THE REASON

chapter thirteen ; what's going on
[ season five - episode nine ]

   THE OTHER THREE all stood and watched the Grimes man ahead of them for a moment or two, processing what he had said. Going to Washington.

In all honesty, what was there to lose?

"Rick!" someone shouted in the distance, the voice belonging to Noah. The atmosphere around them changed with a click of a finger, the all-too-familiar pit forming in Kloe's stomach. "Help! Rick! Glenn! Kloe! Michonne!"

None of them thought twice before they pushed themselves forward with force and sprinted off into the direction where Noah's yells came from.

Kloe panted heavily, pushing her lungs to her limit. She immediately felt like reaching down for her inhaler, but whatever had gone wrong with Noah and Tyreese, she didn't care.

She managed to take the lead, taking into account that Kloe was the most accurate with directions when it came to sound. She pushed open a rusted gate to a backyard — the squeaks from the hinges barely noticeable from the force.

The four paused for a moment, their heads darting around as they looked for the source of the yells. Kloe, on the other hand, had already heard the snarls coming from the walking corpses and didn't hesitate to race over to them.

The two walkers tried to reach for the person beneath the broken chair, blocking them from doing so. Beneath the object was the one yelling for help, Noah.

"Noah, hold on!" Glenn shouted over to the teen after following his wife along with the others.

Kloe glided off to the side, her hand trailing across the railing of the porch of the house it was connected to as Glenn raised the wooden bat over his shoulder and bashed the walker's head.

Off-colored blood splattered onto the cream house, Glenn then pushing its body against the wall and driving his knife through its skull.

From the other side of the railing, Kloe clanged her knife against the wood. The last walker that was atop of Noah slowly turned its head to the side, now snapping its teeth to the woman.

Rick lunged forward, shoving his machete through the back of its head. Noah panted heavily as he pushed the broken chair down onto the wooden flooring beneath him.

Kloe peered down at him through the gaps of the fencing of the porch. "Are you alright?" she asked with concern as Rick rushed over to Michonne, who was in desperate need of help.

Glenn offered out a hand for Noah, who gratefully took it and was pulled up by the other man. Kloe cautiously scanned the area the moment Rick put down the walker that attacked Michonne and was somewhat relieved when she came to the conclusion they were in the clear.

She was relieved until the next following words left Noah's mouth.

"It's Tyreese," Noah told them, a frantic and feared look present in his eyes that Kloe had instantly noticed.

"Where?" Kloe asked almost immediately after, her heart hammering against her ribcage.

"My house," he answered the Rhee woman before turning to the others. "He's been bit."

Kloe's eyes filled with horror, her eyes subconsciously looking over at the other Rhee. She didn't want to lose anyone else. They had already gone through enough. She couldn't lose anyone anymore. She couldn't deal with the continuous pain.

Noah took off after noticing the look in Kloe's eyes and took the lead. She copied the teens actions and was directly behind him the entire time. She could hear the footsteps of the others behind her and Noah, and she one-hundred percent could hear her airways beginning to close.

She swore she tried to make herself run faster, but she began to feel herself slow down without even realizing. She knew her body was beginning to fill with weakness without the correct amount of oxygen her lungs begged for.

Her asthma was her least priority right then.

The door that Noah headed to was wide open like it had been kicked open or something. They sprinted through the door, and Noah continued to lead them to the room.

Kloe knew which room it was the moment she saw that only one door had been open, and there were faint muffles erupting from it.

The moment they spun around the corner of the door, entering the room, Kloe had no other choice but to stop herself from running and set her hand over her chest.

Except, her eyes landed on the scene in front of her. There was blood everywhere. The carpet had been painted red with blood — a trail that led to a singular man standing in the center of the room.

On the chair in front of him was a walker that had seemed to attack him while Noah was gone. She stepped forward for the man, who was staring into space and shaking his head.

Noah took several steps back, setting his hands behind his head with panic as he listened to the other three enter his house.

Kloe set her hand on his shoulder, which caused him to drastically step back and fall limply against the wall behind him. She leaped forward, wrapping her arm around his shoulder as she examined his arm.

Two bite marks. He was bleeding out everywhere, his face being covered with cold sweat and he was deathly pale. The circles under his eyes stood out most alongside the reflecting sweat.

"Hey, Tyreese," she muttered, her asthma making it exceedingly difficult to speak at normal volume. "You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay, alright? Just stay with us."

