THUNDER BOOMED ON, LIGHTNING too: striking in-between 30 to 40 second intervals as she held her knees suffocatingly up to her chest. The shed she'd garnered as home couldn't really be called a home. She missed being able to use that word: and how potentially good it felt. home. She dreamt of it, every waking night and all the following sleepless days. First, she counted one night. Then two. Then three, to four, to five, until the number reached fifty. Her hair - matted and greasy, her body - scarred, scuffed and burnt red raw from the blaring sun. I used to like hot days, she'd thought when she found herself wandering aimlessly through un-shaded fields and open roads. With her horribly blunt knife, she had cut her jeans from her ankle to her knee, rolling them up so that if she had to, she could run. Carl's flannel hung from her shoulders like gospel, sick, sweet, and untruthful. It wasn't just fabric, held together by checkers and measly string. It was hope. And that was more dangerous than anything in these woods.
To try and salvage her humanity after eating bugs and licking bones clean, she made up a game. She would say her name, over and over, her age, her friends names, her mom's name. She'd recite old conversations to prove to herself that they were actually real. She would whisper everything she knew to the forest, so that maybe, if she did die, it might remember her, and what she did. What she had tried to do.
The rain pattered on roughly outside, as she trembled with a frightful cold and dampened clothes. occasionally, rain would seep through the cracks in the thatched roof, catching her off-guard and rolling from the roots of her hair to the hilt of her chin, like a tear. In her darkest of moments, she might imagine her mother singing her a lullaby (something she'd never done, but she knew other mothers did) or Carl resting his head on her shoulder. Acts so simple, but so comforting. Even if someone was just there - anyone, really, she'd be eternally thankful.
She hadn't even thought of being sad, she'd had to push herself to her limits, crying wasn't even an option. But the acid rain felt lethal this night, and she wished desperately to be someone else. Anyone else. dead, maybe. She could never sleep, so at night she still roamed, and now that she'd stopped - letting the silence consume her - everything had her in it's grasp.
It was here she would stay for three whole days, no food, no water, and a fucked up knife that she had rammed into the wood out of anger and helplessness. This whole time, she had been running from it, sprinting away, but she knew now why it would never go away. At first, she had thought there were only two ways this could go: she could live, or she could die. But now, she really, really wished that was true.
When she had woken up, lying on concrete floor and doused in blood, she didn't know where she was. It came to her quickly, and she was glad it did, as walkers were everywhere. She'd never, ever seen as many as she did that day, and they were all coming to get her.
The rubble hadn't hit her, she was lucky for that. The prison was completely gone, and she only let that sting when she had managed to get away. In the first week, she was confident that she would find someone, at least. When the second rolled around, and she'd nearly died protecting herself from five walkers, she felt less inclined to think so. Her hope was almost completely drained when she lay her eyes on the bus. The bus full of escapees, or, what was left of them.
After that, all she ever questioned was the fact that she might never see any of them again.
4 days in that shed, and she was ready to die. Ready to succumb to the earth, to the world, to lose against it. But she would be peaceful, and selfishly she hoped that maybe if she was going to die, she'd meet one of the many people she had lost in afterlife. And that, was when the door swung wide open and almost smacked her in the face. It made a horrid noise as the draft blew rain water right into her dirt-caked face.
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"𝐜𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞„
Fanfiction"Remember the first time you kissed me? It was on the cheek, outside of Hershel's quarantine zone. I remember feeling conflicted, because, I couldn't enjoy it. You were about to step into danger, and could've died. That's the first time I felt it, a...
