CHAPTER TWENTY
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀if it's easy.

⠀My right hand slid out from under my slightly swollen cheek, reaching out towards the warmth of the early morning sunlight that slid into the room. Something I wasn't so accustomed to the feeling when I spent nights in my own room. Eyes still closed, but could simply smell, and feel the difference in how the quarters felt.

⠀I felt almost hungover from the dehydration that ensued from the mass amount of tears that left my eyes during the night. Tousling, and curling into myself as I had tried my best to clutch to the sleep my body was begging me to fall into.

⠀Now, it was morning, and I was greeted with the ache in my fingers as I unfurled them from the shirt still around my shoulders. It was evident that I had not had a good night sleep from the stiffness in my back from the fetus posture I had taken up in my sleep; the small scratches on my hands; the pounding pressure just above my eyes.

⠀It took me more than a few moments to entirely compose myself and to breathe into the air above me as my back straightened out onto the thin mattress. My hands were flattening out against the rough texture of the blanket that I failed to wrap myself in the night before.

⠀It wasn't until I noticed a slight figure standing in the doorway that I jolted upwards into a seating position, and pushed my hair into a more presentable manner. But still, burdened with the small, beady slits that my eyes had become. With that, I couldn't figure out who it was until they spoke.

⠀"Sorry." Beth. She moved herself to lean against the wall opposite me, and then I noticed that she had Lori's child in her arms. "It's really early." She fumbled with the baby for a moment, as she gripped the bottle towards its mouth, then settled her against her hip.

⠀I looked towards her, then suddenly realised what predicament she had found me in.

⠀"You weren't in your cell." She continued, her supple country accent settling in the air like a feather. "I figured you might be here instead."

⠀"Yeah," I answered simply, moving to push the pieces of paper and hat under the bed — not acknowledging the fact that this was the second place she thought she might find me. Slowly letting my bones wake up. "I had to do something." My hands fell onto the saddlebag, deciding to press it up against the grey wall simply. All these things I had discovered last night were memories, and this morning I chose to push them aside simply. The night had been for dwelling, and my emotions had dried up — I felt exhausted from the torrential winds of distress that had pulled me from my feet.

⠀Forcing my inevitably tangled hair to fall behind my ears, I stood beside Beth, as both our eyes fell onto the child. The little girl eagerly latched her small, pink lips onto the nipple of the bottle. Her eyes were like mine, in that they were struggling to open widely.

⠀"Carl named her," she bounced her in her arms for a second, looking over to me. "Judith."

⠀My lips quivered into a smile, reaching out my digits to curl them around the small tufts of blonde hair that had been on Judith's head since birth. Then my mouth retracted against the unfamiliar muscle movement, and I couldn't help but let my smile small after only a few seconds. "I like it." My voice cracked, the intrusive questions of what this day may have in store shooting back and forth in my head. I wanted to have this moment of happiness — about a name and the little girl it belonged to — but it was as if my skull was cracking against the glee.

⠀"We're the first up. Judith woke me up." Beth started to retreat from our mirroring stances, legs carrying her outwards. Before she surely left, she looked back towards me with a look of concern. "Have some breakfast. Okay?"

⠀I nodded, and with that, she left me. I heard her gentle footsteps along the mettle staircase before her presence completely disappeared from my senses. Then it was just me again, my body threatening to fall straight back onto the bed. But I stayed standing against the wall, my shoulder-blades jutting out against the concrete behind me.

⠀The shirt on my shoulders was slowly falling away from my figure, seeing as it wasn't secured in any way to my body. I had left the night with it haphazardly hung like a cape... or a blanket. The one I wore underneath was chilling my skin, a consequence of my previous occupation in the rain. And so I instinctively struggled it off my torso, leaving me bare for only a few moments.

⠀Those were a few moments of suddenly being aware of the jagged bumps on my stomach and the thick black line. It was as if Daryl's shirt became a lifeline as I used it to cover myself, pushing my arms into the sleeves slowly. Feeling the rough texture; nails grazing past the small tears; knuckles straining into the seams.

⠀The two top buttons were missing, revealing to have a low cut that just barely hid my cleavage.

⠀As I fastened it around me like some sort of lifejacket, I remembered how I used to sell my body. How the fact of two buttons being missing didn't use to be a problem, and how my skin did not use to belong to me. But putting these couple yards of the fabric against me, felt like I had incased myself — armoured myself with steel.

⠀The shirt belonged to someone else, but the smell that waved past my nostrils every time the collar moved, and the texture of the cotton and synthetic fibre made my heart beat slower.

