Sweet and Salty ~ Carl Grimes

The Sewers - 084

It was a great discomfort jumping down onto slippery bricks, and the smell? Oh, the smell was toxic! The smell was worse than all of the walkers in the world combined. Brooks put her hands over her nose and mouth while gagging, Cam was fixing the bag onto his back while Merle was hurriedly closing the sewer lid as he heard the strange men approaching. "Can we take our chances with the armed men?" Brooks said, though muffled through her hands which were trying desperately to block out the smell.

"Come on, kiddo, it's a new... Experience." Cam said, clicking on the three torches and sharing them between the group. Brooks groaned, having to remove one of her hands to grab ahold of the torch. The twisting tunnels were circular, black, wet and dripping brick surrounded them. There was an empty ditch between one side of the narrow sewers and the other, where all of the... Water... Would've been running all those years ago, before the fall.

Merle took a deep inhale, and breathed out through his nose. "Man, am I glad I lost my sense 'a' smell." He grinned, before the trio started walking in a direction that seemed right.

Brooks scoffed. "Yea, well, long term cocaine abuse finally came in handy, huh?"

Merle chuckled. "Looks like you were wrong about somethin', hey, Bambi?"

"You know when it did come in handy before?" Cam grinned, coming adjust to the smell. "When we found those guys living in the prison before us, and Rick accidentally opened their toilet."

Brooks grinned a little as Merle chuckled. Of course the only one of those men she ever met was Oscar, and he died while trying to save her, but she'd heard the stories of the other four men. "Our Rick nearly threw up on the spot." Merle laughed, nodding. 

"I can imagine." Brooks responded, taking her other hand away from her face and accepting the fact her sense of smell may just burn away in the tunnel.

/----------\

They'd been walking in what was essentially hell for near enough twenty minutes when they came up to a little... Issue, to say the least. There was a hole of sorts in the middle of a... Crossroads... In the sewers? Brooks couldn't think of the name down there, thin on oxygen and absolutely zero fresh air or daylight. It was dark, and the hole absorbed the light from their torches in a way that they couldn't see how deep it was, it could've been perhaps a hundred feet deep for all they knew.

"What're we gonna do?" Merle asked.

Cam sighed, running his fingers along his jaw as he contemplated. "We'll just have to jump." He said, talking about the six feet gap.

Brooks scoffed. "I'm 5'3 on a good day, and you think I'm capable of jumpin' over there and not dyin'? Someone woke up an optimist." 

"Bambi, it's the only way, you'll have to do it." Merle stated, backing up a few feet. He ran towards the hole, and leaped. Merle jumped through the air, but with his long legs, he made it across. He sighed in relief (mainly that he didn't slip on the wet flooring) and held onto the wall to stabilise himself as he turned to his daughter and best friend. "Chuck me the bag." Merle said, holding out his arms and Cam did as instructed.

Cam then looked to Brooks and offered her a reassuring smile. "You got this, kiddo. It's just a little jump, yea? You've survived a lot worse than that."

Licking her bottom lip and nodding, Brooks took a deep breath. "Yea, you're right. You're totally right. Little jump, just a little jump." She assured herself, backing up a few feet herself. "You're Brooks motherfuckin' Dixon, you can do this." She whispered to herself, taking a deep breath and hyping herself up. 

So, she began running, she ran towards the edge and jumped into the air. Brooks didn't allow herself to scream as she flew through the air with force... But, not enough. She wasn't tall enough, there wasn't enough power behind her jump. She was falling. She wouldn't make it. Merle and Cam were screaming her name, her lips spread to scream as she went down, and down, and- she hit the ground.