like real people do | c.g [#wattys2019]

P A C T

THE ONLY THING I hear is sobs. Carol's sobs, Beth's sobs, Carl's quiet sobs, and my own. Beth rushes forward to one of the corpses, crying out for her dead mother. Except the walker isn't really dead, it starts pulling at her hair trying to claw at her and bite her. Everyone rushes to pull her away as she screams for help, Andrea hitting it in the head with a shovel. Hershel looks even more pained by how they handled it. Maggie grabs her sister and walks away, with Jimmy and Hershel in tow.

But, even after this Shane can't stop his ranting. He follows them, and I try to wipe my tears to see how Carl's doing but, before I can, I'm enveloped in a hug. I don't mask my shock as he hugs me tight, crying into my shoulder. He's probably taking this a lot harder than I am, having known her for longer. I hug him back just as tight, still having fresh tears on my face. He buries his face in my shoulder as I hold onto the back of his shirt. Andrea walks towards Sophia with a blanket, covering her body with shaky hands. When he finally lets go of me, his tears are starting to dry and so are mine.

Lori makes us sit to calm down, tears marking her face as well, and I'm surprised when Carl starts talking so calmly. "I thought we'd find her."

"We all did." She rubs his back, trying to comfort him.

"No, I thought I'd find her. I thought I'd be the one. Maybe, she was hiding in a cave or a tree, she'd be safe and... I'd find her and bring her back. He did the right thing, shooting her like that. I would've done it, too." Lori looks shocked, but I get where he's coming from. I thought I'd find her, bring her back to the farm intact, like nothing ever happened. But life isn't like that anymore, if it ever was. It's cold, cruel, and heartless. It'll take everyone and everything you love and you can't do anything about it. You just have to sit back and watch as the world crashes and burns around you.

"Dale, could you take them to the house? I want you two to rest, okay." I nod, while Carl mumbles an agreement. We start walking towards the house and while we're walking Rick passes us, putting the hat on Carl's head, making him smile.

"You dropped this." He says.

We reach it, sitting down on the couches, waiting. He doesn't say anything so I do, laying my head on his shoulder. "I thought I'd find her too, you know. I thought that maybe we'd walk around the woods and I'd spot her, looking from behind something- a tree, maybe a bush- and she'd be unsure if it was really us. I'd talk to her and I'd hug her and we'd come back to the farm, and everything would be fine. It was a stupid thing to think that it could happen, but it gave me hope. It helped." He doesn't say anything, he doesn't even look at me. He just grabs my hand and nods.

✖✖✖✖

Half an hour of silence later we are told to go outside. They're burying her, along with Hershel's wife, Annette, and his stepson, Shawn. Carol doesn't come to the burial, for reasons I don't know. Probably was too much for her to handle.

Hershel says some words, a few people getting teary-eyed, either for her or for their family, and then they leave. Just like that. Everyone seems to turn off a switch and not say anything, me included.

Before all of this I mourned by crying for days on end. I wouldn't eat much and I would just wallow in self pity for a week or two, before slowly going back to normal. That's what I did when my grandparents died. Even when my mom died, I still did it. But then, the hallway suicides started to happen in the CDC. A colleague's death was waiting to greet you on every corner and it didn't hurt anymore. Once you saw them, maybe smelled it if they'd been there for long enough, you called some over to help and disposed of the bodies. You maybe thought 'Damn, they were a nice person.', felt bad they couldn't take it, but that was it.

It didn't hurt, especially for me, since I didn't know more than half of the people that worked there. Some of the ones I knew left, some opted out. I didn't mourn them, not really. Not like I used to.

The numbness comes back, but it's less strong. Maybe it's because I didn't know her for very long, but it's still there.

She was a child, she was my age, and she's gone. This world doesn't spare anyone, not even the ones with a shorter life lived. We will all die someday, but I'd rather for it to happen when I'm old and grey, not at twelve years old. There were so many things I wanted to do, people I wanted to meet. I realize I'm thinking like I'm already dying. Maybe I am. With the world like this, we all have a death sentence waiting for us. Our death to be the one to greet someone someday, and their death after that. Maybe I'm already dead.

Sophia is.

Sophia was a friend, but she was weak. If she trained with guns, knifes, she would have been able to protect herself. But she didn't, and she was weak. It's a bad thought, but in the end her not being able to protect herself is the thing that got her killed. If she had just waited another minute before getting out from under that car...

I walk away with Carl and I start talking. "Carl, if you think this is stupid then just tell me, don't get angry, just forget I said anything, okay?" He nods, frowning. "Promise me we'll get stronger. If I ever end up in the woods like Sophia did, I wanna be able to survive. I wanna get better with a gun, I want to teach you how to throw knives, so we can survive. I don't want to be just a child anymore. I want to be able to fight and, even more, I want to be able to win. I wanna survive and I want you to survive with me, so promise me that we'll get stronger." He looks at me for a while before speaking.

"That's not stupid at all. I want to be able to survive, too. I wanna get stronger. Let's make a pact. Let's promise to never be weak, ever again." I smile and nod.

"I promise."

"I promise." We hug and keep walking as if nothing happened.

✖✖✖✖

hi!

so... they have a pact, how 'bout that? do you think it's stupid? well, either way too bad, because i'm writing this before i even post the first chapter and i like it, so...

thank you for reading, please don't forget to vote if you enjoyed and comment if you have something to say about the chapter.

goodbye,
-angryfeminist