⠀I didn't know something from him could do that till now.

━━━━━━━━━━

⠀Glenn's fingers gripped the chalk as if his life depended on it, and I cringed at the visceral sounds it was making as he dragged it across the concrete at his feet. Creating a melody of lines that, from my position sitting on the ground, didn't look like much.

⠀Straightening my back against the cellblock door, I lifted my eyes to where I could see he had created a crude map. Then I deflated back into my outer position, sinking into the walls and letting breaths fall unheard as I pulled the sleeves of Daryl's shirt over the edge of my hands. Just as I had intended from the day before. Something about being completely unseen felt right.

⠀"Now you said you found Tyreese's group here?" Glenn looked towards Carl, who mirrored his knelt position against the drawing. In response, the young boy nodded. Turning Glenn's stance more skittish as his one frontal emotion since we got him back had been anger. "We secured this."

⠀Carl leaned forward, pointing things out. "Well, he—he thought he came through here."

⠀The day before I had abandoned any thought of those people that had somewhat appeared to us. I had learned their names, yet not the faces each one went with. And I had only heard Rick between episodes of sleep screaming that they didn't belong here. That was enough for me to wake up and know that they were no longer our problem. Rick's authority went, even for strangers — even if it had been laced with something I didn't fully understand. It seemed all his words lately were being caught up by grief, and it had finally wrapped around him last night.

⠀"That means that there's another breach." Glenn's words cut through my thoughts of the absent man. He sighed, bringing a hand to his eyes and squeezing the skin there tightly in frustration. My eyes were still heavy, and the bruise creeping across my left one had started to make my skin tight, and always hot. "Okay. Now the whole front of the prison is insecure. If walkers just strolled in, then it's gonna be cake for a group of armed men."

⠀Despite Michonne's previous words about the seemingly incompetent 'paramilitary wannabes', I didn't doubt that they would at least try and kill us. We had wounded wolves at our doors, begging for revenge on a town we opened fire on. One that I opened fire on. There was no way they were going to let it go. I understood that feeling best.

⠀Beth stood with her arms crossed, hovering over the map in the middle of us all. "Why are we even so sure he's going to attack? Maybe you scared him off." It seemed that Beth's words were just hopeful. Hoping that someone would agree, but inside I knew she knew that nobody would.

⠀"He had fish tanks full of heads. Walkers and humans. Trophies." Michonne spoke up for the first time, and her words were new as everyone in the room moved their attention to her. Her hatred for him was evident, but the reasoning for it was becoming even more so. Her words a simple warning. "He's coming."

⠀"We should hit him now." Things like that were things I never expected to hear from Glenn. I couldn't see his expression as his back was to me, but I could sense his restlessness since I had entered this meeting. Daryl was not here. Rick was out there, looking into nothing. It seemed we had all unanimously, and wordlessly agreed that Glenn was the de facto leader in these moments. But if he were going to change into a person he would soon regret turning into; I wasn't sure whether such a responsibility of looking after us all and trying to deal with the Governor, was something he needed.

⠀"What?" I breathed out, leaning into his presence, entering myself into the quick conversation.

⠀"He won't be expecting it." Glenn turned to me for half a second, shaking his head quickly. "We'll sneak back in, put a bullet in his head." His forehead creased as he hammered out his points, simmering with revenge for the Governor. His teeth pushed together, and the way it was paired with bruises on his face didn't convince me he was wrong about being that adamant about assassinating that man.

⠀But Glenn is or maybe was not a vengeful person. He was bright, but he never drove out to look for inflicting pain. That's not something I ever saw in him.

⠀With what the Governor did to Maggie, I wanted nothing more than to see him dead.

⠀"We're not assassins," Carol chided.

⠀Glenn rose to meet Michonne face to face, limping as he did. "You know where his apartment is. You and I could end this tonight." The woman's expression didn't seem convinced until— "I'll do it myself."

⠀One man dead and that would be revenge — one man with nearly a hundred soldiers at his feet.

⠀"Wait," I leaned onto my hands to stand up, pulling at the bars of the door behind me to straighten my back. "We kill the Governor... then what?"

⠀"You'll help me?"

⠀Of course, I would. That's what is expected of me. Take revenge out on those who have hurt me or others. That's what I did. I kill people when they're a problem, or they're in the way. That's what is thought of me.

⠀Nobody had ever worded that to me — that I'm a person they can rely on to do such things, I just assumed they thought about it whenever I crossed their gaze. There's the woman who will kill the people you ask to be killed.

