CHAPTER FIVE ,
please

⠀'Look, here it is!' Isiah peered across the cramped interior of the dingy van, ears pricking up. 'There!' Abraham Ford sat upfront, and the boy watched the way the man's wrapped hands clenched across the rubber steering wheel. Hearing only disappointment come from his words, as the vehicle spluttered and tripped forward across the heaving tarmac. Everyone inside had felt the soft jerks from beneath them, the last steps of their last drop of gas. As if the object uttered its last breath.

⠀And no one's going to notice a silence when it's staring them in the face. Isiah is staring them in the face, yet, his silence doesn't mean a thing. And they should be worried ― they're not. The overall steaming worry sets upon the wellness of their stomachs, and keeping hydrated. Not the silence coming from the mouth of the young boy.

⠀'for behold, the kingdom of god is in the midst of you'

⠀Isiah had been shamelessly waiting for some type of release. He was expecting death, lurking its way around the corner. Every time they opened the car door, maybe that's where it'd be ― maybe it was waiting itself, for the right time of day. Because he could see it, not only feel it, how broken everything was. He remembered the last words of his sister.

⠀"I get it now." And maybe he did. Just maybe.

⠀But the mere, and only, possibility of the release set him on edge. He wasn't afraid, but probably impatient.

⠀Isiah Greene wanted to die, and he wanted it now. He wanted it then and there, every time the concrete came into contact with the holey bottoms of his shoes. Every single time he remembered a single memory, he felt the air had taken him for granted. He wanted to die and he knew he wasn't going to regret doing so.

⠀But with all this, he still feared this. The boy was still afraid of hell, as he felt he had no chance in heaven. He was taught from a young age the passages, and the words to abide by. And when his mother died, he was left to the books and the thinking. The thinking there was something wrong with him, and that was the first time he felt nothing but alive because all he wanted was death. All he wanted was to be with his mother.

⠀Here he was again, with empty hands and nothing but scriptures filtering into his ears from his own lips. Small, quiet mutters, unintelligibly enigmatic and only his. The feeling of being too alive.

⠀What Isiah didn't realise was that this, honestly, was a toxic relationship between him and his god.

⠀His body was squashed tightly between Sasha and Tara, curling his arms around his knees. It had been a short while since he found a comfortable position to put his legs in. The young man's right appendage had been growing numb as it lay between the figures of everyone else, and he looked worriedly between his limb and the now opening door.

⠀Once the steady heat washed the inside of the vehicle, the others started filtering out ― all stifling, and weakly clutching their arms around themselves under the fermenting air. But Isiah watched on as their feet stomped defiantly, even if tiredly, against the ground. He felt he didn't have it in him to even try. But the image of his younger sister, Maggie, adjusting her hair into a ponytail even after everything. The unrelenting force maneuvering her fingers through her thickening locks, yet somehow knowing she was crumbling inside. Dare he say it gave him inspiration.

⠀But that slowly flitted away when the pain shot through his body like a slow traveling bullet, lighting his veins on fire and making his fists dig nail etches into his palms. He had yet to tell anyone of the dark, browning marks adorning his fingers and lines on his hands. From drawing red, and from a silenced throat. He had yet to even hint at the limp. But he knew their eyes wandered, and he knew they worried ― but just like him, they didn't say a word.

⠀It wouldn't be a reach to say... neglectful much?

⠀When he looked up, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Nothing but the daunting sun, glaring against his recently sensitive eyes. The previous salted downpour had left him with inner scars, they had yet to heal completely. And with the close enough loss of Tyreese imminent at his eyes, Isiah did his best to leave that grief for a better time.

⠀As time passed on, and he took his rightful place at the back of the group, there was no one around him to keep an eye on his clenching teeth ― his shuddering legs, his uneven breaths and riven heart. Isiah took the time to count his tattoos, the only constant. He fingered the sweaty landscape of his ribs, leading up to his chest.

⠀Vitruvian standing idly along his left breast; cursive repetition of pi swerving over his collarbones; sketched waves trailing his ribs scattered with stars; the lady of disheveled hair peeking out from under his arms; almond blossoms connecting the empty space.

⠀The only thing he felt he did right to himself, even if he was blind to the wrongs. This ink in his upper epidermis, was a permanent sign he wasn't what those eyes around him.

⠀Isiah had his digits tucked into the rough fabrics along his body, still unable to undress himself from the clothes stained with his baby sister's blood. Just when he lifted the collar to stare directly at the freckled distribution of colour, the samurai afront himself strode slower to back into his space.

