In The Bird Song | TWD

chapter 52 - Parallel lines

Carls pov

I look back at myself in the mirror. bruising crescents sag beneath my eyes, buckling under the weight of sleepless nights. Yellowed bulbs above carve out my face, casting shadows below elongated bone. My eyes do nothing to conceal the pressure that travels behind the pupil wrapping back around to my beating temples. My head scraped raw form the never ceasing ache.

I am not alone, for once, in this dishevelled state of apathy. The entire house has been dragged to this level, my level, held down by the reeds below the sea. We have all been holding our breath since the first night after funeral. Holding our breath and hoping this will all pass over, forgotten like an icy breeze in the bowls of summer. But it hasn't, it won't, and we are running out of air.

Yet nobody talks about it. Not about the nights in which the baby cries and Harlow slips away. The nights where someone will find her lost in her own head, desperately trying to reach the crying child that she believes to be her own. At first Rick tried to keep her away, leaving Michonne to try and coax her back to bed.

But he soon learnt better, the message having been plastered on Michonne's face with a blackened eye and busted lip. And so, they let her see the baby, watched with bated breath as she held it in her arms, talked it to sleep, protected it from us with her body. Nights like these occur twice or sometimes three times a week. during them it is almost always Michonne who will watch over Harlow, who will make sure she dosent hurt herself or the baby, and who will tuck her back into bed once she is finally reassured enough to sleep.

Sometimes the little girl will join her, with teary eyes she will watch the last of her family fall apart. Broken down and at the mercy of strangers. Sometimes I wonder where she might have come from, sometimes I think I might ask. I haven't though, not yet.

Rick has, at some point, learnt to stay away from it all. Or perhaps he simply decided he would. Either way things got better once he left. Or if not better, then easier. Harlow was always more protective with him in the room, she would fight harder to keep us away from the baby and herself. Without him she is much more at ease, almost indifferent towards us as long as we kept our distance. I try not to think about what this means.

As for myself I to have chosen to stay away these nights. Only briefly getting up to make sure Michonne has things under control before going back to bed and trying to sleep. Trying.

On the nights the baby doesn't cry I can see the visible relief in the house's occupants come morning. They all move lighter, smile brighter, all under the influence of that silent, cruel, hope that maybe, just maybe, there won't be another episode. That the storm has passed.

So I don't tell them about the other nights. The ones that don't make noise. The ones where there is no wailing to wake the house. The ones where I find Harlow, broken and dead, haunting the empty corners and unchecked rooms of the house. Some nights I find her frantic, almost manic. Other nights I find her confused, out of reach. lost. Always lost. She has been for so long now. lost or dead or both.

Each night, under the guise of rest, paws come pattering into my room, claws against wood, nails in my side, a wet nose to my ear. Each night the dog arrives, each night I am already awake. And for some reason, I always follow, despite knowing what I am going to find. Despite knowing how it will make me weak, how it will hurt, how it will kill me just a little more each time. Suicide. But I go willingly, because every time I do, I get to look and find no hate in her eyes.

It's not every night, but it is most nights. Often, I find her cradled in chaos. Cushions overturned, drawers ripped open, seats pushed to the side, fridge wide open, books scattered across the floor, cupboard doors gaping and empty, their contents peppering the countertops and tables. Yet despite the carnage the night is always silent. No cries for help, no clash of metal on wood, no shatter of ceramic or glass. She moves silently, like I have seen her move on hunts. Every object is gently placed. Haphazard yes, but intentional.