⠀I never wanted it to be that way, I had just broken myself enough at the farm to somehow be capable of doing it, and that ghostly visage of me was the one who put that on me. That other part, she did it, but the me in this room was the one who felt it like an everlasting cord from a guitar. At every turn, I tried to silence that noise, but at every turn, I forced myself to pluck those sounds.

⠀I didn't want to hear it. "It's not my job—" After not speaking up on things for so long, letting words out in front of an audience made them stick to the sides of my throat. "To kill people."

⠀Nobody else said a word.

⠀"And it shouldn't be yours either." My legs had started to edgingly take me from the room as if my body knew that my mind was already turning to run miles away. "We should be finding food — he might starve us out... easily." Changing the subject was my only scapegoat and the only thing I could think of doing to contribute today. "If we're not leaving... I'll find us food. That's what I'll do."

⠀Hershel had started to shuffle into the room as I passed him, retreating to the only place I was thinking about getting back to.

━━━━━━━━━━

⠀Small sticks, and a roll of string in my hand, I struggled to adequately hold the strap of the MP5 as I yanked it from the ground of my cell. I was strategically rolling my head forward to wrap the fabric over my shoulders.

⠀There was no noise coming from the common room anymore; no more arguments. Even if I had tried to escape it, I had still heard Glenn's desperation to kill the Governor, and his sudden ability to find a reason behind murder. It made me sick to think that someone with still so much innocence in this world was ready to throw it away.

⠀Glenn wasn't my responsibility, but I would be the one to find it hard to convince him not to do it. It would merely be hypocritical of me. After what I did, my words would fall on deaf ears.

⠀The task of finding food was not a lie to escape; I did think that the Governor's first step would be to cut us from our sources. So I was keeping my promise of contribution, and planned to put the sketches and words from my old journal to use. There wasn't just madness in there; there was observation.

⠀I had seen Daryl place over a thousand traps for rabbits and squirrels, and small animals alike — I had written about and drawn every single one. They were in my pocket, folded carefully and ready to be put to use finally. It seemed I still relied on Daryl even when he wasn't here.

⠀While readying myself to enter the woods alone, my heart shuddered at the thought. When before I had to learn not to be so afraid of them, that previous feeling was creeping up on me once again.

⠀The battle between wanting to be alone, and fearing what walking on leaves and weaving through trees would feel like without him was settling in my brain like a fire. Slowly crackling, and halting my steps that would lead me away from my cell.

⠀I was pulled from my head when a face I guiltily hadn't thought about came down from the stairs.

⠀Harvey, who now had gauze and bandages wrapping the right side of his head where his burns were. He looked to me from the steps, no feeling evident in his eyes. "Where are you going?" If I hadn't been paying full attention to him, I might not have heard him.

⠀I swallowed thickly. "To the woods to set traps for food." I lifted the string up to show him. "I've seen... him set a bunch." Our eyes barely met, as mine couldn't look directly at anything at the moment. They gazed upon his clothes and his hands which held T-Dog's knife.

⠀He didn't speak, hitting each step on the way down with a heavy thud. Since I had last spoken to him, he wasn't on my mind — I had more dire situations to deal with, but with him at my front, I suddenly remembered what he had said to me. And how I couldn't breathe under his thoughts about me. Harvey made me question my purpose because he worded those questions himself.

⠀Yet here he was, elusive, and glaring.

⠀I almost felt ready to hear whatever raging sentences he had to throw at me. But, he never said a thing. Except now, he was passing by me like he didn't care. When once he had simmered at my presence, it made me wonder what conclusion he had come to about me since we had left for Woodbury.

⠀Harvey was an enigmatic being, ever since we were kids. I barely knew a thing about him... and he hardly knew a thing about me. We had crossed each other in our lives, and in our paths had barely spoken a word to each other.

⠀I had said to myself that the trip to the woods was nothing but a way of contributing — but that wasn't true — I knew, deep down, that the real reason was so I would be away from the prison. Still hanging onto it by the ripped edges, but away nonetheless. My desire to not disturb waters made me retreat to the only place far enough, yet close enough.

⠀Harvey wanted that too, and I could tell. By the state of his unchanged shirt, and his sudden paleness — he had reclused.

━━━━━━━━━━

⠀I had slipped away... but not entirely. I had told Hershel where I was going, and he had given me a strange look before nodding his head.

⠀And there I was, treading between trees and hopping over logs to escape those suffocating, empty halls. No more chill of the concrete. Just myself, and the sound of birds. I had brought my lance with me, tapping trees as I went to signal to any walkers around that they would not surprise me today.

