❝𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝❞
―
In a world taken over by walkers, ten-year-old Elodie fights to survive each day. But she's not just any survivor-she's a girl who happens to be hard of hearing. Her older brother Jamie isn't exactly supportive. In fact, he...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
〰
The RV slowly rolled to a stop, making Elodie look up from where she was sitting and head over to Dale and Glenn.
"Are we there?" she asked them, leaning forward and looking past Glenn out of the window. They had stopped in front of a really big building. It stood tall against the now dark blue sky, the inside of it hidden by the reflective windows. It was a really modern building, and Elodie thought it looked pretty cool.
What made her grimace though, was that everywhere she looked, there were bodies—rotting corpses of walkers strewn across the ground, their decaying flesh crawling with flies.
"Yes, we are," Dale confirmed, offering Elodie a reassuring pat on the back before exiting the driver's side of the RV.
Following Glenn outside, Elodie hesitated upon reaching the last step, gripping the door handle tightly. Her eyes darted from one lifeless body to another, and she wrinkled her nose at the foul smell assaulting her senses. She wanted to turn right back around and hide inside the RV and let the adults go inside, but she knew she couldn't.
Maybe they should turn around and leave. If dead bodies were littering the area—and have been for a while, judging by the amount of flies swarming around the bodies—that probably meant that there was no one left at the CDC. There were no guards posted at the front either, so no one was protecting the building.
Lori silently took Elodie's hand, nodding to indicate that she should come along. Elodie complied, hopping off the final step and clutching onto Lori's hand. Wanting to avoid the sight of the bodies, she focused her gaze on her feet as they walked, noticing a loose thread dangling from her jeans that she still hadn't cut off.
Rick and Shane led the way, their guns at the ready. Some of the group members began to cough, and Elodie struggled to suppress her own urge to cough. She tightly pressed her lips together, inhaling small amounts of air to minimize the smell.
Shane urged everyone to keep moving, prompting them to pick up the pace. Elodie couldn't stifle a gag when she nearly stumbled over a body, causing her to gasp and accidentally inhale a lungful of foul air. Lori positioned herself in front of Carl and Elodie, shielding her mouth with her arm.
As they neared the entrance, Elodie couldn't help but steal a glance, only to let out a small whimper at the sight of even more dead bodies strewn across the ground. It felt like an endless sea of death.
"We're almost there. It's okay," Lori reassured both Elodie and Carl.
Arriving at the doors, they discovered them securely closed by shutters. Rick and Shane began knocking and rattling the doors, but they remained sealed shut. Frustration etched onto Shane's face as he pounded on the door, teeth gritted in determination.
