𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Tilly's arms ached terribly as she carried stacks of boxes down the dark and desolate halls of Hillcrest School. The halls dim, never opening itself to any lights no matter the number of windows the building had. The soft tapping of her broken converse filled her ears as it echoed through the darkness, although the school was filled with a considerable amount of children it always felt perpetually empty.

The sounds of yelling suddenly entranced her as she walked further to the cafeteria. Quickening her pace, she moved towards the barking noises and finally made it to the wide room. The cafeteria was similar to all the hallways, with no colour nor light. The food always looked and tasted like it was picked out of the dirt, even before the world fell.

Unfortunately for her, Tilly's presence was announced by the loud clanging of the top box falling from her grasp and smashing onto the ground. Even more unfortunately for her, the box was filled with plates and cups that all fell into small cracked pieces when they hit the ground. She placed the other boxes down and slowly rose her head, meeting the cold eyes of Ms Bradley.

The woman whipped her head to the girl so fast that Tilly thought she must have snapped her neck in the process. The hunched and wrinkly woman stopped yelling at another innocent child to barge closer to the small brunette, her steps sounding like the drums of war as they filled Tilly's head with all-consuming dread. Bradley reached out her boney hand and wrapped it around Tilly's collar so she could pull the girl forward with a force only imaginable to a body builder. 

"Matilda Webb!" she yelled with a screeching voice that could send ringing into your ears. "You horrible reckless child!"

Tilly scrunched her face at such words, ones she had heard all her life but never failed to make her squirm with guilt. She slowly opened her eyes and parted her lips, struggling to find the courage to speak back

"It was an accident" she started yet was rudely interrupted by the sharp pain that went through her cheek. Bradley had slapped her across the cheek, something all too familiar to the students at Hillcrest.

"Your room now! A week without leaving and two days without food! God knows we need the rations" she screamed as she took the scrunched-up fabric of Tilly's shirt and pushed her back down the hall with such brute force that the girl fell down. Tilly pathetically got up and limped back to her cold room thinking of how bad she wanted to escape but how slim her chances of survival alone were.

Turning the worn-out doorknob of her room, she noticed it was hot, almost boiling. Her face contorted with confusion as she backed away, the heat from the door slowly getting to her and sending her mind into overdrive. She leant forward again and knelt to the floor, taking a look through the small gap under the door. Much to her surprise, all Tilly could see was the orange flames that consumed the inside of what was once her room. Tilly let many profanities slip from her lips, not caring if Bradley was behind her or not because of the raging destruction coming from behind the door.

Amidst her fit of panic, Tilly noticed the group of girls leaning on a door beside her's. The girls were giggling at Tilly's frantic nature as she noticed one of them slip a lighter into her pocket. Tilly's eyes went wide. It had not surprised her that the girls would do something this cruel to her, but what shocked her was the sheer stupidity of the children, knowing that without control, the whole building would burst into flames.

"You idiots! You goddamn fucking idiots!" she shouted as she walked toward the group of girls, hearing the smashing of her window from inside her room. Tilly was smart enough to know it would all go to shit pretty soon so she ignored the stupid girls and ran down the hallway to the supply closet, ignoring the yells of the teachers and students who had suddenly noticed the burning smell that had spread through to the other rooms of the hall.

They didn't have much, only a couple of old school bags from lost property and a first aid kit. Taking what she could, she shoved it into the old bag and placed it on her back. She ran down the echoed stairs, bumping into students on the way who were walking towards the chaos to see what was happening. She yelled for them to stop, however, they all ignored her. Despite her conscious telling her to save them, she knew there was nothing she could do to help. Or at least that's what she told herself to sleep at night.

Bursting through to the ground floor, she tried busting through the back door but it was locked. The doors were always locked. She slammed her body to the door, hoping the old wood wouldn't be able to take the pressure. Her body and shoulders ached like they never had before, tears streaming down her face in desperation she yelled out in anger.

Finally, she decided to smash her elbow through the glass and crawl her way out. She had seen these things in movies before but never thought about how much it would actually hurt. She picked up a nearby chair with her bloody arms and used it to crawl through the rugged window. The glass cut what felt like every inch of her body before she fell through and landed on the hard ground. Stumbling to her feet, she ran through the desolate yard to the gravel road leading away from the school and looked back only for a single moment to see a large explosion from the west wing; setting the nearby areas alight with flames.

She was horrified thinking of all those lives she could have saved if she yelled harder, if she didn't panic and run away. If she had thought for only a moment that maybe these people deserve some sort of redemption with her despite their cruelty. Her tears streamed faster as the dead ones began approaching the noise. Thinking she couldn't survive much longer if she just stayed still, she moved forward down the gravel road, away from the school as a small path of blood followed her.

