Bella. 

They called her Bella. The workers needed to give her a name, so they called her Bella.

They called, but she never answered. Her eyes were still unlooking. She was still in the cellar. Bella was the name of a dead thing. Naming a dead thing isn't the same as remembering the names of the the living.

I wondered how long we'd keep a corpse company.

Three weeks and she was let out of the hospital. The counselors talked to her. They listened to her silence. They did their jobs, but I didn't expect them to revive the dead. Still, she drank the water they gave her. It was interesting to watch the dead play at being alive. Her eyes were still unlooking, but they followed as you walked. When I paced, I saw them move back and forth, back and forth.
Strange behavior for a dead one.

When no one watched, she would eat. One worker left his lunch to go to the bathroom, and came back to some missing. When it was discovered to be her that had eaten it, we stopped hand feeding her. We watched the cameras as she stumbled to the food and snatched it, hiding it under her mattress and in her clothes. She was similar to a squirrel. Definitely not like a dead body. Those unlooking eyes began to look when I tested her, getting close to her stash, almost touching. Whether they looked fearful or angry didn't matter. They looked. I was not in the cellar, and neither was the food stash.

Neither was Bella.

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