thirty four
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↳ evanescent tides ↲

AT THE OCEANS EDGE, a strong but slow tide — forced forward by the pull of the moon and the exertion of the sun, comes rolling through the shallow waters. As it crashes against a large rock formed by God's unforgiving hands, the cloud of mist disperses throughout the thick air, a promise of evil arising in the atmosphere.

Slowly, those evanescent tides take the form of something else. Something completely different. A vile creature, clawing its way up to the surface. It stands in the water, as if the waves were part of it. Like, it was formed from salt crystals and strands of filthy seaweed. It then lets out a horrible groan. It is in pain. Stuck in the calming seas. A body without a soul. A shell. Then, there came more. Two, fifteen, twenty. They began sloshing through the water, reaching out. We can smell the strong odor now. The salt, and the fish. The perished.

This ocean was no ocean at all, anymore; but only a thick metal wall which had come crashing down in the streets of Alexandria. The barrier between life and death was hereby corrupted. Gone. And the vile creatures unforgivingly came inside without wiping their feet — without knocking.

Nobody would ever be able to tell you why it happened that day. Some may have said all of us had sinned so badly that the heavens decided it was time for a final extinction event. Or simply, it could have been that those walls were too weak to withstand the pressure placed upon themselves. Forced prophecy or not, the dead ones were here. This barley had a chance to register in my own head before I watched one of our own go down. He was near this very street I stood, firing lazy shots into the walker's chest as he ran forward. For whatever reason, he had stopped, and at that single moment I connected eyes with him. Scared, weak, impeccably frightened. All that emotion suddenly drained in a flash of pain. They rolled backwards, so that I could only watch the twitching white corrode his vision as teeth sank into his neck.

Only when I saw that soft muscle pull from the side of him, had I begun running back down the stairs into the lowered garage. As soon as I had made it past the frame, Denise came forward with her lock. She gave it a good hard shake before pulling it back out, and closing the thick, hidden wooden door behind the metal gate.

After this, it felt all so real. I could sense the stiff black death roaming about our pebbled streets. Feel it, as it slithered between the cracks of our homes. Under the door, and through the windows. It was not in hiding this time, but standing right before us. It breathed down my back, sending cold shivers trembling through my spine. Lacing it's fingers around my neck so tightly I feared I might choke when breathing inwards.

What I failed to realize, was the essences of it that already took possession in true forms. One was sitting before us, shuddering sickly on the white floor mattress. He was death. He killed us. Many. Another form took a seat in the corner of the room. She was distressed. Pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her frail nose, I saw the weakness residing in her, and she too, was death. Morgan, who had gone up to talk with an upset Carol, and never returned? Death. There was nothing in this room that was not. Even I was the same as them.

The Angel of Death paraded Alexandria. It came knocking, waiting patiently at each porch step until we all would open our doors in resentment. The worst of it was that it truly did not need to knock. It already held the key in a somberly closed fist. We thought we had a choice, though we were nothing but naive.

I knew this. But to admit so? I doubt I could. This left me pacing through the rooms of the lowered garage, nibbling on the whites of my nails until the skin beneath the beds had turned rosy and stung to the touch. I walked myself through the narrowed dark hallway between rooms, while loosely listening to Denise and the W man speak. I couldn't pick up much from this conversation besides the quiet echoes bouncing between walls. Soft whispers, and louder responses. When I had nothing left to bite away, I looped right back around and stopped at the room these two were sitting in. I leaned my head in, my boot at the frame of the open structure.

"Denise, you aren't getting soft on him, are you?" I asked.

She turned to me, the man with the roughly carved forehead scar doing the same.

She shook her head. "I know the walls are down, but this doesn't change why we came here in the first place. He's hurt." She looked at him.