................

Tilly was used to nightmares, the ghosts of her past haunting her subconscious mind no matter how loud she screamed or how much she wanted to scrub away the guilt of before. Before she was brave, before Teddy taught her how to save morality and heal her own. No matter the torturous predicament she found herself in back in the early days of the end, she always blamed herself for everything.

She missed the nights when it was silent. Where her parents tucked her in with a story and a glass of milk before they stopped caring for her. Before they sent her away. Before the faces of the damned stained her mind. Before the pain of everything.

As the leaves of the forest floor crunched under her green boots, her mind raced with images from that old school house. Of all the people who hated her eventually coming to their demise, of what they could have become if she had just saved them instead of running away. As her mind floated in the abyss of overwhelming guilt, the familiar feeling of Carl's presence came to her side. She lifted her head to him as he handed her a pecan with such an innocent smile on his face. She gently took the small snack from his hand with her cold fingers and popped it into her mouth, relishing in the smile Carl gave her when she accepted his gift.

The sweet moment was interrupted by the rustle of leaves to their left, Carl immediately drew his gun towards the danger and stepped slightly in front of Tilly. She too drew a machete that Rick had given her earlier that day, it felt sort of odd in her hands like all weapons did to her. She thought she might just not be a violent person, but was proven wrong time and time again by the memories of how quickly she had reverted to it in a split second. 

"I surrender" Daryl muttered after stepping out of the treeline, holding up his hands to the group of people with weapons pointed at him; a string of rabbits in his grip.

Tilly used to hate the thought of eating meat, she once cried when her mother told her were chicken nuggets came from. However now she felt the absolute pain of losing herself when she saw those rabbits and couldn't wait to dig into them. Having gone so many days starving and resorting to rotten food, a fresh animal no longer sounded too disgusting to fathom. The group lowered their weapons as Daryl joined them again and they walked forward.

"You were mumbling in your sleep last night," Carl said seemingly out of nowhere, keeping his eyes on the dirt-ridden brunette that walked idly by him.

"Yeah, I'm a restless sleeper" she chuckled to herself, covering the true fear underneath her words of what she had dreamt of last night. 

"Yeah, I think we all are these days" he lowered his head as he kicked a rock in front of him. Tilly looked at the boy's features, following the perfectly slanted line of his nose. Even with the sheen of sweat and layers of dirt she couldn't help but blush at him.

"You were watching me sleep?" she asked cheekily, the traces of her old self leaking into her words. The happy and playful girl she once was invading her body for a moment. Carl immediately blushed, his head shooting up to the girl and his hand went to caress the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I - I wasn't. I mean I was just... I couldn't sleep and-" he began to frantically explain himself, feeling the heat continue to rise to his cheeks. Tilly giggled at him and elbowed his arm.

"I was kidding" she chuckled, not knowing how much Carl sunk into the angelic sound of her laughter.

Rick called for the group to keep up, Tilly scuttled closer to everyone else, keeping her weapon close to her side with caution. She heard the echoes of Sasha and bob playing a game of 'good in the bad' behind her. She found some solace in the couples game, the blind optimism and blatant cynicism made her giggle. She wished it were as simple as wet socks in a world like this, she would trade all her terrible memories for eternity with cold feet if she could.

Abruptly, Tilly heard the faint yell for help in the distance. The heads of everyone in the group shot up immediately, focusing on the voice calling in desperation. Carl looked at his father with determination.

"Dad, come on!" he shouted at the curious man, giving him a look of shock that Rick was so hesitant to help the voice. "Come on!" he pulled at his arm. Rick looked around, debating his options when his eyes landed on the brunette walking towards the voice.

"Tilly! What are you doing?" he whispered loud enough so she could hear, Tilly turned around and made direct eye contact with Rick.

"You took a chance on me, what's to say I'm more deserving of saving than them?" she said in a voice similar in desperation to Carl's, the flashes of all that could have happened to her if she had never been caught by the group of strangers crossing her mind.

Maybe she would have died in the fire of Terminus or trampled by the hoard of walkers in the area. All she knew was that these people were willing to save, and that's all she needed to walk toward the strange voice. Rick looked back at his young boy and headed in the direction of the screaming, the group not far behind the leader.

Tilly led in front of everyone, she whizzed through the trees masterfully as she had practice at running for her life in the winding forest. Hearing the footsteps of Carl right on her trail, she smiled knowing the group had her back on this. As the voice got louder a large rock came into view. Surrounded by walkers, there was a man atop the large boulder inches away from death as the fleshy monsters clasped onto his ankles.

