Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"STAY ON THE FUCKING BUS!" were Benny's last words to his sister.
Now, he doesn't know if he's walking toward her or towards a walking corpse.
Bob and Sasha follow behind him and Maggie; both separated siblings have a deep stirring in their chest when they round the corner of the road and see the bus parked. A quiet chill passes by the four living before Maggie takes the first steps forward.
The sound of their hurried footsteps on the eroded gravel alert the dead inside. Friends and neighbors of Benjamin pop through the open window and lunge at him. His eyes dart past them to see if Talia is among them.
"Wait," Sasha stops Benny and Maggie from unlocking the fire exit and revealing their maybe dead sisters. "We take this slow, there's too many of them for you two to handle on your own."
Bob and Sasha stay at the rear end of the bus, allowing for one walker out at a time, meanwhile Benny and Maggie stay a few steps back, eerily anticipating to see Glenn or Talia approach them with their snarling breaths of death.
Soon the walkers push against one another and Bob and Saha lose their grip and the horde of over a dozen corpses swarm them. Benny pays no mind to the male walkers, but when every woman attacks him, he has to grab her by the hair and check closely.
Roberta, Maya, Sabrina, Iris, Cara, but no Talia.
He feels some relief that he hasn't found her dead, but the overall devastation of not having his last living family member with him, and the curiosity of where she could be, consumed him all night.
"You think they somehow found each other?" Maggie mumbles so as to not alert every creature of the woods.
"I don't know," Benny shakes his head up at the stars. "Maybe. I hope so."
"If Glenn's with her, he will do everything to keep her safe."
"I know," A heave of vapour expels out of his breath into the visual world. Then he turns to his side, to face Maggie who can't seem to wield her mind asleep like him. "And she'll keep him safe, too."
Sasha, on the other side of the optimism spectrum, doesn't believe either Glenn or Talia survived past the destruction of the prison. They have no leads to confirm their status of living. So walking and sleeping in circles of the perimeter of the bus isn't cutting it for the last surviving member of the disbanded prison council.
Shelter. Water. Food. In that order, Sasha has repeated since they had ran away from the prison and the gunfire was barely out of earshot. She had Bob convinced, but Ben and Maggie had other priorities: Talia. Glenn. Beth. Jo.
And Sasha wasn't subtle in voicing her very much right survival strategies. It drove Ben farther to the edge with every disgruntled look when he and Maggie suggested a different path to look for their loved ones.