⠀I couldn't think straight. Everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen felt as if it was turning all my veins cold. The guilt of letting them go and not doing enough. Hearing Harvey's words again in my head — I'm wondering why you didn't kill them — It doesn't matter that I lived because they're dead.

⠀What I had said to Glenn was a want... I did not want to be the person's who job it was to kill people. But for some reason, I knew that this world expected it of me when I killed those three men so I could live; when I killed Will so I could breathe; when I killed Randall so I could be prepared for when I had to kill again.

⠀I knew it was a need to be that person crawling out from inside me... but it scared me. It was becoming too comfortable.

⠀I already felt the warmth surround my eyes, and my vision began to blur. To stop myself from breaking down in the middle of nowhere, I reached into my back pocket to pull out the pages I had brought with me. They were displaying harsh, black lines and curved writing. Sudden memories were flushing my system instead of the tears I choked down.

⠀I remembered the way my ankles would chill at the touch of the grass beneath me, as I sat with my legs crossed. I remembered watching silently as Daryl's hands deftly strung together whatever type of trap he felt like using that day — maybe there was some more significant reasoning to those choices, but I had never asked. Now I was regretting it. I was, at the moment, feeling in the dark.

⠀If I could just ask him... this would be so much easier. But then again, I wouldn't be here in the woods doing work that he usually did.

⠀After running away from questions of what happened, and after abandoning any thought of talking about it, I was still stuck with me — having nothing but the memory of him to grasp onto. I knew I had to use them for good — use them to find my family some food — or I'm just going to keep thinking about what it would be like if he were here.

⠀It would just be more comfortable... everything would be so much easier. Everything wouldn't be so cold or vast. It felt as if I had been dropped in a field with no sign of trees. No sunlight and no wind.

⠀Not feeling was something familiar.

⠀I knelt in a random spot and started to dig into the ground, dragging my fingernails deeper and deeper until I had created a sort of alley. One that would hopefully house our next meal. Looking back and forth between the paper and the ground, I used whatever I had surrounding me and whatever I had brought to try and set up this trap.

⠀When I had imitated the drawing and followed the faded instructions, I looked around myself. Once again reminded that the loneliness I had made for myself by leaving the prison was ever-present.

⠀A snap, and my ears pricked up. My legs instantly straightened as I picked my lance off the ground. Whatever was out here didn't mind not being quiet as the snaps continued. Leaves rustled, and footfalls echoed around me.

⠀For a moment, I had that sick hope swirl inside me. "Daryl?" It wasn't going to be him. I was forcing the acceptance of his absence down my own throat ever since I saw him walk away. And it wasn't going to be my brother. He sticks to what he says... I've never heard him lie.

⠀When the sound came from behind me, I turned into action, thrusting my lance toward it. My right arm straightened as my left fingers unclasped the weapon as it flew itself through the air: Sharp, and swift.

⠀The man who stood beside it as it stuck to the tree brought his hands around his face, ducking slightly. And I knew as soon as I saw the bandages and the unchanged shirt that it was Harvey. My heart jumped the first second I realised who it was. "Harvey?"

⠀He eyed the lance that was now fallen from its destination, clattering to the ground beside his feet.

⠀His presence was like a sighting of a ghost. It left my heart thrumming with anxiety, and it made my skin sensitive to the small waves of air that passed me like fish through water. It was merely a presence I wasn't counting on to be in. When I had just been thinking of him moments ago, this encounter was usually met with the phrase 'speaking of the devil.'

⠀Brushing the small, slightly soaked pieces of earth from my hands, I trailed over to him — picking my weapon up from the ground. I avoided his space, staying beyond his reach before I even knew what his intention was in finding me here. The only sense I was getting from it at first was stagnant fury. Burrowing under his skin as it does typically mine. But a face can only portray so much, and Harvey was always so good at keeping quiet.

⠀My words let out of me like a breath. "What are you doing here?" The effort in pulling them out was fleeting. As if mind raced through each passing thought like a flip-book. Only when I became aware of what my head was going through, did I realise my hands flipped themselves back and forth at my side — to which I carefully squeezed my fingers together, letting them instead shake in their hold. That somehow made me feel less dissociated from my surroundings, and more like I could fully understand where I was standing in this scene.

⠀"You're looking for him... aren't you?" Harvey's one visible eye peered towards me, an accusing tone lacing his demeanour. Not a single muscle on his body moved as if he was trying his best to blend into the background of the sky. The man was just as uncomfortable as me as this conversation started to gain ground.

