Don't Feed Me, I Will Come Back

five

'if I cannot bend heaven,
I will raise hell'

☾

He felt cold fingertips prodding at him, or were they needles? He couldn't tell. Everything was dim and fuzzy around the edges. Was the room dark, or were his eyes closed? He didn't know.

Zeppelin.

Did his mouth move? His tongue felt heavy. Then, a burning sensation, so bright and searing that he thrashed against the heat of it. It burned and burned; his flesh was melting off his bones.

More morphine, a ghost uttered in the wind. Add twenty points.

I need Zeppelin.

Then everything was numb.

☾

Zeppelin spent the next two hours pacing in her box they called a room. At least it had a window, though it was high enough on the wall that she had to stand on her tiptoes to peek out of it. All she could see were treetops, and that made her more nervous.

  When the sky between those branches finally faded from ebony to a deep blue tinged with purple, she decided to leave her room. The hallway was dim—only sparse floodlights lining the wall provided any illumination. A few of the doors she passed were outlined with light from within, and shadows flickered between the cracks, but most were still dark, so it seemed a fair amount of the people on this floor weren't early risers. She noted that, filed it away.

  She didn't bother slinking along the shadows as she usually did; she was certain everyone knew they had arrived anyway, but she had perfected masking her steps long ago, and so she heard only the sound of the lights faintly buzzing and the trail of her fingertips along the damp concrete wall. She wasn't sure where her feet had decided to take her, but her instincts steered her in the right direction more times than not, so she didn't think too much about it.

  She arrived at the emergency exit on the west side of the building, where a dark staircase twisted below and beckoned above. She let the door close softly behind her as she stared at the path leading up. Something inside of her knew that Negan's rooms were up there. She almost took a step forward but stopped. She shook her head, scolding herself, and descended the stairs two at a time until she reached the bottom floor.

The hallway here was brighter, though not much cleaner. She followed some unknown path that, after passing even more doors that didn't seem to be bedrooms, eventually led her to the cafeteria. She didn't pass anyone else on her way in—she noted that, filed it away.

  The moment she stepped foot into the cafeteria, she felt dozens of eyes glued to her skin. The room was just as she had imagined—concrete walls and flooring, long tables scattered throughout with benches on either side and a large serving window connected to the kitchen on the other side.

A few of the seats were occupied by people who seemed less than thrilled to have a new mouth to feed. A few more people ambled to the short line to get their breakfast, and their footsteps echoed as the chatter stilled. Zeppelin kept her head straight and her chin high, ignoring the way whispers followed her as she walked along the furthest wall.

She didn't step into place behind the others; she just passed quickly behind them to eye the food options as she made her way to the exit. Scrambled eggs that had a grayish tint, sliced white bread with slabs of margarine, and jello. Lots of jello. She just put a hand over her mouth to prevent the laugh she felt from escaping when she suddenly slammed into someone rounding the corner.