)

"Like you actually care if I do or not." She turned her head away from Zach as she continued to look over the edge. She sat down as she wiped the tears out of her eyes.

"I do care." Zach says, sitting next to Selene. He looks out across the scenery, trying to imagine the place overrun by monsters and failed. He doubted there were really that many monsters in the Labyrinth, hardly enough to take over a kingdom, and probably not enough to threaten the whole world like everyone kept saying is what would happen if the monsters managed to escape.

"Really? Why would you care? I'm just dead weight at this point." She looked down. "And if I'm not careful, I'll actually become dead weight."

"You're not dead weight. And I care because..." Zach pauses, his face flushing as he looks down at his lap. "Um, just because."

"No I mean, if I faint then I will actually become dead weight. I have low blood pressure. It drops pretty quickly. Anyways, what do you mean 'just because'? You try to comfort me, and when we came out of the labyrinth and met James your first instinct was to protect me. Even though you couldn't see or talk you tried to keep me safe. Why?" She watched Zach, waiting for his reaction to gauge it.

Zach stays silent, his face turning a deep red. He looks anywhere but at Selene. " Because I love... the color orange." He says, not really saying what he meant to say. I like her as a friend, nothing more, because neither of us can risk another heartbreak of something happens, he reminds himself.

She stared at Zach with a look that said, 'What the hex?' "You... like the color orange? I mean, I can get a salmon orange but straight orange is just way too bright. Are you okay?"

Zach nods his head, covering his face with his hands. Can you be any more awkward? He asks himself.