⠀I knew who he was talking about. As much as I wanted to say that I was looking for Daryl, I couldn't. I was trying my best this day to be realistic and accept that he wasn't here, so going out to look for him was not a viable option in my always hopeless agenda. "No." It was as simple as that.

⠀I had given the reason to Daryl himself as to why I couldn't come with him. There was too much here.

⠀A sudden spell of anger washed over me. Feeling that Harvey had way more to say than he was letting on. "Are you going to tell me I could have done more to make him stay?" I took half a step forward, hearing and feeling the small, decaying leaves crunch from underneath me. "Tell me if I had killed more people, then Oscar could have lived?" Those questions rose inside me like each one was a symbol being struck, and each of them clanged loudly to fill my body with uncomfortable heat because I had wanted to ask myself why I hadn't done more but didn't dig deep enough to find them where they had been buried.

⠀Like the worms crawling up from the ground, and the rabbit soon to be hung. Confronting my inner poisons was something I shovelled dirt over, and over again. But like now, the worms surely sought the heat of myself.

⠀"No." He answered, lightly shaking his head. "You said that wasn't your job. I heard you." Only then did his eyes actually meet mine. The one not passed over with gauze was bloodshot, letting the blue colour of his iris stand out. They were somewhat intimidatingly cold, despite the redness. And with what he said, it only made that light wash of anger in me thicken.

⠀"It's not my job," my teeth pushed together in my mouth. "Despite what people think of me." My eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, and my focus on the man in front of me worsened. Blurring and focusing erratically.

⠀He shook his head even more. "Then what is your job?" He made the space between us close further, letting the air around us become breathless. "Was it easy to kill him?" His eyebrow raised in expectation, but I had now noticed that knife he was holding earlier that day was nowhere in sight. With those questions, it was as if my ribs physically turned inwards to shield myself from answering. I was trying to compress my lungs from letting that air out.

⠀"He wore that watch every day," Harvey furthered. "I notice more things than people may think."

⠀It wasn't on my wrist anymore. I had given it to Daryl. It was barely a token of what I had done to get it; it didn't represent the murder. It was just a possession. I hardly thought about the fact that I had gone through with the act because the reasoning behind it always came first. "You knew what would happen when you told me about him." My face turned itself away from Harvey as I whispered, but my eyes brimmed with tears couldn't help but keep an intense hold on him. "Maybe..." It was easy.

⠀I couldn't bring myself to speak those words, even if I knew they were right. Especially because I knew they were true. Killing Will had been accessible. The act of taking his life was simple to me. I felt guilt, but it fell behind everything I had done it for.

⠀My heart thumped rhythmically quicker against my chest, beating out into my curled hands as I grasped the shirt closer to my body. Gripping it so tightly, I thought I would tear the fabric. This conversation was making every nerve in my body burn. And so to quell the panic in my bones, and the emptiness of my lungs, I tore myself to the ground. Bringing up my knees to my chest and finally taking my eyes off the intense glare coming from the man in front of me.

⠀I sniffled into the fabric at my collar, turning my nose and lips to graze against it, getting some sort of relief in the natural texture. But still, to no avail, as I could still sense the questioning stature of Harvey above me.

⠀After an ugly pause, he kept talking. "It's getting easier... isn't it?" He almost sounded like he pitied me — his voice lowering to a level my brain could handle. Instead of the airy percussion, it would be if we were in the prison. The only comfort I got from these woods though, was trying to imagine that Daryl was just around the corner like he always was.

⠀"It is." My body let that out like a gasp for air. Agreeing with Harvey somehow made my mind calm. Like the pressure of the dirt, I had shovelled over so many thoughts was being dug up, and the force of the soil no longer wetly pressed itself up against me.

⠀I had admitted it to myself two days before — this other self was becoming less of a stranger to me. But letting someone else into my thoughts was a harrowing concept to me.

⠀I had killed that man on the way to Woodbury, and it was easy to do so. I had killed those soldiers within Woodbury, and it was easy. Yet every aftershock of those deaths was the same. It was still hollowing.

⠀Have I poisoned my own paint.

⠀I scratched at my arms like the confession had made my skin crawl with insects.

⠀And suddenly, Harvey placed himself on the ground beside me. A good distant, but still close enough to make an impact on my personal space to where it held me in my place on the ground. Like his boot had pushed down upon me. But not with ill intent, as I looked to his face that held nothing but calmness.

⠀My own felt as if it was going to crack, and open up as my cheeks quivered from holding in my tears that spilt anyway.

