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M E G A N

I watch as the trees shake and rustle with every slight gust of wind crossing the horizon. The rusty, aged metal of the guard tower squeaks occasionally, disturbing the ongoing silence.

The day is quiet, far too quiet.

The boy and I sit far from one another. I face south and he faces west. A few hours have gone bye since Rick woke us up and unlocked our cell.

"What's your name?" The boy breaks our few hours of silence.

"You've been in the prison how long and you still don't know my name." I say as more of a remark than a question.

I look over to the boy and he tears his gaze away from the trees and looks over to me. The same blank look on his face.

"Megan," I cut the silence, giving up my attitude and just letting the statement leave my lips.

"Oh." He says. "I'm Carl." He looks around at the tree-line. "Don't really have much down-time to learn names these days."

"It seems like all we have is down-time." I scoff. "They never let us do anything." I say, partially admitting that Carl was right a few weeks ago.

"I wonder where you got that wild idea." He says, I can hear the sarcasm in his tone. "Was it being locked up or being locked up?" He scoffs.

I roll my eyes at his remark.

"We're just kids to them," The boy starts again. "We're always somehow in the way or causing trouble."

"I see your point." I pick my legs up off the side of the guard tower and spin around to face him. "But—"

My words are cut off by the post in our guard tower bursting into the smokey aftermath of some sort of grenade explosion. Pieces of the fractured, rusty metal slide across the floor.

The explosion is followed by another loud boom that rattles the whole prison with its echo.

Carl quickly gets as close as he can to the ground, and I follow. We both hold our breath, flinch and wait for another explosion.

After a few seconds of silence, we both look at each other in hopes of the other telling us what to do. The boy pulls out his gun from his holster and grasps it while scooting himself closer to the latch, which is now singed from the flames.

"We can get into the stairwell if we stay low." Carl hastily nods to me after he examines the flames.

I look at him and do nothing but make my way towards the latch. As Carl unlocks the latch, we hear another explosion, but this time it sounds farther away.

My hands swiftly swing the latch open, sending a swarm of glowing, orange ashes into the air.

Carl swings himself down into the stairwell from the opening and reaches his free hand up for me. I throw my legs down and hurl myself the seven feet, completely ignoring the ladder.

He barely softens my landing as I almost bring both of us to the ground. I stable myself and notice that I knocked his hat off of his head.

"Come on!" He shouts, which is barely audible over the sound of explosions and gunfire coming from the outside. He grabs his hat and swiftly places it on his head as he starts down the staircase.

We make our way down the stairs and open the door to the gravel walkway that lies in between the prison field and the outside.

The boy's footsteps come to a halt when he sees the sight in front of us.

The infamous governor—or so I assume—stands with an army of his people and various military-grade pieces of equipment. The guns they have look to be fully automatic and they're even driving several army trucks including a tank.

He and his men are planted right outside our line of fences.

As I'm looking around, I hear footsteps that are sounding further and further away. I turn around and see Carl running towards his father, Beth and Hershel. I quickly run after him.

"You two need to go with Beth and Hershel into the woods and hide." Rick says, running up to me and Carl and putting his hands on our backs. "Take Judith with you, make sure she stays safe."

"She can go with them," Carl rapidly shakes his head, opposing his father. He screams over the gunfire. "I'm staying!"

"Carl," Rick shouts. "I can't risk that right now. Go!" And with that, the man sprints back in the direction of the gunfire and leaves me, Beth, Hershel and Carl to our own devices.

☆

The five of us wait in the woods behind Hershel's elderberry bush for what feels like hours, when we notice that we haven't heard gunfire in a while.

"You guys think they left?" Beth says, rocking Judith back and forth.

The three of us turn to look at her, having nothing to say with all of the anticipation filling the air.

"Just trying to hold out hope." She retorts.

I shoot the girl a quick smile to show that she isn't completely naive for trying to make us feel better.

"They're fine." Hershel speaks up. "Rick's always got it covered." His Georgian accent peaks through in his statement.

My heart races thinking about what just happened. I even start to feel a little lightheaded. I just keep having to remind myself that this isn't just a bad dream.

A dream would be to realize that I'm outside of the prison fences. A nightmare is realizing that I'm trapped in between the dead and the living who both want to kill me.

Although it still doesn't feel real.

"Megan," I hear a voice. "Are you okay?" I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I back up and spin around quickly only to see Beth. Her hand was the one on my shoulder, before I scared her with my reaction and she took it off.

"Yea, I'm fine." I look up at the trees surrounding us. "I've just never been in a war before." I sarcastically remark.

