𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐚'𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐱. carl grimes

SIX: the queen of rock paper scissors

I wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside the window across the hall. I've been at the prison for about a week now and I'm finally starting to get used to life around here. It seems like forever ago since I was moving from place to place with my sister.

I've finally met most of the people in the prison too. I learned that a huge group of people at the prison arrived right before I did. It's nice to know me and Claire aren't the only newbies. The people here are really nice overall and some of the adults even introduced me to some of their kids that are about my age. So I hang out with sometimes now after I work.

I also hang out with Carl every meal time and any free time we get after our jobs. We normally just look over his enormous collection of comic books in his cell but today we decided to go explore the rest of the prison. I've gotten pretty close to the boy recently, I mean he can be an asshole sometimes but when he isn't we have a lot of fun.

I get up out of bed and quietly open the drawers in my cell in hopes of not waking up my sister. I decide to step out of comfort zone for today's outfit choice with a light pink v-neck and a pair of my favorite black leggings. I close the curtains of my cell that Carol finally put up and got dressed.

I step out of my cell and walk downstairs to go get some breakfast. When I walk into the room I look around and notice Carl, who normally eats breakfast at this time isn't here. I grab a granola bar and walk over to Rick to ask where Carl is.

"Hey Rick do you know where Carl is?"

He turns around and looks at me before speaking. "Uh yeah, I let him sleep in a bit today." he paused a bit before continuing, "Hey do you think you could do me a favor and wake him up?"

Wake him up? Something about that idea made me nervous in a strange way. I shouldn't be nervous to wake up a kid my age especially because I've had to do a lot scarier things but for some reason it makes my stomach twist.

Trying to ignore my irrational feelings I just nod and walk up the stairs. I slowly approach Carl's cell and peer in, he's sleeping on the bottom bunk and snoring slightly. Trying not to wake him up I slowly walk in and look around. I've never really gotten a good view of what Carl's cell looks like until now since we only hang out in the common areas. His cell looks about the same as mine besides the posters of weird comic book heroes all over the walls and huge stacks of comic books.

Alright stop wasting time and wake the damn kid up.

I walk over the Carl and look at him sleeping, he looks strangely peaceful. I almost don't want to have to wake him up from his dreamland and bring him back to this hellhole of a world but I shake it off. I put my hand on his shoulder, shake him a bit, and whisper, "Carl?", but he doesn't wake up. I shake him a little harder, "Carl! Wake up!" I say a little louder this time.

I keep shaking until he jolts up and looks around the room. When he finally realizes that I was the one to wake him up he pulls the blanket up over his chest even though he's wearing a shirt. "What the hell are you doing in here?" he gasps, still half asleep.

"Well Sleeping Beauty, your dad told me to wake you up" I say laughing a bit at how pathetic he looks.

I start to walk away and let him get dressed when he yells after me, "Hey! What's so funny?"

I pause and laugh again before answering, "You still have that hat on".

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