He glanced back to his mattress in response. A sense of calmness seemed to wash through him as I took an actual step into the room. But I wasn't in here to help him -- I didn't want to. The only thing on my mind was finding a way out. I was possibly just as scared as the tremorring Denise; only better at pushing it away until that feeling was nothing but an ember on the verge of burning out. Now more than ever, those embers sparked up a flame within my soul. Being locked down here with only a window to view the outside world was another one of those kinds of feelings that stayed indescribable within me. Watching the shadows etch their way across the reflecting wall down here, listening as their pained wailing broke past the thick window. I couldn't stop thinking about the boy of mine up there. Somehow, I wasn't afraid of the thoughts begging to enter my consciousness. He was not dead — I will never even begin to understand why I was certain of this. . . I just was. Somewhere deep beneath the surface, a weak ghastly heartbeat that did not belong to me set atop mine, pumping a pulsation on each pause of my own rhythm.

"It's just an infection." His manly voice was almost as soft spoken as mine, bringing me to look away from the window. "I was breaking into a car, and cut myself on a rusty bumper. Just like that. It's not unfair or just. Nothings unfair anymore. It might not kill me, but it might. I've done my part. The world will take care of the rest. It won't change."

"Show us the wound." Denise said.

The man reluctantly took his bound hands and slid his finger beneath his shirt, lifting the clothing item from his side. A bloody bleach rag was duct taped to the wound. He pulled an edge of the sticky gray tape, the cloth parting from a pus-ridden slash. It was obviously infected to an extreme extent. More thick yellow was being pushed from the cut than blood itself. He shuddered at the sight.

Denise crawled forward towards him, as if she were too afraid to use her own two feet. "You weren't born this way. You changed. You can change."

I placed a hand on my own wound as I lowered onto my knees. Looking into the man's eyes, I saw the remorse. It was right there, reflecting off the rounded surface. I could almost hear his voice, just by his gaze. It showed regret. Somehow, part of him looked nothing but human to me. Not a monster — but a redeemable soul. All of us had been something along the lines as he was, at some point. Some of us still were. I was like him. I saw this, too.

Denise reached into a tan tote bag. She pulled out antiseptic, and bandages. Then, the needle and suture material. Moving closer to the man, she gave me a look. "Help me? I won't learn stitching any other way, unless we do this."

I turned back to the window. The staggering shadows still crossed the glass. We knew what was out there. Walking corpses. Sunken skin, and bones protruding so intensely that most their stomachs naturally caved all the way towards the spine. Their skin hugged against what bone mass they had left. The ribs, cheekbones, and kneecaps most predominantly. Dull hungry eyes; completely detached from whatever soul left in their shells. There was no way out, as of now.

"Okay." I agreed, taking the peroxide.

I first poured some on her hands, then mine. Not knowing if this did anything or not, we still proceeded to rub it in as best as we could. I waited until the man nodded, before holding the tainted cloth beneath his cut. As I poured the solution, he knit his face tightly together. I used the now wetted towel to carefully clean the area, lightly dabbing upon the filmy liquids emitted from the point of affliction. I had Denise apply pressure while I dug through the medkit for a similar looking needle to the ones I'd been taught to use at Grady Memorial. Once finding the shiny hook, I handed it to a weary Denise. She shook her head at me as she took the edge, turning it side to side in her fingers.

"I don't think I can do this." She admitted nervously.

"You can." I told her sternly.

She swallowed down her salivation. Her hands were unsure when approaching the man with it.

The W looked at her with softened eyes. "If you can't do it, who will?"

Denise was washed over with a sense of obligation. She wanted to do it. I could sense it radiating off of her. There was a part of her that feared it, this much was evident. Although, underneath the surface, stood willpower. She didn't allow this weakness within to contain the urge in helping the man.

When I started slowly walking her through the steps, she did not hesitate anymore. Following my voice, she used a small metal clamp to hold one edge of his laceration. After hooking the needle through in a clean motion, she pulled the threading through. Apart from the insertion of the object, the first knot being tied down seemed to hurt him the worst; observed by his swallowed grunt. This step was followed exactly the same for few oncoming more. Then, within minutes, Denise had closed it up. The lacing was messy and the knots weren't quite even. She may have hooked through a bit too deep into the fatty layers, but she had done it, nonetheless.

I placed gauze on his side, and wrapped a dressing across his abdomen until the length measured back up with the patch. Hooking it together with a pin, Denise cleared up our supplies to the side of me. Just as I began speaking a word of encouragement to her, a sound erupted from the house built above. Then, from the dark room, a lock clicked. I instantly realized this to be from the leading staircases entrance to the basement, as a woman quickly emerged down from the darkness.

