To heal is to feel

Stop

"I'd like to propose a toast." Abraham gathers everyone's attention. While everyone sat in there own little areas around each other, plates in hand filled with food, I sat on a bench near the door with gun in hand.

I, however, set the gun a side before leaning my arms on the bench in front of me and laying my chin on them. Looking at them all.

"I look around this room...and I see survivors. Each and every one of you had earned that title . To the survivors." Abe raises his glass of wine higher than before and I see the ones with alcohol do the same.

"Survivors! Cheers!" I hear Maggie yell out before they all cheer as well. Survivors... am I surviving? Is this me surviving?

"Is that all you want to be?" Abe then ask and I tilt my head on my my arms. I don't know what I want to be.

"Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open. Rinse and Repeat?" Abe glances at me and I conclude that he was talking about the things I talked to him on the tracks. "Cause you can do that. I mean. You got the strength. You got the skill." He glances at me again with a amused grin.

I got skill,I grin back at him.

"Thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now, we get Eugen to Washington and he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad take away for a little road trip." I could tell Abe was desperate for us to go with him because deep down he knows that he needs us.

"Eugene, what's in D.C?" Abraham ask and looks down at , who I am guessing, is Eugene. From where I'm at I could only see the people standing up.

"I'm fractured constructed to with stand pandemics even if this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart." Eugene says with our actually feeling us what was in Washington. He only listed things that we wanted to hear.

"However this play out, however long this takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there." Abe starts to says softly. " safer than you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us. Save the world for that little one. Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there, who got nothing left to do but survive."

There's a soft silence after Abe's speech's so I had nothing else to do but think. Think of Abraham's speech... of anything but him.

I feel my self relax into the bench and could hear my stomach grumble but ignore it and follow bobs figure with my eyes  as he rushes out the door with out being noticed. By anyone but me.

I don't think anything of it and loll my head back before closing my eyes. He's probably needed to pee. I know I'm not going to sleep but just closing my eyes and acting like I was brought me a sense of normality , oddly enough.

I feel a presence sit besides me and open my eyes. Bringing my head up to look at who it was, it was Carl . Oh, I sit up straighter before I feel my shoulders tense.

He doesn't say anything as he gets comfortable on the seat. He reaches his hand down in the other side of him and I peek my eyes to see it was a plate of food.

"Maggie already got me some. Thanks Carl." I tell him before I feel my head throw itself back and my eyes flutter closed. I hear him let out a sigh of some emotion before I feel his presence leave.

It selfish of me, isn't it? To deny good food from a warm hand. It's wrong, but when the crunching feeing of emptiness travels through my stomach , I can't help but feel as if it's right for me.

The crunching feeling is what's right for me.

I hear the doors of the church rapidly close and shut multiple times but I don't look. I bring my feet up onto the bench in front of me and let them lay on it.