Her eyes twitched, and her subconscious mind keeps nagging at her to wake up.

So with reluctance, she opens her eyes and fully yawns.

Blinking her drowsiness away, she raises her arm above her head to lower the carton box flap, and quietly she peeks through the opening to make sure that the coast is clear.

Seeing no one inside the closet room with her, she then closes her eyes again and proceed to strain her ears, trying to hear any sound coming through the closet door.

After a while, with some certainty, she is quite sure that there is no one near the closet or around the nearby hallway.

With a soft grunt, she prepares her body and then launches a sideway roll to the side of the carton box which is facing the center of the closet.

Her body rolls out of the carton box.

She then falls slightly to the floor as she continues rolling through the central area of the closet and hit the shelves on the opposite side with her face.

"Chiiiiiiiiii..........!"

She squeals in pain as she holds her face with both hands.

Unfortunately it only irritates the skin of her face as the rough texture of the bark covering her hands adds to her pain.

She let go of her face as she was left with no choice but raise her arms fully extended above her head and then proceed to roll quickly from side to side on the closet floor to distract her from her pain.

"Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.......Chiiiiiiiiiii......Chiiiii.........Chi...."

She extends her soft squeal to let out the pain in a lower volume so that she would not be heard and found after reaching this stage of her escape.

After a while, her pain fades away, with a grunt she raised her upper body and sits cross-legged on the closet floor.

As she straightens up, her gaze landed on a suit of janitor overall hanging off the hook at the back of the entrance door that was not there before she went to sleep inside the box.

She tilted her head to the left and saw in the corner of her eyes more things which were not there before she went to sleep.

Standing up, she walked toward the entrance door and grabbed a pair of long yellow rubber gloves for cleaning.

The sentence, ideal disguise, crosses her mind as she beheld the pair of gloves and proceeded to insert her hands and pulled the gloves all the way up to her shoulder.

Due to her small stature, the rubber gloves that an adult would normally only be able to wear up to the elbow, but for her it can be pulled up to her shoulder instead.

Her only gripe is that the pair of gloves is too large for her hands and arms.

As she thought that, the gloves suddenly adjusted itself and shrank in size until it fits her perfectly up to her shoulder.

"Hmm, the future is convenient."

She nodded in approval for the progress of technology during her absence.

Feeling more confident, she picked up the pair of rubber boots from the corner and wears it, and again it adjusted its size by itself to fit her perfectly.

Now that her limbs are covered, she looks almost perfectly normal.

Well if you didn't count her full head of leaves, as she puffed at a leafy bang blocking her eye away.

She then reached for the last item which was not in the closet last time.

Her hand grips the backpack hanging from the floor, and to her disappointment, it was lightweight even for her.

She unzips the backpack and can only found an adult magazine, a pack of cigarettes and a bundle of something made from straw tied together.

Dejected, she unwraps the bundle and found to her delight, a large Mexican sombrero hat with the word fiesta painted on it.

Happily, she wears the sombrero hat, as she makes sure to bundle up all her leaves inside and tie the sombrero hat tightly and securely against her chin.

Looking up and down, after covering everything that doesn't look human and with the oversized white scientist coat, she nodded in satisfaction.

She now looks like a child of one of the scientists trying to help clean up their parent's laboratory and playing with the Mexican sombrero hat they found in the storage room.

Even the dirt covering the coat back when she fell to the ground added to the illusion.

Now that she feels that she is ready to venture out of her hiding place, she approaches the closet door and with confidence, quietly turns the knob leading to the hallway.

Peeking through the gap, she confirms that the coast is clear and then proceeds to close the door behind her.

She decided to continue walking down the hall from earlier as she turns her head around and looks towards the other path of the intersection, the one leading to the right from the intersection.

She knows that road is blocked to her, as she suspects that the entrance leading to the large cavern where the glowing tree is located would be guarded by a pair of guards now and surely if she walks towards the other side they will spot her crossing and give chase.

Shaking her head, she turns back towards the hallway, which is on the left of the intersection, where the mob chasing her originally saw her running towards.

Confident that this is the better decision, she walks at a sedate pace while looking down and proceeds to sway from side to side to sell the illusion of a carefree child.

She didn't dare to look up.

Usually there would be security cameras installed on the roof and just because she couldn't see one doesn't mean that they are not there.

However, that begs the question why they didn't check the footage and see her going in the closet, but crossed it out from her mind as maybe it was simply bad design planning on their part.

As it could be the camera angle or the different camera's coverage are not converging properly.

Whatever it is, their mistake is her gain, as otherwise she would already have been caught in her sleep by now.

As she walks through the hallway, she passed a few locked doors, and she tried to open every door she passed by pressing the buttons beside the door, but all of them refused to open.

On the upside,  she didn't see anyone so far, and she hopes it would keep being that way.

Ahead of her she can see another intersection, and she has two choices here, she can continue walking straight ahead, or she can turn right towards another hallway.

The straight path is clear, but the path to the right is the one she is uncertain.

She proceeds to press her body against the wall leading towards the right hallway.

Next, she stops at the corner and slowly sneaks a peek towards that hallway, and seeing that the coast is also clear she took a step and moved in.

"Hey! This is a restricted area! You're not supposed to be here!"

A loud voice boomed from a distance, directed towards her.

Frozen in shock, one of her legs still raised she turns her head sideways towards the straight path.