Carol.

She pointed her knife to the Wolf, stepping sideways into the room. Sparing a glance at us, she spoke. "Get the hell away from him."

"He's tied up, he's not—"

"I said get away from him." Carol interrupted Denise.

Denise pushed herself back towards the wall as rapidly as she could. I took this action slower — first standing, then walking away from the middle of this as Morgan approached Carol.

"This could've waited." He warned Carol. His wooden staff was held slightly above ground, as if he were ready to strike the older woman. "It should have."

Carol's knife faced Morgan in defense. She had not come here to fight him, but instead, kill the man in the corner. The same man I began seeing humanity within. I didn't know his name, but I knew it was there. That was all I needed to know. Some people had chances of redemption; and this person was one of them. I had helped him, because I wished for that same redemption once before. I had been given it by Carl and Rick.

Morgan shifted his gaze. "Now it can't. You don't need the knife. We can talk."

She shook her head, motioning at 'W'. "No. This is over."

She was implying she had to kill the man. She saw no other choice.

"We can be better than them." Morgan told her.

"We are better than them." Carol corrected.

"Not if we kill."

She stepped forward. "They made us kill. We had to stop it; I had to stop it."

Morgan put a hand out. "With life, there's possibility. Even if we never let him out."

"I'd get out." 'W' said quietly.

Denise and I looked over to him. He had placed a facade over his weakness, again. Acting as if he wanted to die. I couldn't figure out why this was. Possibly, he wanted the fight. He liked it. Moments earlier, he asked us to stitch him up. He did not want to die, so why was it that he spoke like this suddenly?

"Even if we never let him out," Morgan continued. "He could know what he's done. He could know!"

Carol pointed her knife at his chest. "I don't want to have to kill you, Morgan."

"You won't." He said.

Her head twisted to the side. "I will."

"You can't. I won't let you."

Carol walked forward, causing Morgan to take a small step backwards. "I will kill you, to kill him. I don't want anyone else to die."

The 'W' shifted. "You should kill me. But you're all going to die. You don't belong here."

"You tell me you're sure." Carol said to Morgan. "You tell me you know what'll happen, how it will go." She paused. "Please step aside. I'm not asking you again."

The two of them stood in a long silence. Hesitation from both sides. Then, Morgan swung his staff into her hand. The knife was thrown against the opposing wall. She threw her bundle of keys at him and quickly slid out of reach, crawling towards her knife. At this time, I knew what would happen. I saw it. She was going to kill the W with her own bare hands, if needed.

Denise pushed forward towards the bound man. She knelt beside him, pulling him off the mattress. "Tell me that I can trust you." She whispered, looking back to the fighting on the side of us as she held the rope tying his legs together. "Or else, you're going to die."

"Denise-" I started, stopped by a quiet hush from her.

I wound up knelt beside her, giving her a questioning look.

"You can trust me." He spoke to us, side eyeing the two fighting.

Denise apprehensively began unknotting the lower rope. In this, we didn't quite understand the weight this action would hold against us. The start of the butterfly effect, that had just begun. That was, until Carol was thrown to the ground with an echoing impact, knocking her unconscious. Morgan stood, gaining his breath. This is when the W took his still bound arms, smashing the round-bony portion of his elbow into my own head. This was enough to send my body on the concrete below, leaving me almost immobile as he took Morgan's staff from the ground and sent it into the man's skull hard enough to bring him down, too.

"No!" Denise shouted.

The W ran towards an unmoving Morgan and unsheathed his knife. He pointed it at her, causing her to carefully back into the wall. He didn't want redemption. It was a contorted lie that the weak part inside of me wanted to believe. My head pounded with not only a hot burning agony, but mortification.

I had allowed her to untie him so willfully. Trusting of one I knew nothing about. Someone who killed a shitload of people. I found it odd I had cared this much about a life that should not have mattered to me. Helping stitch him up, and untie his legs. Somewhere along the way, I changed. I became more merciful. That was a dangerous thought.

