𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 | CARL GRIMES [TWD]

6 | the parting glass

— CHAPTER SIX —
the parting glass
[ 5667 words ]

Rot and death curdle into a grim mist, smelled more than seen, because it is dark. Too dark. A familiar dark, one who swallows and gobbles. Sylvie has spent so long trapped in the memory of this place, fleeing from its fog and blackness, and yet a great relief now settles in her dreaming mind.

Until someone cries.

On the opposite end of the train car, they thump the back of their head against metal. An endless assault. Tight curls slosh across their eyes, a sheet of rain. When they stomp, it is with sneakers whose canvas is torn and shedded.

"Why?" Wes weeps. "Why?"

Sylvie scrambles back. Every cry chokes her, a rope around her neck, unseen but tightening, tightening, tightening. Air is gone, as if it had never existed. Sylvie screws her eyes shut. Inhales nothing. Exhales nothing, lungs and eyes. Wes is stood in front of her.

His face is mangled and bloody, flesh and muscle drooping off. He looks as Gareth did, once she and Rick had finished with him. When he cries out again, she wonders how he manages it — he has no lips, no throat.

His voice drops to a whisper, as it did his last day in this train car, all those weeks ago. "Look at me."

The train car door flies open. Fire screeches and consumes. In the centre of it, Carl stands with his gun up. When she turns back to Wes, nothing is left of him but a pile of viscera splattered across his old converse. Sylvie catches her reflection in his blood. Faceless, a cavity of blood.

She stands on creaky legs and steps towards Carl.

He does not lower his gun. Fire swallows him, but he it untouched. A flame in his own right.

"I'm paying back my debt."

He squeezes the trigger. The bullet rips.

———

"Hey, hey, Sylvie," says a gentle voice.

There's an arm curled around her shoulders, a hand brushing stray curls out of her face. She's too frenzied and exhausted to bat either away, so she reluctantly lets them tend to her as she works up the strength to pry open her eyes. When she does, she sees it's Glenn and Maggie on either side of her with worry in the identical dip of their brows.

"You alright?" calls a stern voice from the front. Abraham's voice.

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Sylvie blinks the world back into brightness. Everyone has turned to face her, each face coloured with varying shades of anxiety. Her cheeks warm in embarrassment; these strangers seeing her weak and trembling, thinking her vulnerable, maybe remembering she is just a kid. Even strict Abraham casts her a look of concern, gaze caught between her and the road ahead of them.