I need you here with me // Carl Grimes [EDITING]

Seventeen - The Fall.

Carl's POV
A scream so loud and earth shattering left her mouth as she fell, it felt I'd tracked her for miles only to find her and witness her death in a matter of seconds. I didn't want her to die, she was all that was left of the person I'd used to be, I couldn't let her go but the second her small body hit the unforgiving ground and the walkers surrounded her I felt that memory of who I once was being torn away from me.

"No!" I yelled out and pulled my gun from its holster.

Aimlessly, I began to fire into the crowd of walkers desperate to save her from certain death. I knew in the back of my mind that there would be nothing that I was able to do, Lydia either would've died when she hit the ground or died when a walker tore into her, it was an impossible situation but I wasn't willing to give up on her so easily.

"Lyds! Lydia!" I screamed, "I'm here!"

I shot walker after walker until my clothes were covered in a deep black blood, but none of that mattered, all that mattered was saving my best friend. And thankfully once I'd killed all of the dead she was lay on the ground seemingly untouched and somehow alive.

"Carl?" She mumbled before her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted in my arms

"Jesus Christ." I mumbled, "I gotta get you out here."

"I gotta get out of here..." Martinez spoke as he quickly climbed down from the tree, "I've been gone too long, I want to help with your girl - I like her you know? But the Governor, if he finds out I was helping her, then I'm dead-"

"Do you have a car?"

"Yeah that's where I was taking her to-"

"Take us to it, I gotta get her back to the prison so she can see a doctor."

"Why should I?"

"You're going to take us to your car and drive us back to the prison." I told him, "And if you don't, the Governor will find out you were helping her and my dad will kill you and your people. You made the right choice in helping her before, make the right choice again."

"You're an asshole you know that kid? I would've helped Lydia anyway."

It was only as I carried an unconscious Lydia in my arms and I followed Martinez through the woods that I felt blood begin to soak through the sleeve of my shirt. And in that moment I immediately knew without even having to look that she'd cut her head in the fall.

"Her heads bleeding!"

"Shit dude! What do we-"

"Give me your bandana, now!"

Without hesitation Martinez handed the red bandana over and I gently pressed it over the gash on the back of her head but it became almost soaked through with blood in a matter of seconds.

"Come on! She's bleeding out, where's your damn car?"

"It's just through this clearing, come on!"

Hastily we ran to the car and the older man threw the door of the backseat open before I even had chance and ushered the both of us inside. For a long while Martinez drove as fast as the car would go whilst I tried not to cry and held her in my arms, and I watched as she grew paler and paler stepping closer to the brink of death.

I found the road that lead towards the prison, I ran up trying to avoid the walkers at the fences.

I desperately stared through the gate trying to catch sight of anyone who could help us, but it seemed no one was on gate duty and the only person in sight was little Ashley.

"Ash, you gotta get the gates open!" I called out to her, "Please Lyds needs our help, I think- I think she's dying."

"Maggie!" Ashley yelled at the top of her small lungs, and just like that Maggie came rushing down the steps of the guard tower with Glenn right behind her.

The walkers were getting closer and the longer I stood there with my back pressed to the fence the more I feared I was going to lose her, in a world like ours time was everything and we were beginning to run out.

"Get the damn gates open!"

A few short moments passed by before Glenn and Maggie forced the gates open and pushed Ash behind them, leaving me all the room I needed to get Lydia through the gate and to safety. I couldn't lose her, I would hate myself if it wasn't for her.

Finally, I collapsed to the ground with her still in my arms soaked in her blood as her body began to shake in my arms. Of course she was having a seizure! She was losing too much blood and I didn't know what to do, all I could do was watch it pass and hope she made it through alive. I'd seen this happen to her a hundred times before but never once had it been like that. Never once had it been while she was at the brink of death.

"What happened to her? What's happening to her?"

"She was chased by a horde, she climbed a tree to get away but fell and hit her head... I saw it happen and got her out."

"Then why is she seizing like that?" Maggie yelled practically inconsolable

"She's had seizures since we were kids, just not like this before! I don't know what I'm supposed to do!"

"What the hell is all this commotion about?" Merle hissed as he stepped outside of the prison doors

"She's dying, please... Help us."

The man raised his arm against the sun and almost immediately his eyes fell upon Lydia seizing and bleeding out on the ground. She was the image of death, agony, we all knew it the second we laid eyes upon her. She was never going to make it.

"Like hell is my niece gonna die!" Faster than anyone could have thought possible Merle hurdled the steps and scooped Lydia up into his arms before he ran back towards the prison steps.

"Where the hell are you going?" Glenn called after him but the man only stopped for a brief moment

"To save my girl's life."