He knelt down next to me now. With Morgan's knife, he sawed through the thick rope conjoining his hands. I stayed against the floor — vision fuzzy, and my head in a smog, as he gave me a contorted smile.

"Don't." I pleaded with the man.

'W' took a long, hard sigh as the rope's thread snapped, leaving his hands free. "Don't what?"

Denise took a step at him. "You said they were already dead. You said I was. You don't need to kill us. Just let us die. Just let us die."

The W took a moment to think about the girl's words. His eyes then raised to me. He took hold of my underarm, pulling me to a stand along with him. Vertigo then overtook my senses with a slight knee-wobble as the man moved his arm just below my neck to lock me in place. He pulled me within close proximity as his other hand was now left free — pointing the blade at Denise.

She backed herself into the wall. Her hand moved to her neck as if she were afraid it would be slit by him. "You are so full of shit!"

I felt the W's breath wisp against my skin as he let out a chuckle.

"You're what I like about people." He closed in a bit of distance between her and us by shoving slightly forward as he pressed into my back. "So much moral left."

A couple sets of quick paced footsteps echoed through the enclosed rooms. This was when the W turned himself and I against the wall whilst holding his knife leisurely at Denise still. He seemed more concerned about holding onto me, than her. The knife was just a threat towards whomever entered. The real issue would be giving me a chance - for even a second - to fight. With my energy-drained struggling, I couldn't do much against his legitimate hold. The impact to my head had left my consciousness turning over on itself, and a halfway dried flow of thick scarlett liquid gravitating downward from my nose.

Three people had just entered the room. I instantly recognized the woman towards the front.

"Tara." I immediately warned.

Behind her, Rosita and Eugene. Tara and Rosita had raised their weapons in a heartbeat.

Tara processed the scene with her barrel pointed at the W. "Oh, god."

"Just be still." 'W' spoke as soft and calmly as possible.

He knew she wouldn't pull the trigger. At least, not with me in the line of fire. With this, he pulled me even closer, using my body as his shield.

Tara looked at the blade on Denise, then his rough hold on me. "Dont."

"Lower the guns." He commanded. He spoke again, after this was first pushed aside. "Lower the guns."

"Good." He praised their responses. The weapons had dropped aim. "Slide them over; I want them."

Tara was first to place the gun down. She hadn't removed her hand from the object until after giving it a bit of momentum, finally being forced to let go. The gun slid against the floor with a muffled screech towards the three of us. Rosita was much more carless in doing this. She instead tossed it spitefully, while Eugene's large machete stopped near my feet.

The W brought his face up next to my ear. "Pick the gun up for me?"

I shook my head, humming a negative response.

This caused him to press the tip of the blade directly onto Denise's neck. "I said, pick it up."

His grip on me loosened, and without trying, I found myself on the floor again. I placed my hands on the concrete, hoisting up on my knees while trying to gather myself. As I took hold of the gun, I looked up at Tara. We exchanged a quick glance before the W intervened.

"Careful." He warned. "Don't want any loose fingers slipping on the trigger. I don't want to have to kill Denise. . . yet."

I heard Denise shudder with a breath out. Her panic burned past her skin, filling the air with a thick smog. The room felt smaller; claustrophobic. There were two choices. I could have turned around, and shot him dead with any of those guns on the ground. Oh, how easy such a thing would be. But if I were to try, it was no secret he would spend his very last second making sure the woman went alongside him. Now was not the time to be making unsteady decisions. Firing shots that could direct the dead right to us. Losing bullets on a chance. I wished for a way out. One that kept the both of us safe, but there was none. There was no ultimatum.

After I had taken the gun, I was careful to keep my finger far from the trigger. I held my hands out for him to see. Once he had grabbed the weapon, I was pulled back into my original position.

"You don't need them." Tara told him.

He shrugged. "No. I don't."

Then, walking us forward, he put the gun to my temple. With Denise strung closely on his opposing side, we made our way past them, far enough that we had come to a short stop at the door.

"You're not going to make it out there." The brunette said.

'W' forced a contorted grin. "We'll see."