The others rushed into the room, their eyes filling with terror when they took in what was happening. They had the same reaction Kloe and Noah had.

Her head whipped over to the other three within an instant. "Amputate his arm with your sword," she told them, gesturing over to Michonne's signature weapon. "I— I can't do it. I can't breathe."

She rose to her feet and stumbled back so she stood beside Noah. He watched the older woman worriedly as she settled her hand on her chest once more. Usually she would always bring her asthma reliever with her, however she was running low on them.

Before, whenever they went on supply runs, they always made sure they headed into pharmacies in hope of finding some Salbutomol canisters — yet to their surprise, they never found any anymore. She was left with one, which Glenn had kept with him at all times.

He absentmindedly snaked his hand down to his pocket, expecting to feel the familiar blue object in his grip. However, his face fell when he was met with nothing but air. It had fallen out of his pocket while sprinting not so long before.

His head lifted to her, but her eyes were trained on the man who was near to not making it on the floor. He reluctantly took his attention off his wife who was struggling to catch her breath, and set it on the main problem that everyone else was worried about.

He scurried down to the man, to which Rick held onto Tyreese's bitten arm and began to pull it tightly. "You hold him!" he yelled at the top of his lungs to Glenn.

The Rhee man scrambled over to set himself beside Tyreese and wrapped his arms around his back so he couldn't move. "I got it!" he strained, clenching his jaw tightly.

Kloe swallowed thickly, panicked tears sprinkling her eyes. With her free hand, she placed it on Noah's shoulder, her other hand still over her chest as she put an effort into breathing properly again.

The teenager looked at her for a moment, remembering that one of his brothers had asthma and most likely had an asthma reliever somewhere in his house — he didn't know how much the canister held though. For all he knew, it could've been all gone.

Rick snapped his head up to Michonne, who had positioned herself in front of Tyreese's pulled back arm. They couldn't see an inch of skin on his arm — it was just crimson red.

"One hit, clean!" he ordered, making her raise her samurai sword as she prepared herself to swing it down with force — enough to completely amputate the man's arm off. "Go!"

The long blade came down with speed. Everyone simultaneously looked away and Michonne squeezed her eyes shut the moment the sword came into contact with Tyreese's limb.

There was one quick crunch from where the sword had sliced through his bone, making Kloe grimace excessively. Blood sprayed out from the veins in the arm, spraying Rick and Glenn's faces.

The sound of panic from the others was soon drained out by Tyreese's loud and blood-curdling scream.

Kloe frantically blinked her eyes open, her face scrunching up when she watched Rick carefully drop Tyreese's arm that was no longer intact with his body onto the carpet.

Noah dashed over to the bed that was in the side of the room they were all in and snatched a blanket off it. He handed it over to Rick, who took it without hesitation and wrapped it around Tyreese's upper-arm.

Tyreese had blacked out, his breathing extremely faint and hardly noticeable from afar. While Noah had grasped onto things to help Tyreese, he made sure he pulled open his brother's drawer and rummaged around for a particular item.

Kloe watched him with confusion before he pulled out the item she had recognized for the last eighteen years of her life. He extended his arm out and offered it to her.

"I think it's almost empty, but it'll do," he stated frantically, to which she muttered out a grateful 'thank you' as she shook it intensively.

Rick and Glenn both hauled the unconscious man up, Rick wrapping his singular arm around his shoulder while Glenn held onto his torso. Kloe pushed down the canister in her mouth, having to do it around four times before it actually did something.

She sucked in a deep breath the moment she could, relief somewhat flowing through her veins. But that relief soon disappeared when she remembered what situation her and the group were currently dealing with.

She shoved the reliever into her pocket and rushed over to the door alongside Michonne and Noah. The Hawthorne woman took the lead and told them where to go.

As they sped through the house, Kloe repeatedly peered over her own shoulder to take in the appearance of the Williams man. She kept telling herself that he was going to be okay, but with every second she looked at him, she got less and less hope.

She began to think the worst.

She started to think about how Sasha would feel — losing her brother. Then both her and Maggie would understand each other's pain. At least they would have each other — but that wasn't the point. Not now.

"Through the back!" Michonne instructed. Kloe held the front door open to allow the two men supporting Tyreese to walk through. She was then at the back of the group and decided to stay that way.

She clasped onto an arrow from her quiver and set it in the arrow rest of her bow, aiming it high as she scanned the area behind them. Occasionally, the odd lone walker would emerge from other houses and she would release the string.

