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Mia didn't know what to do with herself. She felt stuck. Like her brain and body were working against each other. She wanted to help. To get supplies and go searching for the food bank, but she was denied. In the eyes of the adults, she was exactly what she appeared to be. A kid. A fifteen(?) year old girl. But Mia no longer felt like a kid. She didn't think like a kid. She thought like a person who needed to survive and that meant doing the unthinkable. She wasn't a kid. So she didn't understand why she was being treated like one.
She remembers the first time she went to church with her family. The twins were eight years old. Paris was five. They were too young to understand the word of God that was being preached to them, but Mia observed many of the crying people around her. The ones that got on their knees to pray. The ones who raised their arms to the sky. Who sang along to the hymns.
But the Madeline Jones died and Riley Jones couldn't seem to step into another church afterwards. So his children stopped going. The subject of God and religion was something Mia never understood. But she thought if he saw everything she'd been through, everything she had to do to keep herself alive and what she tried to do to not survive, would he really accept her? Was she the ideal girl to be presented into Heaven? Or was she too far gone?
Rick took Gabriel along with the others so he could guide them to the food bank. Maggie, Glenn, and Tara went scavenging. Daryl and Carol went to gather water. Abraham was still busy trying to get the bus to work. It left Carl and Mia to do nothing but walking around the church. He was outside in the sunlight. She was inside in the dark.
The longer she sat in the pews, the stronger the memories of her family got, and the deeper her sadness became. She stared down at her scared wrists. Fading lines that were reminders of how much she thought her life wasn't worth it. How much she thought continuing to live in a destroyed world wasn't worth it. She thought it was her only way out. She tried to kill herself and now she was in a church sitting in front of God.
There's four coffins lined up in perfect rows in front of her. Open caskets. Her father, mother, brother, and sister. Their skin pale and statue like. Their eyes closed, makeup on their faces to conceal their imperfections. Lined up like four little beautiful dolls still in their packaging.
Mia found it hard to breathe. Her chest started to close. Her hands clawed at her throat, desperate for air. But she didn't move. Her body was locked in place, brown eyes wide and tear filled, as if someone was holding her head to keep her from looking away. She stared into the eyes of her twin brother, his irises red, and his insides torn out. Blood stains on his clothes. The side of his neck ripped out and blood gushing. Paris's body was no longer in the casket – only what remained of her. Her mother was gone. Her coffin disappeared. Then there was only her father, whose right side of his face was no longer there, the skin torn and slashed. His stomach and legs ripped apart.