He pressed Denise to the wall in order to free one of his hands. Grabbing the keys from her front pocket, he still held me in a tight grasp against him as he toggled the difficult lock. When the door was finally pulled out from the frame, I could hear them.

The dead. It was almost as if I was held at the offing of the sea. The very part that could not be viewed from land. The deepest part of the seas, far beyond the horizon. It was here in which the dead roamed freely. My feet begged to feel the surface. To feel something beneath themselves — sand, but there was simply nothing. Instead, I waded out further from the safety of land. I looked at these death ridden streets, and I saw it for what it truly was. The depths may have killed me. I might have just drowned.

I could feel it. The death. I thought maybe the air would differ from the bits inside that small basemented garage, but it was only worse up here. My lungs ached for something more. They tried to fight past it, but they were left small and empty, encaged by my toughened ribs. I was small. I could not expand, because the death had stripped the air of basic oxygen. And I held that last breath at the tip of my tongue. I held it so forcefully that when it released, it was nothing but a quiet burning whistle of diseased hope.

I was forced past the threshold, onto the lowered flat portion leading towards the staircase. The door was closed behind us; and deep down, I could feel a sinister energy churning in my gut. It was almost as if I could sense something lying ahead. It was dark and unforgiving, wrapping its grip around me to consume all I held dearly.

There was no point in running from it, as it had already begun residing within our wounded souls.

Through the streets, a ripple split the air apart, leaving the veil to bleed from the inside out. At first, it was just that one gun shot. Then two. Three, four, five, six. Six shots, and the air had compacted. The veil strung out, and binded itself together again. It was quiet after that, but the roaming dead above us had already started moving forwards in the direction.

Now, not only the angel of death paraded the streets. Instantly, that battle cry which had left me with a ringing sensation in my eardrums had brought forth the liberations of war. They followed those gunshots in hope of passing forward freedom amongst the dead ones. They weren't hungry like the others; they were simply driven. They were fed on the absence of humanity. Not flesh, but bones.

Forced against the large hunk of walled brick, my head raised. In the small gap between the railing, I watched the worn shoes shuffle past us. The quiet moans rooting deep from their corroded pain receptors cried out. I let my lids drop over my eyes, eloping myself in a blackness that I had created.

Then, I mumbled a quiet ode of my own. One to my own apricity; to Carl grimes.

▬ ▬ ▬

The 'W's plan was to find a gap, and go. He revealed that he needed us. Said he wanted Denise and I to go over the wall with him. Leave Alexandria behind.

After a long while of nowhere to go and nothing to be done but wait for the inevitable, the sky began dulling itself. It first started calmly — the blue turning into a violet shade of color. The clouds dispersed across the skyline, acting as a warm blanket for the moon to shine through as the minutes went darker.

My head was placed against the wall, heart thumping at an uncontrollable rate. I was not scared, contrary to what one might think if they were to place a hand against my chest. I did not fear what may happen, because I already knew how it would pan out — start, to finish. This beat inside of me was the sound of anticipation. I didn't want to do it; but I had to. I nervously awaited the moment it would take place within.

Previously, just as the sun began sinking into the deep horizon, I made a slight move. The smallest shift. That was when I realized I had never taken the object out of my waistband. I had not given attention to it before, because carrying blades had become such a normal aspect of my life. I was so used to the feeling, that I hadn't even given Ron's knife a second thought until that exact point in time.

Afterwards, I knew what I had to do. Both him and I were waiting for openings, just. . . different kinds. He was waiting to run, I waited to fight.

"That shout," The man spoke in response to the muffled scream coming from one of the clusters of houses to the right of us.

He stood up, looking outwards. I brought myself up shortly after Denise, grabbing the upper railing for support.

He sighed. "I suppose someone thought they could put up a fight."

With his eyes still averted to the source of noise, I slowly brought my hand from the metal, down to my jeans. Sliding a finger through the inner waistbelt, I felt the blunt end of Ron's knife. My fingers lightly brushed against the roughed black plastic.

'This was life now'. The living would only survive, by outlasting the dead. It was not only true for the rest of mankind, but even the walkers who roamed the streets. Outlast. Survive. I had come down to such basic rules of survival, that there was nothing below this act. There was not much wrong about killing anymore. If it felt right, it just had to happen. It was as simple as that. There was no justification found in the act. It was never obtained.

