damnation → the walking dead ⁴

[ 007 ] state of mind.

— CHAPTER SEVEN.
state of mind.

mentions of suicide, self-harm, mental disorders, suicidal thoughts, and hallucinations

WHEN HER EYES PEEL open she's not in the place she was when she died. Instead she stands in the very field where she took her first life. She turns in desperate circles. How did she end up here? Why is she here? What is happening!?

The last thing she remembers is being hit by Francis, one of her ghosts.

"Hey, kid." A voice stops her cold. He's never spoken to her in her hallucinations before because he can't. Because his throat is always slit so deep she can see his spine. He isn't supposed to be able to talk!

She slowly turns and the first thing she does is gasp. Standing several feet away from her is Shane Walsh. She brings a hand to her heart. He isn't covered in blood and his throat isn't slit open. She doesn't understand. What is this?

She knows this isn't heaven. Shane wouldn't have gone and she sure as hell isn't going to live in Paradise for all eternity. Neither of them have ever deserved the peace that is Heaven.

Yet somehow Shane stands before her clean of blood and any injury. He wears the clothes he wore the day he died though, his hair is still shaven all the way to his scalp. His twenty-two number chain dangles over his chest.

"What is this?" Odessa asks.

"The Middle," he answers, he looks around it. "You're trapped here because your real body is fighting between life and death right now."

"What?" She laughs, "are you crazy? That's like something straight out of a movie. Either you die or you survive. There's nothing like this in real life."

Shane smiles weakly at her. "Oh, but there is. You're here because death is winning. If you haven't noticed, you're fading, Odessa." He nods down to her body.

At this, she looks down at her body. Her hands are half way gone. She gasps, "what is this?" She looks back at Shane with wide, scared eyes.

"Your body is dying." He explains. "And once it does your consciousness will pass over to wherever to either Heaven or Hell. You won't stay in the Middle."

"Then why are you here?" She asks with furrowed brows, confusion etched into her face.

"Because I am the other half of you." He says.

"What?" She questions. "What the fuck does that mean, Shane?"

"I am your other half. The day you killed me you lost what little bit of innocence you had left. It was the turning point of your life. Your actions  that night weighed the good and the evil inside you and they are perfectly balanced." He tries to explain to her but stops when he sees the clear confusion on her face.

He sighs, "in the short way of putting it, I am you."

She stares. "No. You are not me. I am not you." She hisses. "I'm Odessa Grimes and you're Shane Walsh. You're a monster. I'm not. I'm a good person. I'm a good person, Shane!"

Shane nods. "And that's why you're going to live."

Odessa's body shoots upward with a gasp. The four people in the room all flinch at her sudden movement. Her eyes are blurry, her whole body aches. She blinks several times and when her vision finally clears the first face she sees is Negan.