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WHEN I LAY TO RESTand there was a such place as heaven, would I go? I couldn't stop thinking back to this exact question.
Over the months, it kept digging itself under my skin. Sometimes, It would even keep me up at night. I didn't know why, either. I had never been one to believe in God. I never once found comfort, or relief within him. I saw the truth of this world, from a very young age. There is no god. No divine power that created the universe from its own hands. There is, however, such thing as chaos, destruction, and death. It plagued the Earth long before its existence was wiped.
Still, I found myself sitting against a wooden pew. My back was turned from the colorful reflective stained glass windows, but I still felt the rays glow onto me. It came down, shedding light across my row. Father Gabriel sat along the same pew, turned so that he could face me. I watched the colors dance along his face.
I felt my head lower as he asked why I feared the alternative. He said, "You're a child. You've been to hell — you've lived in it. Why do you fear it?"
The church was silent. I held my breath, and let the rays of light consume my being. I fell into a quiet rhythm of existence. Why did it fear it? That, I did not know. Maybe it was because of the new expansion our world had undergone. Finding that man, Jesus, on the stairs of our home, in the late hours of the night. Meeting Hilltop — making a deal with them. Learning that a man named Negan was out there, and we hadn't rid ourselves of anything that winter, when Carl and I killed a flock of his saviors.
Perhaps, it all really began for me, when some of our group attacked the saviors outpost. They killed them, while they slept. Rick told us he killed a man named Negan, too. We thought it was over, and it was, for a while. Things weren't so simple, however.
Then, I saw Denise die with my own two eyes on those railroad tracks. The saviors came, and guns were pressed to our heads. Threats were made. I remember being scared. For the first time in a long time; scared. I was finally letting myself live, after all this time. I let Carl in. I let myself breathe. I was living, and I was suddenly scared of dying for the first time in this life.