"I guess you all thought that." He said, calmly.

He was speaking about the 'Wolf' attack. The aimless slaughter on innocent citizens living in Alexandria. I wrapped my fingers around the handle. Slowly pulling it out, I let the weapon subtly drop to my side.

"We did put up a fight." I choked out.

My arm trembled as I raised the tip of the blade to his neck. "That's why your friends are dead."

And with a sudden push, the knife deeply grounded into his neck. The man seemed to try and speak, but only let out a gurgled shout, left to drown in his own blood. I couldn't pull out the knife before his body started downwards. I quickly held onto his arm, then placed my hand against his back. Letting him down slowly, I was careful to keep his fall as silent as possible.

"Oh my god." Denise shuddered at the sight, placing her hand across her mouth.

I knelt down at the body, grabbing the gun he had locked in his hands. Pulling his stiff fingers away from it, I looked up to a disheveled Denise.

"I had to. It was him, or us." I whispered.

She took the hand she had placed against her mouth, running it across her forehead. "Oh my god." She repeated, shocked. "Oh."

I brought my finger to my lips in an attempt to quiet the woman, but we had already seemingly been noticed. A walker had pulled away from the majority of the group, and started taking the stairway down. I quickly brought my attention back towards the man, and lifted his head up. Once pulling the knife out, I stood to face the creature ahead.

It groaned, reaching its hands out as it took a step forward. I returned the step at it, carefully maneuvering to it's side before it could process the change in direction. I drove the knife at it's skull, then grabbed it's carcass and lowered it just as I had done with the man. I took the blade and regrettably sliced through its midsection. Turning back to Denise, she looked frightened and sick once I motioned her over.

She was first hesitant in coming closer, before ultimately deciding to take the step.

Once we had smothered the walker's remains on our clothes, I couldn't help but choke down a cough at the rancid smell attached to our bodies. It was different than just being close to a dead one. Horrid. It was as if we were one of them. The decayed guts instantly began seeping through my thinly layered sweater, leaving my body feeling cold and feverish. There was no question on if it would camouflage us or not. We smelled, and looked the part.

Scaling up the stairs, Denise and I briefly stopped at the top before intertwining ourselves with the dead. In one small step, I found myself in what felt like the eye of a storm. The dead surrounded us in every which way, causing my grip to tighten on the blade. They weaved their way past us as we took a few moments to simply stand, and gather ourselves. I passed Denise a quick glance before she nodded back, letting me know she could do this. We began slowly making our way against the steady stream of walkers, towards the infirmary Denise insisted we took refuge in. Even during this time, she wanted to check on her patients. As a result, we did just as she suggested.

Walking against the dead was like pushing past a current. We kept ourselves tightly knit together, holding our breath as we walked through the crowd. I kept my eyes glued ahead, careful to keep the liveliness behind my pupils hidden amongst all the lattered ribs and concaved stomachs. We differed so greatly from them, yet somehow, not at all. We kill, or we die. They died, and they killed. It was an endless cycle that never stopped putting out.

You either choose to be prey, or the predator. The difference between life and death had no correlation with how you were to be perceived.

Just after those deep purple hues grew from eventide to midnight obscurity, we had approached the street which the infirmary resided along. The dead were dispersed along this thin twisted road, leaving only stragglers stumbling across the grey concrete slabs, towards the mass of others down a ways. Denise took the porch steps twice at a time, only turning back to my unmoving figure once she stood at the top of the wooden structure.

"Coming?" She said softly with a rather worried expression.

I swallowed harshly, speaking only two words meekly. "I can't."

That being said, I had taken a slow step backwards into the street, merging forth to the absence of light. I guided myself through the path of the dead, forcing my way. I couldn't let myself be safe within those doors. Not without knowing that he could be out here. Maybe that made me weak; but I couldn't find it in myself to care. If it meant that I would have to guide myself along the dead, I would. I did.

