Hello, sorry i'm so late but it really couldn't be helped. Homework's a bitch. Happy spring break. This chapter sucks but when are my chapters ever good
SOTC: bitches broken hearts — Billie Eilish
• you can pretend you don't care •
Carl slept in a tree on the first night. It was difficult to climb at first. He had to kick off his boots and step in the freezing mud left from the day's rains. One awkward shimmy later and he was drained, clamoring like a vertical drunkard, pulling himself into a bough he judged could hold his weight. He didn't even feel it, but the skin of his palm split on the bark. Fine with him. It gave him an excuse to shed the stupid fucking sweatshirt to stop the blood.
And so he sat there, in the dark, shirtless. His hand throbbed. There was no sound, other than the wind smattering through branches, and his breathing. He was still short of breath. It was so quiet out here.
A small laugh escaped him. The reality of it all was beginning to sink in. The air tasted like perfume. And the sky, it opened around him like massive crystal globe. It reminded him of the nights he spent with the group. Before Alexandria. Before even Terminus. He had never felt safer.
He didn't have time to think much more beyond that. He dozed off like this, slumped in a tree, hair sweaty and thin around his head, arms folded over his bare chest.
And for the first time in the past years, he was completely surrounded by peace. The forest spread like a massive ocean around him. Nobody near him. Not a walker, not a human. He was truly isolated. Unreachable. It was surreal.
He woke up once the sunlight warmed over his skin, turning him gold. Carl opened his eyes, and at first thought he was still dreaming. It felt like he was in a fantasy. Some character study. The green of the foliage was so vibrant, like a life had come and possessed it. Pearly white flowers crowned branches and sprinkled across the ground like little jewels. He was in Eden.
Carl sat up, startled by the magnificence of his surroundings. After so long in a raincloud, the sun felt... wonderful. He was filled with such a giddy feeling, but was subdued by the elegance of the treetops, the fragrance of the air.
He looked through the net of branches between him and the sky. The trees spilled over the horizon like the lip of a soup bowl. It was late morning, he could feel it. Carl had slept past the prisoners' wake up call, now it was the dregs of the work before lunchtime: a silent tabletop commune.
A thought entered his mind. Where was he? An untouched sector of the woods, nature's throne room. But where was Alexandria from here? Had he even run in the right direction, or was he further into the Virginia wilderness? How was he going to eat? No walkers, so he could only die of starvation. He was going to die in paradise, with the golden light spilling over his rotting corpse. He'd seen birds around, maybe they would eat his remains. Maybe he would wander, make a ravine his graveyard.
Carl screamed between his teeth. Why the fuck was he this way? Paranoid. Why couldn't he just let the peace live inside him. Hell, he felt the urge to just jump off this branch right now. Not high enough to kill him, but maybe high enough to incapacitate him as a walker, preserve Eden for someone after him— Fuck!
He needed to get out of this tree.
He began to maneuver into position, throwing down the sweatshirt before him, stretching out his palm and gauging its level of injury. But then he brought his hand down but not his head, and he just kept looking at that exact place where his hand was. A slice of the blue sky, tinted by—was it?—a column of gray. Thick smoke.
For a moment, his mind tilted. Paused on the high wire. Click.
The next movements he made happened without much thinking. Carl jumped down. Carl put on his boots, forgetting the sweatshirt. Carl ran. Again.
Then paused. Why was he always running? What was he running towards, this time? Maybe running was a way for him to take action. Maybe it stood for how much he wanted things back. Wanted people back. He started running again. It took him a moment to realize he was running towards the Sanctuary, after a night of running away.
He knew the answer. He could feel it as his lungs screamed, his muscles screamed. He was louder than a fire alarm.
Devils were rising inside of him, filling up the spaces between his ribs and broadening his chest and telling him to breathe, to pull up these past months and breathe them out. Like they were air. Like they were bad dreams. It was ten in the morning and he could barely count. Just run, and not think, and breathe.
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A/N: something really horrible happened and it's so new that i can't really explain it right now but once i sort it out in my own head then maybe i'll talk about it but right now i'm not ready to and i hope that's okay with you guys
long story short i need happy song requests, pls help a girl in need xx
ps: call me by your name has become my new favorite movie. the pure love and emotion captured in those two hours? i've watched it twice but i'm thinking of watching it a third time tonight. fucking masterpiece
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sometime before summer
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Word Count: 1007
Created 3-5-18
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DEVILS ♛ C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗
Fanfiction[ c o m p l e t e d ] "She looked like a goddess. The kind that sends cities to their knees in fear. The kind that is never in picture books. The kind that twists people." - - - - - April is a devil. A demon. And above all, she is a...
