America in catastrophe

Chapter 15

War.

War?

That's the shit ya read about in books, like the one I found in the library. That's the shit kids talk about when that stupid boy from the grade above you plays a prank in front of the whole school.

War isn't something that you hear about in this world. There aren't enough people left in this world to fight it.

I have been staring at the grass for hours, swaying with each small gust of wind.

"Yer joking?!" My voice comes out cracked and wispy.

Daryl is digging a hole into the gravel. "Nah. Man ain't right. We give up michonne, walk away,  and he'll let us go."

Taz rolls through the grass, chuffing when the soft glades tickle his nose.

No.

No this ain't real.

I push past Daryl towards the prison, "No this is bullshit! we can't trade lives. We've dealt with his men before, we'll do it again!"

Daryl follows me up the driveway in silence.

"Where are we supposed to go?! We leave here and we're gonna run into someone bigger, someone badder! Over a fucking person!"

"Some don't agree," Daryl shoots back.

Michonne scoffs from the doorway, a plate of food in her hands. "Glad I'm not the only one finding this hard to swallow."

I give her a nod. "How hard is it to treat others like human beings?! Yer a badass! We need you." I tell her fiercely. She is everything I've never been, needed, and strong.

Michonne's answering smile doesn't meet her eyes. 

I try to match the look with no avail before heading inside to the kitchen.

Daryl snags two plates of mystery food off the counter dodging Carol with efficiency and we head towards his bed at the top of the stairs.

I sit beside him, my legs stretched out.

Daryl tucks into the railing. Scooping up a forkful of food and watching it splatter onto the plate again.

I stuff my mouth to keep from yelling as I process. People of my group, of my family are actually willing to sacrifice a person just to save their own asses.

I spit out a mouthful of buttery sludge, my appetite gone.

Daryl chuckles and puts his plate down. "Didn't find Nothin' out there?"

The rancher is seared into my brain.

"Nothin' walkers scared off the good game." I shake my head.

Down below Judith wails, and Beth goes running.

I pull my knees up. "There has to be another way, this isn't fair."

Daryl pulls me back into his side. "Nothin's fair no more. It's kill or be killed out there."

I watch Beth bounce the little bag of skin and bones off her hip, a bright smile hidden under a pile of blonde hair.

I push away from Daryl, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Where ya goin?"

"Away from this," I wave my hands around the prison.

Carl catches me before I make it back down the yard.

"Hey? Are you okay?" He asks, hands stuffed into his pockets with his shoulders up over his ears to keep away the nip in the air.

I shoot him a glance. "Not right now Carl," I grumble.

Carl slows. Glancing back towards the prison where Daryl has taken up residence in an upper window. Watching something beyond the fence.

Carl turns back to me. "Did he do something?"

I'm thrown off. "What? No... Drop it Carl."

I head across the yard and up the gate tower, kicking Glenn out to go eat lunch.

I sit with my head on my arms watching the road beyond the fence; one knee bouncing. Rick will call a meeting soon. He'll decide if Michonne is worth war. He'll decide if one life is worth our growing numbers; worth our small slice of crumbling peace. He'll ask for everyone's opinion even though he's made up his mind.

He's made bad calls before. This will just be one more.

The sky grows darker and darker, my small shadow above the fence grows longer and longer.

I glance back towards the prison, lights flicker in some windows. A few indistinguishable figures move along outside, discussing; deciding. Or maybe I'm the one still deciding. Maybe everyone else has made up their minds and I've been left out... unsurprising.

My eyes begin to dip closed again and again as hours pass.

Dinner comes and goes, candles one by one flicker out and when no one comes to take watch I climb down.

Someone will be mad but right now I don't care, my stomach rumbles and my head droops as a staggering yawn escapes me.

Halfway across the yard taz bounds down from the tower through the grass, tongue rolling and tail wagging.

I sit down, resting my head against his. My head feels heavy.

"I wish I could be you sometimes," I whisper into his fur.

Taz rolls over, wiggling his belly at me.

I lay in the grass below him, rubbing my fingers through his thick undercoat. A few matts getting snagged on my broken finger nails.

The remnants of a fading red nail polish Beth found still peeling off a few of my fingers.

A stray tear rolls down my face with another blinding yawn. "Go find Daryl?" I mutter rubbing my eyes. I shouldn't have laid down.

Taz curls in a little closer, radiating warmth.

"Go- go get-" my eyes pull closed of their own accord and darkness pulls in moments later.

"Merle took michonne! Merle took michonne!"

My head snaps up from the grass.

Around me the dark is still consuming.

The prison is nothing more than a dark shadow on the horizon, watch towers claw their way from the cold earth around me.

"Merle took michonne! Merle took michonne!"

Taz is across the yard, howling and barking along the fence line.

Merle took michonne? Where? Why?

I pull my knees under me, rolling the echoing words around in my skull.

Merle. Took michonne?

Merle took michonne.

War.

The governor.

Merle took michonne!

That idiot!

I fly up the yard, shouldering the cell block door open hard enough that anyone who wasn't already awake, is now.

Daryl is on the upper floor, staring into Merle's open cell.

My feet are moving, up the stairs three at a time. I'm shouldering Rick and Carl, Glenn and Maggie out of my way.

Daryl is pulling the bedding off the bed, ripping the precarious cubby open. Searching for Nothing. Merle didn't have any stuff.

"E's gone."

Absolute moron!

I don't bother taking the stairs, I swing over the railing, landing on my toes I'm moving across the yard. Daryls heavy steps crunch behind me as I flip my bow over my shoulder. Fingertips pulsing against the hard curve of my bow.

Merle you stupid asshole, when I get ahold of you I'm going to kill you.