Reflections - TWD

101. They're all dead.

"How many more of you are there?" Michonne demanded the new girl who sat in the cellar. She was tied to a chair, probably the same age as Isabella and completely terrified. She was covered in dirt, some of it wiped off from her tears.

"They're all dead," the girl sobbed. Isabella knew that feeling. "My family's dead. Please just stop."

Isabella looked at Daryl, who just stared at the girl. She felt sorry for her. She was petrified, you couldn't fake it, not like that.

"Not until you start answering our questions," Michonne snapped.

"Your name. Start with your name," Tara added.

The girl took a deep breath and looked at Tara. "I told you, I don't have one. None of us do. None of us did. That's not how it worked."

"How did it work?" Michonne demanded again. The girl just looked down, crying.

"Why do you wear their skins?" Daryl asked. Isabella learned that whichever group this girl came from, they wore walkers faces over their own, like masks. Disgusting, but kind of smart. Apparently it worked like the blankets they used to cover in walker guts. "Answer!"

"Daryl!" Isabella whisper-shouted, seeing the girl flinch the same way she used to.

The girl shook were head, her voice cracking. "They were...they were good people. We were good. It's what we did to live. That's- that's all we wanted to do. Live."

Henry watched from the other cell. He had gotten thrown back in after Tara found out about him getting out, even after he saved Isabella's life.

"Oh, you're saying you had to do this?" Tara asked, sort of rhetorically. Maybe the girl did have to do the bad things she did, from what Isabella had heard, she was with a group that tried to attack them. The same ones that killed Jesus.

The girl looked up at Tara. "You wouldn't understand."

"Then make us understand," Michonne raised her voice. "What the hell were you doing?"

"We- we were just trying to see if they were good people, too," the girl whispered, still crying. "But then you attacked us, and now they're dead. They're all dead," she started to cry even more. "And I don't have anything."

Isabella couldn't take it anymore. She needed to leave, the way the girl cried, the way she begged, the way nobody understood. It just reminded her of John. All of it.

Her head was spinning so fast. Once she reached the top of the stairs, Freddie and Gage were just sat there, glaring at her. She couldn't understand what she did wrong. She killed a walker. A walker.

Maybe Freddie's having a hard time, that's what Isabella kept telling herself. But then another part of her was asking, but what makes it okay to hurt someone else? It's not. But Isabella had hurt so many people when she was struggling. Maggie, Abraham, Freddie, Carl, Rick. Hell, she'd even hurt Daryl.

She fiddled with the necklace around her neck, hoping that by some magic, Abraham would come back and tell Freddie and Gage to "mind their own damn business" or something like that. He would've made her laugh.

Isabella wanted to run, but she physically couldn't, she'd just get even more hurt. Then, she saw one of the people she'd missed the most.

"Rosita!" Isabella yelled, holding her arms out for a hug.

"Oh, my god," Rosita laughed, walking towards the girl and squeezing her tightly.

Isabella sucked in a sharp breath of air. "Not too tight."

Rosita looked at her with concern. "What happened this time?"

The this time almost made Isabella laugh. "Nothing. Nothing. How have you been?"