Beth let's out a pity laugh at my statement, being able to tell that I'm using humor to cover up the fact that I'm still in shock.

The group goes silent when we hear distant footsteps.

"Everybody get back!" Carl shouts in a whisper and shoves Beth and Hershel behind him.

The footsteps are patterned in a fast speed and seem to be getting louder with every step. Twigs crack and leaves rustle as they echo closer and closer to the bush we're hiding behind.

Carl throws himself out from behind the bush and aims his gun. Beth, Hershel and I look over the top of bush to see who he is aiming his gun at.

A young boy—who couldn't be older than Beth and couldn't be younger than me—frozen in his tracks with a shotgun in hand.

Carl keeps a steady grip and aims his pistol straight at the boy's eyes.

"Here."

The boy in the beanie turns the barrel of his shotgun away from us and begins to hand it over. His intense stare on the gun pointed at him never falters as he slowly hands the gun towards Carl.

Hershel, Beth and I watch in anticipation at the scene before us. I particularly focus on Carl's face as I notice his stare turn into a slight wince.

I know what is about to happen.

I turn my head away from the scene.

I hear the click of Carl's silencer, followed by the leaves of the forrest crunching under a soft thud.

☆

I sit in my bunk after what seems like hours of helping the rest of the group clean up the governor's mess.

The aftermath of this war left our entire wing of the prison singed and smoking, the smell still lingering in the air. Bullet casings litter both fields and the courtyard.

I had to re-post the main fence, kill the walkers that were attracted by the gunfire and whack out the—already dying—fires in the guard tower with a towel.

I don't know how the prison walls could ever recover from the damage dealt during this war. But no matter how severe the damage, we still didn't lose anyone.

According to Beth, losing people is a common occurrence in this world. The governor's men sure lost a lot of their people. But according to Rick, the governor himself still got away.

A loud slam of my prison cell door snaps me out of my thoughts.

Right, it isn't just my prison cell anymore.

The boy huffs and slams his hat, along with his empty leather holster on the metal side table against the wall of the cell. He harshly sits down on his bottom bunk, which causes the whole bunk to shake.

"What's up with you?" I remark, no longer being able to see the boy from my position on the top bunk.

"My dad took my gun." He blankly states, anger lingering in his voice.

"Why?" I ask the boy, slightly leaning over my bunk to see the top of his head.

"Because of what happened in the woods." He says, reminding me of what I witnessed.

I sit back against the wall of the cell and move toward the corner of my bunk, removing the boy from my sight.

I was trying to forget about that boy from the woods, and so far I'd been doing a good job.

The reality that Carl's killed another kid, is one that frightens me.

The feeling only worsens when I remember that the boy probably knows me just as well as the boy he knew of only for a few moments back in the woods. Before he shot him on sight.

There probably isn't much else that'd stop the boy from doing the same to me one day.

"Yeah," I say, a little louder than a whisper. "That boy was handing his gun over. He was young just like us."

"Yeah, but he was in the war," Carl's sharp and steady voice breaks any kind of quiet manner I was trying to uphold in cell block C. "His parents let him fight."

"He was probably in the war because didn't have parents." I start. "The governor probably made him work."

The boy stays silent.

"He was probably our age." I break the silence, trying to put the boy in his place. "And he was living just to work for that man."

A moment of silence shadows over our cell. The quiet so loud, it sounds like static in my ears. The top bunk creaks as I shuffle in my sitting position, laying down on my back. I stare up at the grey brick ceiling and let out a silent sigh.

"Don't you know why I did it?" The boys speaks up from below me. "I had to."

"Why did you have to?" I say, mocking his words and rolling my eyes as I prop myself up on one of my elbows.

"Because we don't know what would've happened if he would've gotten away." The boy says a little louder than a whisper.

"It could've come back to bite us."

"See?" The boy bluntly states.

"So how long are you going to be without your gun?" I shift my position from my elbows, laying on my side, facing the rest of the cell.

I hear the boy stir in his position and lay down as well, slightly shaking the rest of the bunk.

"Until my dad can trust me again." The boy says with resent and dismay lingering in his voice.

"How long do you think that'll be?"

"Until things get better," He says with the first hint of optimism I think I've ever heard in his tone. "But they won't unt—" He trails off, tracing back to his harsh tone.

"Until what?"

"Until we get the hell out of here."

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2010 words

A/N

my original season 4/5 plot has arrived!! WOOT!!

also thank you to everyone who's going back and rereading, I didn't think many people would actually do it BUT HERE WE ARE!!

also welcome to my new readers xoxo!!

☆please vote bc I need motivation to keep editing this ☆