From how fast they were rushing, they managed to get to the gate that Michonne had led them all to in less than three minutes.

"We've got to break the chain," Rick pointed out around ten meters away from the gate. He was right, there was a chain wrapped around the handles tightly, making it virtually impossible to untie unless they — as he said — broke it.

In the cracks, walker hands peaked out and snarled loudly, smelling the blood that they were all covered in from a mile away.

"We can use the bat," Glenn countered, warily letting go of Tyreese to rush over to the gate. Noah jumped to the side, wrapping his arm around Tyreese to steady him before he could fall.

"I got him," Noah assured, taking Glenn's space.

Kloe skimmed her eyes across the area around them one last time before she came to the conclusion that they were in the clear and that no more walkers were on their way to expect their meal.

She spun on her heels, hurrying over to Rick, Tyreese, and Noah. She stopped behind Rick. "We can hold him," she told the Grimes man, to which he looked over his shoulder.

"You sure?"

"Positive." Rick instantaneously lunged forward to help Glenn with the gate as Kloe held onto Tyreese's arm and wrapped it around her shoulder.

"Get ready!" Glenn yelled after he successfully dismantled the chain with his wooden bat, the metal clanging against the concrete flooring.

From the small herd of walkers beyond the now open gate, they took control of the gate and pushed it open. Kloe's eyes widened from the numerous walkers that were now headed for them.

The first walker to stumble through the gate sprung over to Glenn, only to be thrown onto the ground. Rick raised his signature revolver and pulled the trigger, the bullet flying through another walker's skull.

Noah grunted, beginning to gradually let go of Tyreese. Not only was he too weak, but Kloe was too from her asthma still in play. She pursed her lips tightly, clenching her jaw sternly as she began to step back, Noah having to do the same.

He accidentally dropped hold of Tyreese, which meant all remainder of weight Kloe had to withdraw began to overwhelm her, causing them to fall to the ground in unison.

Noah crouched down in an attempt to rewrap the remainder of Tyreese's arm around his shoulder.

These actions cause the Williams man to fade back into consciousness — kind of. He was dazed, and blinked rapidly from the bright light. Kloe positioned herself in front of him, Noah directly by her side.

"Hey, Ty, hey," Kloe panicked. "Stay with us, okay? You'll be okay soon. Just— just stay awake. Keep trying."

Kloe watched Tyreese's eyes travel over her shoulder, causing her to hurriedly peer over too. Within an instant, she whipped out her knife and slashed the walker Tyreese was watching across the face.

Behind it, Rick was more than ready to shoot it down, but Kloe got to it first. As it fell to the ground, she climbed on top of it and plunged her knife harshly through its skull.

She exhaled heavily as she hurried back over to Tyreese, lightly coughing from her asthma.

If only she still had her preventer inhaler, she wouldn't have been so weak.

Then, his eyes were trained on her knife. The blood of which belonged to the walker. She crawled off to the side, continuously attempting to clear her airways as Rick and Glenn hauled Tyreese back up.

Kloe weakly rose to her feet, pushing forward. She lifted her bow once again when everyone piled out of the gate and out into the open — leaving Noah's old home behind.

They were running for a solid five minutes back to the car — quicker than the time it took for them to reach the place. They were faster with leaving than arriving. Except, for Kloe, it felt like it took an entire eternity to get back to the car.

She didn't know how she hadn't passed out yet and somehow sprinted. Ever since she had come back from the dead at the prison — succumbing to the virus that spread like a wildfire — it was as if her asthma had doubled tenfold.

Regularly, it would've taken her at least ten minutes of sprinting to get to the point she was currently at. Instead, it took three minutes. She knew that not taking preventers in the morning had some part of the play — and was soon gonna be a great deal for her.

If she went much further without taking her medications, she could quite possibly have an asthma attack. In her eyes, she saw that as slowing the group down. Whereas everybody else saw it as a major concern.

Understandable.

On the way back to the car, they had to slither back through the barbed wire and Tyreese had gotten caught in it. Other than that, they had no complications getting back to the vehicle.

In the end, they all had to help lift the man. Rick and Glenn remained holding onto his shoulders, Kloe and Michonne holding onto his legs, and Noah taking away some of the weight for Kloe by lifting the man's thigh.

Rick and Michonne ended up being the ones lifting the man by his shoulders as Glenn rushed into the car, pushing open the door from the inside to allow the others to push Tyreese inside.

