wildest dreams ━ rick grimes × male!oc

chapter nineteen:

Update: I'm alive. I'm jobless. I have no health care. The rent has not been paid. I will be dearly departing myself, pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete to remove myself from existence if this does not get better 🤸‍♀️

ALSO???? NOT WATTPAD SENDING ME A DM?? COMPLAINING ABOUT ME NOT UPDATING??? 😭 M'AM, EXCUSE ME, this is a wendy's 😭

Anyways, onto the chapter 🧎‍♀️i had fun writing this one 🍃

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Chapter Nineteen: "and it's all you've ever wanted, and it's all that you want still."

Morning arrives, painting the quarry in orange and golden lights. Rick, crouched beside the lake and hidden by tall grass, turns his police issued walkie on. There's a small static-like noise and then the light on the side flashes weakly, the green colour barely visible.

"Morgan," he says quietly, holding his thumb down on the comm. "I don't know if you're out there. I don't know if you can hear me."

Rick slides his tongue along his bottom lip. "Maybe you're listening right now." He takes his thumb off the comm. Nothing. There's just more static. Rick sighs, turning the walkie back on. "I found others...," he pauses, using the brim of his stenson to shield his eyes from the morning sunlight, "my omega and my pup, if you can believe it."

He waits for a hopeful beat, listening to the sound of cicadas, the lake gently rippling and the soft chirping of birds somewhere close. "There's somethin' else you need to know," Rick says, voice low. "Atlanta isn't what we thought. It's not what they promised; it belongs to the dead now."

Sighing, Rick presses his forehead into the side of his walkie. It feels cool against his damp skin. "Don't enter the city," he says, "I'm camped just a few miles northwest, up by a big abandoned rock quarry. You can see it on a map."

Tiredly, he murmurs. "I'll be headin' towards the CDC today. Watch yourself and take care of your pup. I'll try to reach you again tomorrow at dawn."

Turning off the walkie, Rick rises from his crouched position and stands, grimacing when pain shoots up the left side of his abdomen. He attaches his walkie back to his belt and cradles his side. With a deep scowl, Rick walks back up the trail to the campsite.

It's not long before he's greeted with the sight of it. The tents have been packed away, along with the folded chairs and tables. No more is there a school-like corner for the kids, or a line of wires to dry washed clothes. Instead, the campsite lays bare, the cars parked on the side, near the dust ridden road.

Carol raises a baseball bat and swings it down to crush her dead husband's skull. Blood splatters across the omega's pale face and Rick's head swivels to the side in the opposite direction to stare at her. He fights back the urge to smile.

It's a shame, truly, that the walker's got to Ed before Rick did - he would have loved to rip that useless human apart. Would have thrived in sinking his claws into pale skin and painting it red, red, red. He holds back a growl, but his hands tremble beside his thighs. Rick would have basked in the slaughter, simply for the fact that he had tried to-

Carol strikes the bat down once more unto Ed's cracked skull. There's a dull 'thud' like sound as chunks of his brain scatter along the grass. Breathing heavily, Carol drops the bloody bat to the ground and gently takes her daughter's hand.

Sophia, who Rick expected to look fearful, looks... normal. She glances at Rick and her brown eyes are dark pools of ink, void of any emotion. It's like Rick is looking in the mirror, seeing nothing but the haunting emptiness behind his own cruel eyes.