Future Ghosts • TWD

6. Rick Grimes.

Rosie didn't wake up until the next morning. When she did wake up, she panicked. She was still on that god damn roof. And when she tried to stand, she found her wrist hooked to a hand cuff.

She looked at the cuffs, and then next to them. There was her new backpack. It wasn't on her back anymore, though. It was left wide open on the ground.

Next to it, her new coloring book was also left wide open. On the first page, in blue crayon, were the words:

"SORRY KID CAN'T LET YOU RUN AWAY"

It was written in messy, large letters. Rosie wondered why the handwriting was so completely and utterly terrible... until she looked to her left and saw the severed hand on the pavement. She shrieked and scooted herself away, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"No. No, no, no, no, no!" she muttered to herself as she tugged at the handcuffs. It was no use. She wasn't breaking the handcuffs any time soon.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Rosie began to silently curse Merle.

That asshole took the time out of his day, AFTER he cut off his own hand, to pick the lock on the cuffs, JUST to lock ME here?!

AND HE LEFT HIS AMPUTATED HAND WITH ME?!

SO I CAN LOOK AT IT WHILE I DIE?!

That motherfucker.

"Please, please, please, please," she whispered, slamming her one free hand into the cement over and over again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said to herself. She wasn't sure what she was saying sorry for, or what the point was, but that didn't stop her from saying it.

Tears began to prick at her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Instead, Rosie purposefully morphed her sadness into anger. She was stuck.

Stuck and unbelievably frustrated.

The throbbing in the back of her skull made her extremely angry, as a reminder of what had happened. She grew even more angry, though, when she remembered what Merle had told her before she passed out.

Merle killed my dad.

She still wasn't even sure how to feel about her dad's death. Should she have wanted to thank Merle, or kill him? The confusion only added to the frustration.

The thoughts, feelings, memories, and throbbing goddamn pain in Rosie's skull all began to overwhelm her. Her face began to burn and she could feel her muscles shaking. The sight of Merle's right hand in front of her and the sounds of the walkers groaning in the streets below only added to the complete overload of negative emotions.

She patted the holster on her hip for her gun, just to find it gone. Merle had recognized it as her father's gun and opted out of taking it, tossing it in her backpack instead. He didn't want her to be able to reach it before the others came back and found her. At least he hoped they'd come back and find her.

Rosie curled herself up as small as possible, squeezed her eyes shut, covered her ears with her hands, and accepted her death.

It would be a long and painful one. She'd get dehydrated, probably pass out or starve to death, if the walkers didn't end up finding her first, anyway.

This really was the end of it all.

Rosie only lasted four days without her dad.

Pathetic.

She kept her hands pressed up against her ears, blocking out any and all sounds coming from the dead.

So she wasn't able to hear the many footsteps coming up the stairs that she had climbed just the day before.