Carl ran forward and immediately shot a walker in the head. Tilly, not having any firearm, raced towards the small group and sliced her machete clean through the head of one of the walkers; unfortunately alerting the other flesh monsters of her presence. The rest of the group ran forward, charging at the dead to smash and slice their heads gruesomely. Tilly would have hated such action back when it all started but now she was almost ashamed to admit she felt proud after a kill, despite the guilt of a once alive person hanging on her subconscious.

"Clear! Keep watch" Rick announced once the few walkers were dead on the ground, a couple of people noticeably separating and scanning the area whilst Rick shared a cold eye with the man atop the rock. "Come on down," he said with authority. The shaky man looked around anxiously as he slid down the rock onto the solid ground. Everyone kept their eyes pinned to him.

"You okay?" Rick asked when he saw the sickly face of the man who frantically looked around him. The man held up a finger and proceeded to let loose all his stomach contents onto the ground. Tilly looked away in disgust and scrunched her nose. Gross.             

"Sorry.....yes" the man let out breathily as he regained his composure "Thank you, I'm Gabriel"

"Do you have any weapons on you?" Rick quickly interrupted, cutting straight to the chase. Tilly felt a strange sort of solidarity at that moment. She was on the other side, she was the one in the group and Gabriel was on the other side. They were with her and she was with them. She looked around at the group as she held her machete cautiously to her body like the rest of them, feeling a kinship that filled the holes that left her so empty in the past.

"Do I look like I would have any weapons?" Gabriel chuckled. Michone gave him a cold glare yet Tilly couldn't help but agree, just then she noticed the cleen-cut suit with only a few scuff marks from the previous predicament. But most prominently he had a small white strip on his collar, Tilly had spent enough time in a Catholic school to recognise this man was a priest. She thought it all sort of ironic at first to believe in something in such an obviously godless word.

"We don't give two short and curlies what it looks like" Abraham spoke up from behind the girl. Although he was right, Tilly felt her machete lowering and her hand moved to lean on her hip. 

"I have no weapons of any kind" Gabriel stated clearly, gulping at the obvious intimidation of the group. "The word of God is the only protection I need"

Tilly let out a soft breath of air through her nose, something that imitated a laugh as she thought it was pretty clear he needed a bit more than prayer to keep him from the rotten teeth salivating for his plump skin.

"Sure didn't look like it" Daryl spoke Tilly's thoughts out loud.

"I called for help. Help came" he stated. Tilly couldn't tell if he was being smug or just blindly faithful.

"Do we look like God to you?" Tilly spoke in the silence. Gabriel turned his head and smiled at the girl. If not for his obvious lack of authority she would have been creeped out by such a move.

"You could be" he finished quite blankly. Tilly honestly had no clue what that meant in the slightest, so she just nodded her head and looked to Carl who had his hands wrapped tightly around a bag of pecans. She thought it quite sweet that when everyone clasped to their weapons he held nothing but sustenance.

"Do you have any food? Whatever I had left just hit the ground" he stuttered under the pressure of everyone stared. Carl shifted beside her and lifted his handful of food.

"We've got some pecans" she reached his hand towards the stranger, giving his possible last meal for a while to a stranger he just saved.

"Thank you" Gabriel took the food with grace. "That's a beautiful child" he spoke again looking at the innocent Judith as she cooed in Tyreese's arms. Everyone looked around at each other seemingly waiting for Rick to say something, whether this man was to be left here or if they would take the risk of inviting in another mouth to feed.

"Do you have a camp?" Gabriel asked the all-important question

"No, do you?" Rick replied coldly.

"I have a church-"

"Hold your hands above your head" Rick immediately replied as he searched the shaken man, feeling for any threats to his family.

"How many walkers have you killed" Rick started as Tilly zoned out. The questions so familiarly rang in her ears. Just yesterday she was asked a such simple yet invasive questions that brought her true colours to light. The faces of the men she had killed prominent and clear in her mind as the life drained from their faces.

"I am a sinner, I sin almost every day. But those sins I confess to God, not strangers" Gabriel pulled Tilly out of her thoughts, evoking such resonance with her that it almost scared her. Would she ever confess her guilty sins to the people who had so naively saved her? Maybe she deserved the fate of those other students but these people kept her from that. Could she ever wash her hands of the promises she had made to the people she loved, the promises she had broken and left her hands bloody forever?

"You said you had a church?" Michone casually asked as Gabriel frantically nodded. And with that, the group was off.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

so most of this chapter is Tilly's guilt and backstory which is as i said pretty painful 😀

go have a look at my tik tok @sadbixch.wp if u wanna see some edits n stuff 🥰

dw there is gonna be more flashbacks n stuff relating to Teddy in the future so it's gonna make his death even sadder 👍

anyway. slay.