There was another intersection down the hallway, hidden from her sight due to an unfortunate angle, and from that intersection, an obviously angry security guard walks toward her at a fast pace.

Act cute!

"Nyaaaa..?"

She tilted her head and meowed at the approaching guard.

The guard visibly wilted at her act and his anger can be seen quickly deflating.

Success!

"Tch, this is why I told those guys we should have put all the kids together and lock all of them in one room."

The guard complained as he gently reaches out to me and put his hand on my back.

"Come now, little girl follow me. I'll bring you back, and you can find your parents there." Said the strict guard as he pushes her gently towards the intersection where he came from.

Double Success!

Seeing no other choice and feeling positive, she still remembers to pout like a child being denied sweets under these circumstances.

She walks for a while under the guidance of the guard as she starts to see more and more people.

Some are guards, and some look like admin staff, but so far she hasn't seen the group of scientist she first encountered earlier.

Most of them ignored her and her guide, but some lightly smiled at her, which is good as most of them looks sleep deprived and have eye bags under their eyes.

Is it because of her, she wonders?

Ahead she can see a pair of guards standing at attention, guarding a large entrance, and inside she can see a large group of people wearing casual clothes milling about and having some hot food and drinks while chatting with each other.

She can also see some small kids zooming here and there playing with each other.

As she and her guard approach them, one of them raised his hand and greeted her guard.

"Hi there Alan. Found a straggler have you?" The other guard chuckles and shakes his head.

Scowling, her guard overtakes her and put his hand on top of her head.

"Shut it, Bruce. You wouldn't believe where I found this little squirt. She managed to find her way into the restricted zone after the lockdown we just went through." Said her guard as he lifted his hand from her head and back to his side.

"Impressive, she might make a good mercenary one day." Said another pair of guard as he put his right hand on his chin in a thoughtful manner while staring at her.

"Well, they are not paying me enough to go through all this bullshit while babysitting a kid. Anyway, take her off my hand Bob. I have to get back on my patrol on the restricted zone. Though how am I supposed to know what I am trying to find if the brass refused to tell us what is the actual thing we're supposed to find is beyond me." Said, my guard, as he crossed his arms and as I fidgeted uncomfortably behind him.

"You said it Alan. I don't understand why the brass only said 'You'll know it when you see it.' which is bullshit if I ever heard one." Complained Bob as he looks at me again.

"Anyway, we're talking too much, the little girl looks uncomfortable standing there already listening to us yakking. We'll let her in Alan, just go back to your patrol before you get in trouble." Said, Bob, as he gestured for me to come in the cafeteria.

I moved forward and tried to look sullenly as I pass both guards standing sentinel at the cafeteria entrance.

"Yeah, you're right, but I hope they didn't ask us to find a face hugger! Asking us to check in pairs, I tragically shot Kenny in panic as the thing lodged to his face! Thankfully the brass cleared me of murder and manslaughter. Though we have to cremate Kenny on the brass insistence." Lamented my guard Alan as he remembers his good friend Kenny.

She prickles her ears when she hears about a face-hugger, and proceeds to sit on a nearby cafeteria bench near the entrance directly opposite the entrance as she tried to eavesdrop on their conversation, a face-hugger sounds interesting.

"Ha! I remembered that! The brass supplied everyone with alcoholic drinks after that, as if it makes up for Kenny's death. Horrible what happens to Kenny but his drink was good, so I toasted for him in death and his honor. Though after that we forgot to ask what the heck killed Kenny." said Bruce, the guard as he guffawed loudly.

"Don't know, don't care, goodbye. I'll get back on my patrol." said Alan tersely as he huffed and walked away.

The guard, Bruce, stared bewilderedly at Alan's retreating back.

"What's that about eh?" Bruce asked while looking towards his colleague Bob.

"You're an ass, of course, he would be angry. Kenny is his good friend." Bob said shaking his head at his friend rudeness.

"Well then, as far as I am concerned, may a face-hugger deepthroat him as well. He is a jerk." Bruce said with annoyance while brushing off an imaginary dust from his shoulder.

"Said the pot calling the kettle black." Bob replied and to which Bruce shrugged unconcernedly.

Is the show over?

Disappointed at the lack of clarification, she proceeds to stand again before hearing a commotion from outside the cafeteria. Pausing and observing the cafeteria entrance she could hear the sound growing larger which sounds like a woman pleas.

The two guards standing near the entrance are now both looking sideways toward the disturbance in the distance.

"No please! It was not my fault! Don't do this to me! I've worked so hard for the project! I demand to see the manager!"

She can hear a woman's pleading voice but kept her attention towards the entrance until she can see a woman being dragged by two guards passing through the cafeteria entrance.

To her surprise, she recognized the woman as the same middle-aged scientist woman she met before and to the scientist's surprise,  as both their eyes met, the scientist does as well.

"There! She's there! She's standing there all this while, and you all have the guts to blame me for incompetence! You're all idiots! The lot of you!" The scientist with bloodshot eyes screams as she pointed wildly at me even though being held tightly by the two guards from both her sides.

Following the direction of the finger pointing at her, both the guards holding the scientist stopped and stared at her while Bruce and Bob are looking at her like she has grown a second head.

Frozen with fear after being exposed by a last minute God's Grace for the condemned scientist, only one thought crossed her mind.

Oh, fudge you face-hugger... Fudge you.