Crestfallen ↬ Carl Grimes (old version)

P R E T E N D

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX; PRETEND

"It terrifies me how skilled you are at turning your emotions on and off. How you can be so kind and loving one moment then cold like ice the next. Whenever you open your mouth, I never know whether it's going to be I love you or It's over."

  "It wouldn't be me taking the blame if she burned down the world we once knew and we all went up in flames with it, for almost everyone could see it in her eyes that she had enough power in her to do such a thing. "

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CARL'S POV

BRIGHT RAYS OF SUN RIPPLED BETWEEN THE MULTIPLE MEMBERS OF OUR GROUP AS WE WALKED THROUGH THE DENSE GREEN FORESTRY, breaking beneath our feet as we pushed through the brambles and leaves covering the sizzling earth. Sweat seemed to pour off of our bodies in waves in the immense and unnatural heat that plagued the land and rooted deep inside of our clothing, forcing jackets that were once useful to be shed and sleeves to be rolled as each and every one of us tried to distract ourselves from the obvious troubles that would be coming ahead if water didn't appear sometime in our near future. For as long as we have been traveling it was extremely hard to tell each season from another, for even though the trees bared partial colors of red and brown, the air seemed to snicker at us with every puff of heat it pushed from the sun and onto our red, exhausted faces. And if it weren't mother nature laughing at us, then it must be father time, who somehow disappeared from our lives as soon as the whole world went to hell and forced our days and nights to blend together into unnatural time spans of walking or waiting for any sort of danger. It was a vicious cycle for all of us.

All of the obstacles I could list off in my head gave our entire group too much of a reason to be on high alert, even if we didn't act like it. Every crackle underneath my booted feet sounded all too similar to the crackle of flames on the exterior of Terminus, and every sigh or heave of breath made me glance at the blonde girl beside me in a large wave of fear, picturing her small frame getting overpowered by hands of the dead, only to instead be caught with her annoyed, yet tired, dark eyes. Of course, I knew fully well that it wasn't mine, or anyone else's, job to worry about her throughout the journey we were taking to Lord knows where, but it didn't stop me from triple thinking every action she did along the way. With every step, she looked closer to falling away and the longer she went beside me the more she looked like one of the corpses from the flaming building we had left behind. The only thing that kept me from forcing her to take a break was the fact that she had actually eaten and slept with whatever time we had to rest last night, giving me enough air to breathe as I thought about her peaceful face tucked against the hollow of her wrist as she slept. But now, wide awake and roaming, it was getting harder and harder not to stress about her health.  With her gut covered jacket tied around her waist and a recently found plain gray shirt that most likely belonged to an older man however long ago hanging loosely off her bony shoulders, she looked more like a skeleton than ever. At least, in this heat, she seemed to have more color than when I had first found her holed up in that dark house with nothing but dust bunnies and shut cabinets surrounding her.  If we wanted to get far, and fast, we needed the entire group to be healthy and fit, ready to fight or defend with whatever we had. That, of course, had to be a good enough reason to blame my worrying on, for no matter how I felt it was obvious I didn't know enough about the girl whose hand I held in my own to call her a friend.

Almost as if she knew exactly what I was thinking about, the girl by my side turns to look at me, pausing for a moment before her face breaks into a small smile, "Are you done staring at me yet, Sheriff?"