⠀His voice became stagnant in its melody. "I said those things to you because I think you're selfish, and you don't even realise it." Those words were enough for me to be angered, but not enough for me to say anything towards it. So he kept speaking. "When have you killed someone for the benefit of someone else?"

⠀I had killed that man in that cabin, and those people in Woodbury — but if I said all that, I had a feeling he would not listen. Going by the tone of how he was ending his sentences, I figured he had a point he was getting to.

⠀"How did you become like this?" He asked it in a tone as if it was a question that was easy to answer.

⠀"I made myself this way," my head started to lul side to side as if it was trying to shake the nervousness straight from my mind. "I chose to become what I am." Fluttering images of Randall pressed up against the front edges of my consciousness. "But I don't know if I want to be that person. Is it too late for me to be the good guy? Do those even exist anymore?"

⠀Harvey's hand threatened to reach out to me. "There are good guys, Marley..." and his head shook from side to side. "You're just not one of them."

⠀"Because if it's easy then use it." Harvey approached the sentence like he was talking to a snarling dog. "I know what you can do... " He kept his posture away from me, but his tone invasive. "If it's easy, then use it to protect these people. If it's easy, then that is your job." Nothing is ever easy in this world, but doing those abhorrent things was a task that had become more methodical than taxing.

⠀"You're lying to yourself when you tell yourself that you feel guilty for killing people because that's what a good person would feel."

⠀My voice cracked. "I'm tired of being that person." That person that was crawling out of my skin every opportune moment. That person who I had broken better parts of myself off in favour for months ago. The concept of accepting that that is all I will ever be in this world terrified me. "I scare people."

⠀"Not anymore." Harvey's head shook from side to side. "The person that I met last winter terrified people because they didn't know they needed a person like that. But now, everyone has accepted that some people need to be killed so that all of us can live. And you made yourself into the person who can do that job. You bear it... so they don't have to."

⠀That proposition sounded as if I was going to carry a substantial weight for my family. When my shoulders were already so sore, his sentence made my eyes open up to let everything spill.

⠀Maybe that's what had to happen. Perhaps I had to be the bad person for everyone to live. Maybe that's what it took for me to make a difference.

⠀That wasn't what Shane had probably intended to happen. But it was just me this time.

⠀Gunshots bellow amongst the trees, making Harvey and I shoot up from the ground. I rose my hands to my face, wiping furiously at the liquid on my cheeks that left my flushed.

⠀Grabbing for the gun I had left near the trap I had made, I looked over to the man with a questioning glance. "Where's that coming from?"

⠀"It sounded like it came from everywhere."

⠀I sighed heavily, making sure I picked up everything I had brought with me before ushering Harvey to run with me in the direction of the prison. My legs were slightly aching from the bent position they had been in.

⠀There were only two shots, to begin with, then silence. Then a cacophony of loud cracks that was coming from the prison. It made my legs move faster, and my palms sweat. Unsure of what I would be met with.

⠀A graveyard or a battlefield soon to be turned into one.

⠀It took longer than intended to get back, now knowing just how far I had placed myself away.

⠀Arriving at the precipice of the forest, at the left facet of the prison, I had a view of the field and the courtyard through the wired fence. My lips turned dry from my exhausted breaths. But it didn't matter at the moment, as I eyed where precisely the bullets were falling.

⠀As the sounds send shockwaves through my body, I tried my best to focus on my surroundings. I spotted small figures towards the front of the field — one of them working their best to take cover behind the overturned bus.

⠀Then the fence right before me was broken, just underneath where the guard tower was — leading my sight upwards to spot a sniper aiming his fire towards whoever was in the courtyard. A rainfall of metal was being poured over everyone, with no sure chance of prevailing.

⠀"Harvey," I grasped his sleeve, then swung my gun away from myself. "You need to help whoever's down there." I gestured over to the field.

⠀The man didn't seem convinced that I was saying something serious until my voice rose higher. "Do it, Harvey!" Then he vacated himself, taking cover under the thin veil of trees as he moved towards the front of the prison.

⠀With no gun for myself, I took purchase with the bowie knife always with myself. I was pulling it out with purpose before going towards the break in the fence.

⠀My hair almost caught itself on the jagged edges of it, as if it were telling me not to do this. But as Harvey had told me, maybe it was my job.

⠀Entering the guard tower quietly, I made sure to close the door gently before taking hushed but quick steps upwards to the top. Getting ready to deal with whoever had decided that executing via sniper was something they would do today.

