We Can Survive (Carl Grimes Fanfiction)

Chapter 23- Colored Pencils

     I woke up to Trinity shaking me as I screamed. I silenced my own scream and glanced around, terrified at my surroundings. I realized I was in my cell, Trinity bending down to wake me up. My eyes continued to dart around as I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. I was freezing, but still felt sweat rolling down my back.

     "It's alright. You're awake now," Trinity soothed as she sat next to me on my bed. She tried to put her arm around me but I slipped away from her grasp and laid back down against my pillow. I realized my pillow was sweaty and flipped it over before resting my head against it.

     As I surveyed the room, trying to ease my paranoia, Trinity just sat on my bed, head drooping as she struggled against the powers of sleep.

     "You can go back to sleep. I'm okay now," I told her, pulling the blanket even tighter around myself.

     "Are you positive?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in concern.

     "Yeah. Just go back to sleep," I insisted, waving her off.

     "But you have to be like really, really sure. I'll feel bad if you get scared or whatever," Trinity informed me.  Since when was she so motherly?

     "I'm fine. Just get some rest so you're not all crabby and mean," I smiled weakly at her. She rolled her eyes, smiling as well, and sluggishly climbed the ladder back up to her bed. I was reminded of when I slipped and fell. Why was I always the one to get hurt? Clumsy people were not meant to survive the end of normal life. Really, though, this life seemed normal now. "Normal life" referred to farming, hunting, or scavenging for food, not buying it at the grocery store. Killing walkers, not time. Losing your life, not your phone.  

      I laid back on my pillows and glanced around the room, paranoid about everything and anything I saw or heard.

     I stayed up for hours, willing sleep to come even if it meant more nightmares. I must've adjusted my pillows at least fifty times. Unfortunately, I hadn't even begun to drift off by the time morning came. I stayed in bed until I heard a few people up and moving around, probably making breakfast. I got up out of my warm bed and into the air. It was like opening a freezer. I shivered as I put the blanket up over the doorway to get changed. I wore jeans and an old, torn sweater. I tugged the blanket down and put on socks which had once been fluffy, but  were now matted and worn.

     I padded out to the kitchen, where Tyreese and Sasha were goofing off and making some kind of oatmeal or grits. Something was different about the kitchen, but I could't figure it out, until it occurred to me that it didn't used to have a fridge.

     I walked over to the fridge and opened it, timidly putting my hand inside it. It was actually cold! How had that happened? 

     Tyreese noticed me examining the fridge and explained,"While Daryl was gone, he went to Woodbury. That's the town that had electricity. He got us some solar panels and put 'em up on the roof along with a bunch of huge batteries to hold the surplus energy. We've got electricity now!" He grinned and Sasha turned on the light above the gas stove, smiling at me when she did so.

     "Cool," I smiled, trying to get excited about it. Tyreese nodded and kept stirring the mysterious meal.

     I felt like I was intruding on their sibling bonding time, so I left and went back to my cell. I didn't want to go outside. Not alone, anyway. I passed by all of the cells, including the one that held Sloan, who was locked in and sleeping. I felt a bit panicked when I saw her, but kept walking and took deep breaths to keep calm.

     How was it that I hadn't met a girl my age since before everything and now there were suddenly two in the same building as me? Three if you counted Beth, who was only three years older than I was. Carl basically had pick of the litter. I hoped we could be happy together again and I wouldn't have to watch him move on to one of the other girls. That would be upsetting, to say the least.