Kloe dashed to the other side of the car, pulling herself onto the fabric seats of the van. She ushered the others to bring the man inside, her husband doing the same.

"Hold him up. Hold him up," Rick repeated rapidly, to which Glenn obliged and wrapped his arms once more around the unconscious man's back. Kloe nodded absentmindedly, clasping onto Tyreese's legs to position them correctly on the seat.

She sat down beside the Williams man, not hesitating to lift his chopped arm up so the blood wouldn't spill out everywhere. Obviously it still would, but it would help.

Noah sat himself beside the Rhee woman, while Glenn sat behind them, his free hand rubbing his wife's shoulder comfortingly. Rick and Michonne climbed into the driver's and passenger's seats of the car, the Grimes man whipping out his walkie-talkie.

"Carol, we're at the car," he announced, panting heavily. "We need to cauterize the arm and wrap it, let Isabelle know. Get Sasha and Carl away. They don't need to see this."

Kloe noticed the moment Tyreese's sister's name was said, his eyes slowly fluttered open. She leaned over to him as he rested his perspiring skin on the frigid window, the same thing Kloe was doing not so long ago when they were on their way to the estate.

Rick twisted the ignition, the engine roaring to life. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, except the tires had gotten stuck in the soil beneath the car.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he muttered, his tone present with trepidation. As he frequently held his foot down, the car didn't move. That was until it shifted in the dirt and drove forward at full speed.

Crashing into the van in front of them, everyone jolted forward as it came to an immediate stop as walkers with no limbs piled out of the back of the van. Glenn, Kloe, and Noah all shared glances with one another as they stared confusedly at the limbless walkers snapping their teeth through the glass at them.

Kloe caught onto something.

The 'W' on their foreheads.

Wolves. Goddamn Wolves.

She shook her head furiously, knowing that they didn't have time to gaze at the dead when they had someone dying in the car with them. "C'mon, let's go! We don't have time!" she panicked, patting the side of Rick's seat.

At once, he turned the gear into reverse and drove back, the walkers flying off the hood. Then they drove off.

As they reached the road, Rick pushed as hard as he could on the pedal and the car's speed reached seventy-five.

Kloe kept her eyes trained on the man beside her, making sure he didn't ever shut his eyes. To her surprise, his eyes remained open... wide open. He stared out the window, admiring the trees and the sky — the sun edging closer to sunset.

In his reflection, she watched a droplet of either sweat or a tear slither down his cheek. She was certain it was a tear and not a sweat droplet — considering it was larger than the other droplets.

"Turn it off," he whispered, which only Kloe caught onto. His mind was elsewhere, he wasn't there with them in the car. He was in a completely different reality.

"Stay strong, Ty. Just hang on a little longer," she comforted, making him drift his eyes over to her and Noah. His eyes danced between the pair as they watched him with assuring eyes, but they both could tell he wasn't truly seeing them.

He was distant, and possibly hallucinating.

He stared for a while, before he let his head flop back to the side. Kloe gulped worriedly for a moment as she noticed the man's tense legs begin to relax. She watched his face, and soon hers filled with horror.

"No, no, no, no," she whispered, seeing how the life in Tyreese's eyes was no longer there. She sucked in a deep breath, but it was useless. She coughed quietly before turning to Rick. "Stop."

"What? What is it, Klo?" he hastily wondered, glancing at her and Tyreese through the rear-view mirror.

Glenn and Noah soon caught on, and their eyes soon filled with sadness. Kloe shook her head. "Just... stop the car, Rick," she choked out.

He complied and realized what had happened and slammed on the brakes. Within an instant, Noah pushed open the door beside him. Noah grasped onto Kloe's arm and helped to pull her out, a single tear escaping her socket.

Rick and Michonne were next to exit the car. Rick stumbled back to the other door where Noah and Kloe had left. With the help of Glenn, the pair both pulled the deceased man out of the car.

They set him down on the ground softly as Kloe swallowed thickly and slowly lifted her head up to the sky. And, like she was used to, her ears began to ring.

"Not again..." she whispered up at the sky. The baby blue sky that had multiple clouds that Kloe found pretty. Groups of birds occasionally flew past, living their lives.

Was life this hard for them?

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words: 3668
11th july 2023
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shorter chapter than normal BUT BRUH I LITERALLY CRIED WHILE WRITING THIS. i had to rewatch tyreese's death scene and it hurt like hell. rip ty my bb <3