𝙵𝙻𝙴𝚂𝙷 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙱𝙾𝙽𝙴 | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 𐂃

- Troy -

Troy stared out over the gates, his profile painted by the setting sun. He notices a few of the men who stayed behind patrolling the empty acres of land their AR-15 assault rifle hanging around his upper torso like soldiers from some war. With his dexterous hands and fingers, Troy stripped his weapon and began to clean it. The craft and care that went into the creation of guns never ceased to amaze him. He couldn't envision a life without it, not when it came to this mad world. After setting some cleaned pieces aside, Troy worked from the breech end and ran a cleaning rod down the insides. It was a sequence of constant motions, ensuring he got his piece cleaned.

Trying to remember the last time he was this exhilarated, focused, and truly alive, Troy thought back to his ingenuous plan of hiding between a pile of corpses to hide from an incoming horde. It was a surrealistic and mind numbing experience and something he often thought of. Playing possum; their lives minuscule among the trekking dead. Outnumbered, overpowered and in over his head and the world didn't belong to the living in that moment, but to the dead. To nature that rectified and destroyed without bias like it was nothing and even time itself lost it's meaning back then. Troy remembered how his heart pounded, heard his ears pound from the agitated noises of the dead and their stench.

He'd almost admit that he felt the single sinuous ambience of the dead. Troy had never experienced such bizarre beauty in his life. It was the first time he was in the thick of such a hopeless situation, but he remembered smiling. He was giddy by the beast that moved on its own led by nothing but feral drive. Goosebumps ran over his arms at the hair raising memory that settled in the deepest fiber of his being. Yet even with his life and that of his team just hanging on a thread, Troy didn't fear death. He was simply fascinated with how life and death evolved into its current state. How that cycled changed and became intermittent. It was more excitement for Troy than whatnot -not fear- and he'd accept his fate. In the face of tasting and touching death, quite literally, the nerves in Troy's body electrified. His senses sharpened like a knife and deep in the crevices of his mind and welcomed this war they were going to wage. A war that wasn't with the dead, but the living. He was ready, like so many. Troy didn't care about his life at this point, just that they'd win and got rid of Walker and the Nation for good. It was what he was trained and taught to do. Big Otto ingrained it into him to never to retreat or surrender. Take down the assholes who do you wrong and ignore the bleeding hearts with talk of stolen land and all that. This was his and his family's home and he'd defend it even if it had to be ruined. The enemy would have to put a bullet in his brain, burn his body and exterminate his bloodline if they were hell bent on taking this place.

Troy thought of his brother and hoped Jake was safe. In spite of everything, their issues and complications Troy wanted his brother back in one piece. He hoped somewhere that his sibling would finally understand why they did what they did. Jake was always soft and too good for this world. He tried, but he didn't really know what the Ranch was about. Troy resented Jake when he left him behind for college. The end of the world opened a new chapter and a bit closer, at least when they were starting to build this place and people came to the Ranch for safety and protection. Troy becoming responsible for those two things and leader of the militia gave him a new purpose. A new calling in this world that he could finally breathe as a person his family didn't look at him like he was a lost cause.

"Troy come in, over." Shaken from his thoughts, Troy quickly grabbed the walkie-talkie from the table and thumbs the talk button. The sound just crackles when resounding.

"Cristine?" Frowning, Troy was surprised to hear the woman call in. Usually it was either Jake, Blake or James that came with a status report. Wetting his lips, Troy unconsciously straightened his body and asked, "everything alright back there?"