۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗ 𓏲˖ 𑁍 ࣪ ִ ۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗
࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ  ✩◿𝓘𝓓𝓐◸ 🂱 ࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ
CHAPTER SIXTY TWO—
the depths of salty waters.

"You really don't mind?" Austin asked Sasha late that night as he sat with her near Glenns grave. "I'll be back in the morning."

"I don't mind." she promised him with a nod. "I get it....not being able to sleep."

Austin glanced at Glenns grave as he looked down just a little. "It's just a little longer. Things will come back soon."

She rubbed his shoulders. "You want me to come?"

"No, it's okay. You stay with Maggie." he stood with a deep breath, pulling his bag up on his shoulder. "Sometimes Natalie wakes up in the middle of the night to check on the boys. If she ask, can you just let her know I'll be back in the morning?"

"Have my word. I'll keep them safe." Sasha promised, smiling up at him. "You be carful out there."

He nodded, touching her shoulder as he walked past. The Hiltop gates weren't hard to get through, he didn't have to go through millions of questions like how he did back at Alexandria. These people didn't know him, they didn't care that his mental health was horrible. At Alexandria, he basically had to go through fifty questions before being allowed to leave.

Shockingly, Austin didn't run into too many walkers as he walked the lining of the woods. He stayed close incase needing to make a run for it, but not close enough to draw more walkers back to the Hiltop. He was annoyed there weren't more walkers, he wished there had been. It didn't feel as good now, the killing. It didn't remove the anger, it wasn't letting him feel better. It was just putting a deeper, more shallow feeling in his chest as he watched their rotting bodies drop.

"Doesn't feel too good now, does it?" Glenn asked, standing a few feet away. Austin tried to ignore him, knowing he wasn't actually here. He put his knife back into his waist band to keep it out of his palms. "Hurting things isn't gonna make you feel better this time, huh?"

Austin huffed and walked past him completely, pulling on the tee shirt when it felt too tight around his neck. He blinked, and Glenn was infront of him again. "I know you know i'm here. I'm in your head."

"Exactly. You're not here." Austin snapped, turning right and walking deeper into the woods now.

"Make sure you don't get lost." Glenn spoke when Austin thought it, confirming more then anything that he was just in his head. He stopped to tie pink ribbon around every few branches to lead him back. "Do you even know where you're going?"

Austin sighed again and tried to think of absolutely nothing. But, a faint sound caught his attention. Glenn stood next to him. "That's the ocean."

Austin glanced over at him, watching as he mimicked his every move, voiced his constant thought. Austin followed the sound of the ocean, Glenn slowly starting to fade into nothing as he kept on. Austin wasn't sure what was worse. Knowing he wasn't there, or knowing he was just a figment of his imagination. It got colder as he followed sounds of waves, the smell of salt filling his nose and drew him in closer and closer.

Austin was never a big fan of the ocean, but he followed it anyways.

"Damn." he spoke to himself when he stumbled across a huge, destroyed bridge. Walker noises echoed from behind the cars, but he couldn't see them. The bridge was huge, broken in certain areas and dropped off into the ocean beneath him. Austin needed a better look, he had to know if it was completely gone and they were ripped off to this side of the world, or if there'd been a lead to that side. He couldn't remember the last time he saw a bridge, he wanted to say it was back when he was in the city looking for Beth.

No, he couldn't think of her right now. Not in that way, not when it was at the worst.

He pushed the Lori Shirt-Bandana up on his head a little more and climbed the large flipped truck. His backpack loosened on his shoulder some, making it to the top before fixing it. He stared at the remaining of the bridge, it wasn't as broken from up high. It still lead to the other side, and there hadn't been too many walkers. Austin stood up there, as if he was on the top of the world, and took a deep breath. Above the ocean, above an entire bridge, above the life that wanted to kill him everyday. He breathed in the salty air, tuned out the sounds of the walkers. He breathed, he just breathed for one good second.

Until, he wasn't.

A walker rammed into the unstable truck he stood on, knocking Austin off his balance some. He found it quickly, looking down at the walker. Austin quickly opening up his backpack to get his gun, too far away to stab it. In those two seconds he was looking, multiple walkers built up and the truck started to turn. Austin grabbed the side as it started to flip, holding on tightly as the walkers tried to get to him from the other side of the truck, pushing into it harder and harder as if they'd pass through it and get to him.

With one more push, he expected to hit the groud, to have the weight of the truck crush him. But, instead, Austin was falling. Falling fast, and falling just as hard. Falling into the ocean he hated so much.

Homes with a lot of windows have a higher chance of being warm. That's proven due to the sun shining in multiple places, warming up the house inside. That's what crossed Austin's mind when he started to come to, how incredibly warm he felt. Then, how comfortable he was. His back and head laid against something welcoming, soft and easy to sink into.

As his eyes opened, he stared up at a dream catcher hanging on the headboard above his head.

A gasp left Austin's lips as he sat up fast, so fast that it made his head spin terribly. He didn't know where he was, the open window that was warming him up unfamiliar, the bed he laid in unknown. It was all new, all expect that dream catcher he was staring at seconds before.

"Jesus." a new voice scared him even more, gasped and looking toward the door where a girl was digging through his backpack. "Is that how you always wake up?"

"She wrote about getting really bad nightmares. Like, deep, emotional writing about how traumatized she felt when she woke up." Austin explained, frowning his eyebrows together. "That same week, she quit the robotics team because she had to move three or four states away. So, I obviously wasn't gonna talk to her and embarrassed myself, but I wanted her to know that I thought she was a really good addition to the team and, you know, I hoped she'd be okay."

"So, what'd you do?" Beth leaned on her knees to listen.

"I stayed up all night on youtube learning how to make a dream catcher, for her bad dreams. It was so hard, I took three crying breaks." he laughed at the memory, making her laugh in return. "But, I got it finished about ten minutes before going to school. It was small but I liked it. I remember I attached these little beads to five little strings, and weaved the middle part. That's what had me crying because it was so difficult."

"Cydnie?" Austin stared at her, that face only crossing his mind a few times since she'd moved away, buried in his past as a lousy crush he had before the world fell.

"Why'd you keep the job then?" Sasha gave a questionable look. "Spin class was that bad?"

Austin rolled his eyes. "No, I was stupid and kept it because of a girl."

Sasha rose her eyebrows and encouraged him to go on.

"I had this friend, not really a friend, we'd talk sometimes at robotics but we weren't friends. I just kinda liked her, just a little." he explained with a shrug. "And, she'd always talk about how much she liked really old movies, and I overheard her so many times. So, i'd go in on Sundays, when it was suppose to be closed, and run old movies."

It took her a second. It took Cyndie multiple seconds. The kid she knew had glasses, thin hair that was across his forehead, bad acne, and much more scrawny. But, his eyes. Those damn eyes were hard to forget, something she had always thought. When she found him washed up at the beach, his eyes were closed. They were closed up until right now, that's why she hasn't recognized him. Not that they were the most familiar people, but one of the few that made it. And that was something neither had expected from the other. "Austin?"

•

kylie speaks

I KNOW A FEW OF YOU
CAUGHT IT BUT THE ONES
OF YOU THAT DIDNT....HELLO!

i came to be a happy moment
after the final last night.