Infection ; carl grimes

18 [daisies]

˗ˏˋ 🧟 'ˎ˗

     "YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS."

     The phrase was etched onto the back of Vivian's mind. Her and Carl had found it carved into the walls of the church while they were taking a small walk together to get adjusted to the area. Vivian had a million questions but none of them seemed appropriate to ask when everybody was having such a great time.

     Some of the adults found food on a run and Gabriel had brought out the communion wine which the adults had no trouble breaking into. Every candle in sight was lit and for once, spirits were high— for everybody except for Vivian.

     She seemed to be the only one concerned about what she found on the side of the church. Rick saw it too, but he didn't seem nearly as worried as Vivian. Nobody seemed anywhere near as worried as her. For most of them, they had nothing to be worried about.

     "I'd like to propose a toast!" Abraham announced to the room, which caused the chatter to simmer down. He held a glass of wine in his hand, which was clearly not his first. "I look around this room... and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title." He lifted his wine glass as he finished off the speech. "to the survivors."

     Almost everybody repeated his last words, lifting their glasses in the air before letting the red liquid slide down their throats. "Is that all you want to be?" Everybody looked up at him, unsure of where he was going. "Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?"

     "Cause you can do that. I mean, you got the strength. You got the skill. Thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender.  Now we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again and that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip."

     It was hard to remember a time when the dead didn't rule the Earth, before everybody had to live in fear and constantly look over their shoulders. Before everybody had to accept the fact that in this world it is kill or be killed. Before a twelve year old Vivian was forced to kill her first walker. Before a thirteen year old Vivian was forced to kill her first living person— that living person being her older brother. Before right and wrong wasn't about life or death but instead what bubbles on a quiz you were forced to fill in. It seemed so small compared to what they had to worry about now, it's hard to imagine humans could ever take back the Earth after what the dead have done to corrupt their souls beyond repair.

     Death was the new normal. Loss and tragedy, something a twelve year old Vivian was forced into the day her father had gathered her and all of her siblings into his trailer while he tried to go investigate what was happening and why their neighbors couldn't stop screaming. Vivian almost wished she could go back in time and warn her younger self about what would happen in the future. Tell her all about how she would lose her entire family within two years. How her and her older sister which she was once so close with now didn't speak a word to each other.

     "Eugene, what's in DC?"

     "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart." Vivian listened intently whenever he spoke, trying her hardest to find holes in his story to squash down any spark of hope that was left inside of her. She knew the world could never return to its original state. She knew that Eugene was so full of shit and nobody else but Vivian could see it. He had everybody hoping for a future where they could live in peace but the only truth was that there is no universe where that future could possibly exist under their dire circumstances. There was no coming back from this, and he was a complete asshole for making everybody believe that there was.