⠀Adrenaline rushed through me like a static shock, making my skin quiver against my bones, and my eyes widen as I came to the trap door this person had gone through. Peeking out, I felt like a little mouse spying on the more significant matters of this human before me. Watching his shoulder move swiftly left and right in small increments as he aimed at the people below. Distracted and unable to hear my delicate movements outwards from the trapdoor.

⠀I had the upper hand at the moment as I gripped the knife in my fingers as my life depended on it. The shots echoing around us, smothered my footsteps. Just like Harvey had said, it was easy. To do it at the moment because that's all that mattered. Deciding that this person was going to die and you were going to live.

⠀It was simple. The shockwaves of grief were worth it when you saved people. I would bear it so they wouldn't have to. Maybe this was my job.

⠀The stranger's senses must have listened between bullets because he turned right towards me. Colliding our bodies together and taking us to the hard metal floor of the tower. My back pushing into it, and making my heart beat weirdly as the man now had himself on top of me. In the slight seconds, all I felt was shock. The quick beats of the moment winding my chest.

⠀As he tried to reach his fists to my face, his visor falling from his eyes, I wrapped my legs around his torso, putting all my weight into swinging our bodies around with another thud. Then it was my turn to reach towards his eyes, digging my nails into the skin.

⠀His palms squeezed over my ears, trying to turn my head in a way it didn't want to go, and I reached my mouth over to his wrist to try and clamp my teeth over his veins. In that second, he flipped us back over. He was turning our scuffle into a back-and-forth game of leverage. Every moment in between was filled with my screams of fire.

⠀While he had my back to the ground, his fists quickly collided with my face. I saw only fog and felt only the burning pressure on my cheeks as he hit for the second time. I felt a tooth crack. And I gasped, my mouth widening open as he hit harder.

⠀Blood dripped from my chin and splattered onto my neck and onto his face as I spat the liquid towards him when he reached to hit me for the third time. It flew through the air with purpose.

⠀His eyes blinked the redness away, giving me a moment to push my knees against his chest, sending him backwards. Almost to the edge of the tower, but not quite far enough.

⠀With nothing but the thought of throwing him down to his death, I leapt forward, throwing a punch again. Straightening my knees, bringing myself higher than him, and kicking high against his chest. Then again, upwards, his face being forced to look at the sky. I kicked for a third time, just to be safe. Each one was sending pain up my leg, but I didn't really feel it.

⠀Each moment was half a second and blurred by rage and hot bruising snaking its way around my body. This person was taller and probably stronger than me, but somehow I was able to get the upper hand once more.

⠀I clasped my arms around his neck, pushing his body with all my strength towards the drop that would take him out — nothing but air and concrete to meet him next. But despite my effort to inebriate him with my dealing out of pain, he still had the strength to lift himself and push my head into the window behind us — the glass cracking against the back of my skull.

⠀I still kept a hold, wrapping my body around his back and squeezing tightly, and shakingly around his neck and head. My elbows quivered from the strain, but as I felt his pitiful punches to my legs and head weaken by the second, I saw it as an opportune moment to push.

⠀Placing the bottom of my feet against the wall behind me, I took a leap of faith and sent both of us towards the drop. Letting go at the moment, I saw fit so that I wouldn't tumble down with him.

⠀It worked, as he slipped from my grip, his body rolled out into the air around us, and out of sight.

⠀My body thumped onto the metal balcony, my hands barely being able to catch me as the oxygen was pushed forcefully out of me. All the rage, effort, and pain that I had been rushing through just a second ago suddenly.

⠀My eyes facing down, I clasped them tightly closed. The adrenaline no longer giving me breathing space between my actions and the ache that ran behind them. Once again in my life, the bruises from the other day were just painted over. I was sure that I would look worse.

⠀I took note that everyone who seemed to land a punch on me was right-handed, so the left side of my face was the unlucky side.

⠀After taking a moment to breathe, I pushed my hands into the floor and lifted myself. Small pops between my bones filled my ears, and I let out a groan when I fully stood.

⠀That was easy. It was done, and there was no taking it back. But killing that sniper meant that the ones below had a chance to live. Even just distracting him would have allowed them to run for cover. It was worth it.

⠀Whatever guilt may come, then that was mine to wear. Yet, I had a incling that feeling wouldn't happen like Harvey had made a note on.

⠀But at that moment, the only thing that took my attention was the clouds of dust as the intruders fled in their trucks — leaving one in the field to spew out walkers.

⠀After what I had seen in the arena at Woodbury, the way walkers were used and kept for sport; I did not doubt in my mind that the man I had sent to hell just a few moments ago was under orders from the Governor.

⠀I swallowed thickly before turning and exiting the guard tower.

