Future Ghosts • TWD

62. The End of the World.

The world had already ended once, but for Rosie, it was ending all over again. Because Daryl didn't come back, and he said he would, which meant that something went wrong. But no one else seemed to be very worried.

It'd been almost an hour since Daryl and Carol left- and hour since Daryl was supposed to be right back- and they were still missing. And, to make the issue even more pressing, Bob had gone missing now, too. Rosie was on the ground now, laying on her stomach next to Glenn as she drew on the back of a piece of paper with a burning tree on the other side. It was supposed to be a distraction. It was supposed to keep her preoccupied from the fact that Daryl, Carol, and now Bob were all missing. It wasn't working very well.

"How 'bout tic-tac-toe?" Glenn suggested, leaning back on his hands.

"We should look for 'em," Rosie said instead of answering his question. She jabbed her crayon down onto the paper, leaving a small dot.

"He said he'd be back, didn't he?" Glenn reminded her. He took a crayon from the box Gabriel had provided them with and drew a lattice of lines, leaving nine boxes in order to play tic-tac-toe.

"He said he'd be right back. Right back passed already," Rosie said, raising her eyebrows as she twisted to look at Glenn again.

"Daryl's a tracker. Best way to find him is for him to find us. So we stay put for at least a little longer. Until Rick says we should go looking," Glenn said. He nudged her arm with his hand. "You can go first."

With a huff, Rosie drew an O in the center box. "Where is Rick?" she asked, looking around the room again.

"He and Tyreese went out to get Sasha," Glenn said. He put an X in the top right box.

"Wait, so, Sasha gets to go out lookin' for 'em, and I don't?" Rosie asked accusingly. Her eyebrows furrowed, annoyed, but she put an O in the top left box, anyway.

"Sasha's a grown woman. You're ten," Glenn told her. He put an X in the bottom right box.

"I'm almost eleven, I think," Rosie replied. She wrote an O in the middle right box.

"That doesn't make any difference," Glenn said. He put an X in the middle left box. Rosie huffed and put an O in the bottom middle. Glenn put an X in the top middle box. Rosie put her last O in the bottom left. Neither of them got three in a row. "You're too smart for this game. No one will ever win," Glenn said, laughing a little. He was about to suggest another game, maybe hangman, but before he could, the doors to the church opened again. Rosie's head short towards the door, but it wasn't Daryl, Carol, or Bob. It was only Rick, Tyreese, and Sasha.

Sasha marched towards Gabriel, who was standing at the front of the room and doing something by one of the pews. "Stop," Sasha said quietly, but harshly. Rosie watched carefully, wondering what was going on. Did she find something? "What are you doing?" Sasha asked. Gabriel looked confused and gave no answer. "What are you doing? This is all connected. You show up, we're being watched, and now three of us are gone."

Daryl was right? Rosie thought. Her stomach started to hurt again. We're being watched?

"I... I don't... I don't have anything to do with this," Gabriel eventually stuttered out. He seemed at a loss for words.

Suddenly, Sasha pulled her knife from its sheath and the sound of it echoed around the room. Everyone jumped forward, shouting stop! and don't! at her, but Tyreese was the only one to get her to hesitate. She kept getting closer to Gabriel, though, and he backed away with his hands raised. "Who's out there?" she asked. Gabriel tried to stutter out another answer, but Sasha interrupted him. "Where are our people?" she growled out. Gabriel tried saying that he didn't know again. Sasha wouldn't let him. "Where are our people?!" she screamed in his face, her voice echoing around the church. Rosie stayed back, slightly behind Glenn. All the yelling only made her anxiety worse.