⤐ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝.
"I need you to listen to me. When we're out there together, if I say run, run. If I tell you to leave me, then damn it, you le...
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She knew she was screaming, but there was no sound. Or there was, but she couldn't hear it, and the sound only echoed into the inky black void.
The stench of the dead filled every sense, the rot clinging to her skin and festering in her mouth and eyes.
Blackness enveloped her, and with it, pain. It started in her chest, a solid and cold weight, its icy fingers unfurling down her arms and legs. Harder and harder it pressed until she had some strange sense that her bones were breaking. But she couldn't feel it, couldn't hear it.
Only blackness. Then she woke up.
⤐
Come morning, storm clouds hung low on the horizon—heavy, black, pendulous. Zeppelin watched the shadows creep closer through the one tiny window provided in Maggie's trailer, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill spreading over her bones. They were all unbroken, though she had been certain they were crushed under the weight of her dreams.
When she and Daryl arrived at Hilltop the night before, it was well past the witching hour. After ensuring the guards posted on the wall were loyal to Maggie, not Gregory, Rosita was waiting just inside the gate for them.
She did not bombard them with questions as some might, but only noted the tiredness under their eyes and put her arm around Zepp as they walked to the trailer in silence.
Maggie's newest home, a trailer far too small for the grief and anger it contained, was much more crowded these days. Enid shared the pocket-sized bedroom with her, and the siblings had decided to stay—Tatum nestled on the couch while Tommy slept on the floor beside it. Even Rosita had laid a stack of blankets on the floor for herself as she went back and forth between Alexandria.
Though Zeppelin felt Sasha's absence deeply, and now the worm of guilt burrowed further into her gut as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass window. She knew Daryl was right, that going after her would only throw the plans they'd made with Dwight off course.
But would she let that stop her if Daryl had still been in there? She knew the answer.
It didn't seem fair that Sasha didn't have someone willing to set the world to flame for her. Abraham would've been that person. Zeppelin sniffed and rubbed her arm again.
"Shit," she hissed. She'd not been rubbing but scratching at her arm, didn't realize the pain until it was too late. Not until she nicked the wound with a nail. She watched the thin trail of blood trickle down to her wrist before wiping it away.
The other two antibiotics the doctor had given her still weighed heavily in her pocket. She'd insisted on giving them to Daryl after their accident, but he refused. His voice had been clipped and cold— annoyed that she still hadn't taken them herself.
