TWDG One Shots

The Night After

It was like a never ending nightmare that Louis just couldn't seem to wake up from. When the twins "died" last year it had all started. Minnie and Sophie were /gone/ and tensions were high. Minnie and Sophie, the two sweetest and most down to earth people at the school. Louis was always close friends with them, and losing them took some joy away.

But his reaction was nothing like Violet's. Violet was practically an entirely different person. She found that she could barely /feel/ a single thing anymore. And for that Louis felt terrible. He had always been the one to be able to cheer the group up.

Even on the worst of days, his uncanny and sometimes humor tended to fix high tensions and stressful days.

But anymore, he couldn't be the person they needed. And the main reason was Marlon. Marlon was Louis' best friend through thick and thin. He was really the only person that even made sense in his life. There was no way to explain it other than Marlon saved him.

With Marlon gone, he suffered grief and anger like never before. He felt himself changing, and his personality slipping and truly he hated it. He wished he could go back to a few weeks ago when the biggest concern or decision he had was to either hunt or fish.

And today? Today things got a million times worse. Mitch has died. His /brother/ and Violet,  Aasim, and Omar had been captured. God knew what had happened to them already. They were probably already being tortured and molded into Lilly's soldiers at her own bidding. The idea of it made him sick in all honesty. He had let them down. He had let Violet down. He never thought they could actually get her..

So where did he go? After helping tie up and restrain abel in the basement, fix the broken fence, and bury Mitch—he ended up here. Yes, in the music room where he often was most vulnerable. Here he could let out all of his emotions and pain. Here was where he could feel most human. Or so he thought.

But that was before he lost everything that mattered. Everything he loved. He was failing and slipping. The cheery, upbeat Louis' was no more. He was gone... he was hurt so bad that he couldn't come out again just yet.

He tried to play. But all that came out was broken chords and frustration. He was pissed that he couldn't even do one of the last things that made him happy. Standing up, he began to rip his music in half. A hard kick of his boot landed into the piano bench which lunges to his precious piano, nicking the aging wood on the legs. "I'm so stupid!" He angrily spoke, looking to the ground where his beautiful music, not all, lay destroyed and tattered. He was beginning to hate the one thing that made him feel happy. He was detesting the one thing that absolutely and unconventionally made him feel alive.

His passion for this had led to his failed preparedness for war. Louis felt that he had let everyone down, the weight of these deaths and disappearances on his shoulders. Louis hunched over the piano, fingers curled in and body shaking in pure pain.

During all this, he hadn't even heard Clementine approaching the door. Louis wasn't exactly being quiet, the kicking of the piano bench alerting her. It was by no means an intentional cry for attention, but rather an outlet for all of his bubbling emotions.

".....Louis?" Clem asked, scratching her eyes as she entered the music room and saw the state of it. It was broken, ripped, and destroyed. And out of all people to do it, it was Louis. Her heart felt like it was breaking. Just seeing him there, shaking and standing over his destroyed work was like a personal stab into her own chest. This man and his music, his blind optimism were so under appreciated. He was the reason these students had their humanity and happiness left. Without Louis, this school would have stopped functioning years ago. Of course he didn't see it, but maintaining humanity and truly living was just as important as being a leader like Marlon,  a strategizer like Clem, or a fighter like Violet. If you weren't making the best of living, then what was the purpose of being alive?