I traveled with an unforbidding fear. Being alone with them like this — it was something I would never forget. As my shoulder brushed up against one of them, a chill ran down my spine. I was reminded of the monsters I used to believe dwelled beneath my mattress, as a child. The ones I swore weren't truly there. But these? They were real. I had seen them in their element. They walked the streets of Alexandria to reclaim as their own, destroying us all in the process.

Being amongst them so closely had almost hindered the blood curdling cry sourcing near the edge of the luminescent pond behind me. It drew the large group of walkers to turn back around from the path I had been following them along on, now facing me with hollow glares. I slowly let myself turn towards the scream in the most natural way, fearful of making a wrong move that would out me. After, it was as if a tidal wave built up against my back, pushing me forward towards the patch of land the dead believed to hold all the answers to their never ending drive of hunger.

When I arrived at the spot, my body became vastly stiff. My feet grounded themselves in place, as I watched Sam Anderson get pulled down by death's selfish grasp. His body was immediately surrounded by the diseased, and he was gone, just like that.

His mother, Jessie, let out a whimper. She hadn't let go of her boy's bloody hand yet. A shout emerged from the pit of her stomach as a walker tore up from the group, a piece of the child's flesh hanging from its mouth.

I knew how that felt — watching something so vile tear into innocence and leave it to be decayed. I had experienced the same with my sister. Watching the light leave one's eyes would be the worst thing I'd ever experienced. You see the split second their soul tries reaching out for yours. The moment that they stop fighting. Having something so traumatic go down like that in the span of only a few seconds would leave anyone in a state of utter shock and disbelievement, just as Jessie was placed into.

A voice lowly begged something to the woman, quite inaudible from my placement. It was Carl. His hat shaded the right side of his face, but even in darkness, I could sense the fear radiating off of him. He tried pulling Jessie along with him, although the woman was now silent. She had been drained of life, before the walkers had even gotten a hold on her. When she was grabbed by the dead she appeared almost unbothered. Blank. Barley a shout left her as she was taken down.

Following the fall of Jessie, I was shoved slightly forward by another dead inching its way towards the two bodies. From this new standpoint, I could see Carl struggling to get her hand unlinked from his. He called out to Rick in an alarmed manner, forcibly attempting to tug his back in panic that he may be brought down alongside her. His father was not going to let that happen, however. Rick brought out the axe he had noticeably been wishing he would not have to use. As it slid from its holder, the sharpened blade moved, leaving a high pitched vibration ringing in my ears. A dead one walked in front of me as it raised, blocking the vision and only moving out of the way once the axe had planted itself into Jessie's arm.

He swung it again, hitting bone. Another swing, and Carl had been set free. He fell backwards with the momentum of being released. Once he had gotten back his footing, I began taking a step forward towards the boy. In that moment, our eyes fell on eachother. It was such a quick movement that it had ended before either of us even took a notice of it.

Something else had grabbed our attention. The sound of a hammer, clicking into place.

Ron held the gun in his hands, which had dropped from Carl's waistband. "You."

There were no tears falling from his pale face, but only a glassy gleam near the edge of his eyes. For the first time that night, I would know what proper terror felt like, rooting from this look of shock turning into a sort of unexplainable rage. At this point, I watched him as he snapped. The emotions present on his face had suddenly completely vanished, and he too, was blank.

"You." He repeated himself, narrowing his line of sight towards Rick.

Ron had just watched his entire family die. Right in front of him, they were mercilessly ripped apart. He must have blamed the man for it all. For Pete, and Jessie. Even Sam. They were gone. Every single one of them — dead. His finger began wrapping itself around the trigger. That was when Michonne put a stop to the boy's suffering. Her katana slid through his chest, piercing through the very organ which Ron was feeling too heavily from; his heart. And then he slid further into the blade, and his body twitched with death. This involuntary movement had pushed his finger back against the trigger, and this time, it fired.

At first, that lone bullet was greatly dismissed as nothing but symbolism of the boy's last breath. It shot, and the bullet had split somewhere into the night. Only, the darkness had been pulsating around us. It was much closer than we knew. The night resided in the shadow constructed by the edged brim of Carl Grimes hat. As he upturned his head, turning around to face me, I was made aware of this.