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⠀My body almost collapsed as I made my way through the door, making me close my eyes against the sunlight that made my wounds tingle, somehow. And all I could think about was counting who was here, then collapsing onto Daryl's bed and letting the day end — wanting to suffocate again.

⠀A fight with one very determined man would do that.

⠀As I fought against the rush of fatigue, I was pulled back into the emotions of suddenly feeling lost in this prison without someone to spill my thoughts onto. Because he was that person, and it would be hard to trust someone new with those threads of emotion.

⠀It's not that I didn't trust everyone else at all; I was just used to him being there for that.

⠀I was going to get lost again, and that would be that.

⠀So I swallowed that thought down, knowing that they would stay and swirl in between my ribs as they usually did. I was accepting those snakes.

⠀I put one foot in front of the other, looking out into the courtyard, and wiping the sleeve of his shirt against my eyes as the blood still seeped from a wound I could not see.

⠀I counted heads... Maggie, Beth, Carol, Carl... There was a body riddled with wounds wearing a prisoner's jumpsuit. Axel.

⠀A car tore itself towards them, skidding to halt then revealing quickly from the doors that there was Hershel, Glenn, and Michonne.

⠀At the sight at how many people had survived this attack, it was as if my legs said that that was enough to see — collapsing beneath me. And by the way my eyes were blinking, I was pretty sure I had a concussion this time. The world around me tilting in directions it shouldn't have been as my body slid against the tower behind me.

⠀I simply watched from a distance with my legs spread out in front of me, as I kept counting how many people were here. Hoping that Harvey had done what I had told him.

⠀The other's eyes were preoccupied with whatever was in the field, surely the walkers that had started to lumber amongst the overgrown grass. I could just see the tops of the ones that had gotten closer to our inner fence.

⠀Then I saw Glenn and Maggie pull the gate open once more, and I could count more people. Harvey... and Rick.

⠀And then he was there, and I could feel my eyes widen unnaturally big. My mouth fell open.

⠀Daryl was beside his brother, turning to everyone with an expression too far away for me to decipher. So I wanted to be closer to him. To see him again.

⠀For that next second I sat on the ground, I wondered whether he was there or this was some sort of concussion dream. But the images kept going, and he kept being a part of them. So despite my tiredness and headache, I lifted myself quickly, abandoning all that I was holding.

⠀Rushing and running. Pushing my legs further and further to get closer. Letting the face of his get clearer. Ignoring everything that had happened or that was happening except for the fact that I had the opportunity to be next to him once more. The wind was whipping through my hair, as I staggered unevenly along the concrete. My injury was trying its best to slow me down but failing.

⠀Before I knew it, my arms jumped up to grip around his shoulders, and I leapt into his stance. His body was taken aback by my force. My whole self pressed up against his own, and my head was buried deep in the crevice between his neck and shoulder.

⠀I closed my eyes, being able to feel him again, and knowing that I would no longer be lost here. No longer scrounging for the memories of him, and the small pieces I had left of him to feel normal again. I had his whole self again, and I didn't ever want to let go of it.

⠀Never be too cowardice to beg him to stay again.

⠀Daryl's arms, in return, wrapped around my waist. Keeping me off the ground, and squeezing me like a heartbeat does to blood.

⠀I ignored the sounds of conversation around us and the rising voice of Merle. All background noise to me.

⠀As I had been pondering on since he left, I didn't realise what his lack of presence would do to me until it happened. So, in turn, the sudden rush of him being here felt as if my veins were thawing. Turning warm and sending a flush of serotonin through my body.

⠀It all washed over my injuries, unable to turn the pain away, but able to subdue them from being at the forefront of my mind. He took my weight off the ground, and let me feel weightless.

⠀I needed him, and I hadn't told him that. I wasn't sure I ever would, but I knew in my heart that it was a fact; just for me to know. Silent whispers in my blood were telling me to keep him in my thoughts.

⠀I had no idea whether he felt this way about me, but it didn't matter to me. All I knew was that amongst my visions, my dreams, and my nightmares — this person in my arms was the most real.

⠀I am nothing but a monster in this world, but my heart would always carry the capacity to keep him in my veins.

⠀I would always want him to stay. I didn't want him to be added to my ghosts.

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note ⛈

im not even sure if im even happy with this chapter but ay what can ya do

i was rly excited to get some harvey content up in this bitch and damn he speaks his mind now.

i guess a face injury will do that.

also... me @ me: stop letting people punch marley in the face goddAMN

words : 8325
2020 / 29 / 06
edited ✓