Who We Are | TWD

.049

"You're fourteen, right?" Rosita asks. I want to nod along immediately, but then the question makes me starts to question it.

"Um . . . actually, I don't know. I think so?"

"How old were you when everything started?"

"Twelve." I remember that fact.

"When's your birthday?"

"January twentieth."

"You might be fifteen by now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. If it was just January a little over a month ago, then I think so." Rosita shakes her head, laughing a little. "Hell, I could be wrong. I can't keep track of time anymore."

"Me neither. It just feels like the same day over and over again."

"One day, we'll know again. Maybe I should've brought a calendar to the apocalypse."

"Maybe," I smile as I finish the last of my broth. For some reason, her little comment reminds me of Dale, somebody I haven't thought of for so long, lost in a moment in time. Rosita never knew him. There were plenty of people she never got to know that were once a part of my group. I'm sure there were many more members in her group that we never got to meet. Keeping that kind of stuff to ourselves is how memories die. That's why I decide to tell her about him. "You know, you reminded me of someone that-"

"Rosita! Rosita!" I look down to see Eugene on the ground, running our way with his hands waving in the air.

"What the hell is he doing?" Rosita mutters. "Eugene, what-"

"Rosita, you need to fire some shots over your post and you need to do it right now!" Fear reigns all over his face, his cheeks red from running. "Rosita, you have to do what-"

"Eugene, I can barely hear you, come up the ladder if you want to talk!" Rosita shouts down annoyed. In her defense, it was quite difficult to make out his words through his panting.

"He said something about firing shots from your post. I don't know what that means," I tell her. "Eugene, who told you this?"

"Tara!" Eugene yells as he struggles to climb the ladder. "Tara . . . and you have to do . . . it's because Spencer -" The cracking of gunshots near the gate splits through the door, alarming me immediately.

"Emmie, go find Tara. Figure out what's going on, now!" As soon as Eugene is at the top of the ladder, I'm climbing down the metal rungs, the contraption almost shaking back and forth until I drop halfway down to the ground, my legs barely catching me before I'm sprinting as quickly as I can towards the gate. I don't see anyone around as I get on the road, pumping my arms to help improve my speed as the thin air pushes into my lungs. As I continue further, more and more gunshots follow, making me have to do everything in my power not to freak out. Those sounds are my alerts that whatever is going on isn't good and I'm walking into danger.

I slow once I get closer to the gate, the wall still in tact, but gunshots echoing over it. I look between the two guard posts, deciding to head to Tara's. The gunfire halts as I see Tara being pulled over the side of the wall by Michonne. I scramble up the ladder, barely reaching the top with how much energy I've spent out of what little I had to begin with.

"What's going on?" I ask Michonne breathlessly. "Eugene came looking for Rosita. I was with her on watch. He said something about Tara and Spencer, but we didn't understand."

"I told him go get her and Maggie to fire over the wall at their posts. Spencer tried to climb over the wall, but he didn't tell anyone." Tara's chest heaves as she speaks. "I had to fire those shots while Rick helped him back over, but I needed the sound to be diverted."