Blood-red upon his freckled right cheek, inking past his jawline; down his neck. Once he lifted his head higher so that the moon shone on him, I was faced with the bleeding hollow void in replacement of his blue eye. At that time, he saw me with his remaining eye. His lips parted, and the corners went up so faintly that I could barely tell if it had truly happened.

"Cyn?" He called out, not sure if I was really there, or not.

Whereafter, his body went so weak that his legs could no longer hold him anymore. Any bit of consciousness he had been holding onto vanished within seconds, and he was limply laid out on the ground.

▬ ▬ ▬

"Open the door!" I yelled, rushing up the infirmary porch.

They knew we were coming. They had heard the shots. The lights were already flickering on inside. The lock twisted, and the entrance flew open with a newfound urgency.

"This is a gunshot?" Denise asked, pointing Rick in the direction of the stretcher.

Rick placed Carl down on the gurney.

The door behind us was shut quickly by Michonne. "Handgun. Close range."

I stepped away from the sight, backing into the medicine cabinet. It had all became unreal, in a dreamlike fashion. Things had stopped registering in my brain. The voices — the sight. All I could completely understand right now was that Carl was hurt. He needed help. He was bleeding, badly.

Was he dead? Would he even make it another couple hours? I couldn't think. I placed my balled up fist to my skull, trying to get my mind back in order. Huffing out air, I had to bend down slightly to compensate for the crippling melancholy coursing throughout the air.

No, I didn't want to think about it. I didn't believe it. I wasn't ready to see him like this. I envied the girl I was only minutes ago. The girl who wasn't staring at an unmoving Carl, afraid to accept the reality of this situation. A familiar silent ringing began rooting itself in my eardrum as figures crowded Carl. No, no. He couldn't go like this. He was supposed to live. He didn't get to just leave.

He smiled at me. I was positive now. Just before he collapsed, he was smiling. It was real; it had to have been.

"Cyn?" Denise said, pulling me from my thoughts. 'I need you."

I found myself standing at Carl's side, applying a towel to his wound. Denise anxiously rummaged through the drawers until she found a tray of metal tools. Looking at Carl, he had already bled through the cotton layers. I felt his warm blood trailing between my fingers, spreading through the divots in my prints. Seeing him as a mess of blood and tainted flesh made my skin crawl. Though, I did not let myself turn away from him.

Denise turned back around with a suture needle, and threading. "We need to go in and sew up any lacerations."

I pressed the rag with more pressure, using my other hand to keep his head facing up. Just below his side jaw, my thumb dearly held him steady. Denise ordered a few others taking shelter in the infirmary to bring forward supplies we would need, and then, the suture material was put in my hands.

"I clean, you close." She instructed, not giving me a chance to opt out.

Part of me wanted to give the needle back to her, but then I recalled exactly what I had told her in the early hours of this exact day. 'You can'. I had told her that she was capable of healing the 'W'. Now, these exact words ran thick in my consciousness. I had never been more terrified than now. Standing here with the supplies — I was capable of hurting him even worse. It was different than stitching up those patients at Grady Memorial, or helping Denise close the man up. This was Carl. I was afraid. This was not a small laceration. This was almost an entire portion of his face, in dire need of being tended to.

How was I supposed to keep his bleeding heart alive in my own hands, when all that ever rose from my palms was death?

But I felt him calling out. Heard his begging. The reassurance which followed, telling me to take such a chance.

Thus, I did.

▬ ▬ ▬

When the sun began cracking through the skyline, Alexandria was rid of such demise. The only dead left were the ones piled up in the streets, being ready to be burned. Ash floated about in the air — a result of the flames that had been ignited on the pond that night. The people had fought through the masses, this time, regaining what was rightfully ours to begin with.

Alexandria belonged to the living. Now, and forever.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
7,280 words • 1:05 am

if you were wondering what it meant —
apricity; (Definition): the warmth of the sun in winter.
i think this is such a precious comparison of the two <3

anyways, welcome back to another chapter! this one was long. actually, i think it's my longest chapter yet?? wohoo !!!!

i hope you all are doing good.

sincerely yours,
nika.