⠀"Zayah?" She turned her neck to gaze at him over her shoulder and across from her dreads, but it didn't gain his full attention. "Hey," Michonne reached her arm out, to which he retracted. "You don't speak anymore."

⠀Isiah glowered from underneath his eyebrows, staring idly at the backlit forms walking slowly. They looked scarily like the ones he used to run away from ― now he can't even run.
When he took half a glance towards the woman, she was staring. But he knew it wasn't her fault that she noticed the silence, looking into it like a scholar. They had nothing better to do so why not question the young man's lack of words.

⠀"I know," she started, huffing tiredly. "I know it's not just her ― not just..." Michonne tried to say her name, but feared what may come next. "Rick told me about Dawn, and what happened."

⠀Isiah's head slowly shook, and you would have to be looking carefully to notice. He took his bottom lip between his teeth, drawing heat to the space. Bringing a hand up to his neck, he clutched his shirt, dragging the wet material from his skin. His fingernails were marring the sketches, becoming a part of the masterpiece.

⠀The thing about the whole situation, was that Isiah couldn't remember feeling the same type of grief he had for his mother. It was frustration. It was anger; some type of deep, bubbling desire to hurt. To just let himself scream. All the wit, and all the memory of someone he used to be seemed to be taken just as Gormon had taken everything else with him.

⠀And Michonne was right; it wasn't just Beth ― sometimes he thought, it was hardly ever Beth.

⠀It was his mother, and his father. (For some reason he grew up thinking they would last longer than him, because his naivety as a young boy made him think that's what parents do) It was something inside he couldn't place. It was Lori. It was T-Dog. It was Beth, Tyreese, and it was ― for some reason ― Gormon.

⠀There was always going to be a one sided connection between them, even if it stretched from Isiah's world to that man's afterlife. This tousled string that wasn't positively red, it was a ghostly white for the innocence stolen when the young man had the clutch a wooden desk for his dear life. And he wanted to say this all.

⠀Beth. Tyreese. Dad. Mom. Lori. T-Dog. Gormon... Alex. Beth. Tyreese. Dad. Mom. Lori. T-Dog. Gormon... Alex.

⠀Alex? He had forgotten about him.

━━━━━━━━━━

⠀The slow approaching walkers had trailed along the tail of the group, and eventually the convenient caverns beside a bridge became their residence. With the strongest, and most equipped of the group. What was left ― the younger, weak, and broken ― sat themselves far from the commotion. Isiah seemed to be the only broken one around that was conveniently weak.

⠀He leaned upon the greyed bar, looking over into the darkness below. He heard the low belows of discarded walkers, deepening into the abyss. It was an almost comical sound, but that thought wasn't enough to brighten up Isiah's eyes. Only, instead, he wondered what it would be like to go down with them. To feel his bones crush again, like the way that car had collided with his body. And that brought the words.

⠀"Maybe the car should have killed me?" Yet another time where the young man had no fucking idea if the sounds escaped him, or if they just ricocheted. There was a moment that followed that made him think he had actually said something, because a stranger's hand caught his upper arm, gripping tightly when he didn't realise his body loved the feeling of leaning forward.

⠀Isiah, quickly and erratically, flinched. He took the hand from his arm, and shook it from himself like a walker bite. The boy's eyes widened when he stuttered backwards against the bar he was once gripping. He was met with Gabriel.

⠀Some sort of quiet conversation between their expressions translated to a fiery standoff. A questioning glare from the inked man, and an apologetic glance from preacher without his flock. But not a single word was said until commotion brought them out of their stances.

⠀Isiah turned to look over his shoulder, just about hearing words from Abraham. "The plan just got dicked." Only when Sasha made her blazing, and wrath-brimmed presence known, did Isiah understand. But a tickling stare made him turn, stepping away from Gabriel ― frightened of how he might try to come into contact with him again.

⠀"You were―" Gabriel didn't finish his sentence, as the heavy breaths running through the atmosphere and directly from the taller male in front of him, caught his dire attention. "Are you okay? You were her sister, right?" He reached forward, and Isiah almost tripped backward. This was an incredibly tense battle, consisting of a scared boy just wanting to be away.

⠀All he wanted to do was be away.

⠀Isiah took his slowly healing leg, and almost dragged it quickly to the opposite side of the bridge.

⠀"Please," he whispered. Did he whisper? "Please, stop!"

⠀He heard it like an outside sound, but these sounds were so pained, no tongue or lips could translate them.

━━━━━━━━━━

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ note.
sorry u waited so long and it's trash honestly chapters 1-4 are so dramatic so it's hard to go from that to just steady sadness

dedicated to joaeys bc she isiah stan !!
( edited ✓ )