stone cold |twd|

chapter 18

"Worse."

"The hell happened to you? Your neck?" T-Dog questioned, staring at the side of Shane's head,

Shane moved towards the table and everyone got a look at the three red scratches on his neck, "I must have done it in my sleep."

"Never seen you do that before." Rick stated,

"Me neither. Not like me at all." Shane commented, and Marcie noticed him staring at Lori, tension filling the room,

A hand reached over her shoulder and Marcie looked up to see Daryl grabbing some bacon from her plate.

"Morning." Jenner acknowledged the group as he entered the room,

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." Dale began,

"But you will anyway." Jenner joked as he poured himself some coffee,

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea stated,

And with that, everyone followed Jenner towards the room with all of the computers that he showed them the day before.

Marcie took Liam from Vivian as she got herself a cup of coffee and sat him in one of the office chairs, spinning him slightly and he giggled,

"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner ordered and the large screen at the front of the room turned on,

"Playback of TS-19."

"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner stated as scans of a brain appeared on the screen,

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked,

"An extraordinary one." Jenner confirmed, "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."

"Enhanced internal view."

The scan shifted and they were able to see a flicker of small light within the brain and it continued to zoom in, "What are those lights?" Shane asked,

"It's a person's life... experiences, memories. It's everything." Jenner explained, "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you... the thing that makes you unique. And human."

"They're beautiful." Marcie whispered, everyone mesmerised by the flickering lights.

Made her kind of want to study medicine in college rather than communications. This seemed so much more fascinating.

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked,

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death." Jenner described in detail,

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick questioned,

"Yes." Jenner answered, "Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" Andrea asked, walking closer to the screen,

"Test Subject 19." He responded, "Someone who was bitten and infected... And volunteered to have us record the process."

Marcie bit her lip, gripping the chair that Liam sat on. She was going to see what happened to Lexi, a detailed process of death and rebirth.

"Vi, scan forward to the first event." Jenner ordered,

"Scanning to first event."

The playback zoomed out and the group watched as a dark matter invaded the brain. It looked unnatural... deadly.