All That's Left (The Walking Dead FanFiction)

Chapter 26

The sound of his voice is like gasping your first breath of air after you’ve been underwater for too long. It’s like inhaling life in a world that’s full of death. My body feels like it’s weightless. All my worries disappear with every step I take towards him.

“Glenn.” I breathe his name as my arms wrap his neck.

His hands tighten around my torso and I somehow feel like everything is finally how it’s supposed to be.

He gently releases me to greet Daryl.

“The others?” Daryl asks as he drapes his one good arm around Glenn’s back, “Natalie? Rick? Maggie? The kids?”

Glenn shakes his head, his long hair falling in his face. “I haven’t seen Rick or Natalie since we all got separated. And Maggie…” his voice catches and his eyes gloss over.

 He breathes. “Maggie didn’t make it.”

Daryl and I go silent. At the thought of comforting Glenn, my mind goes blank. I don’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say.

He stares at me, and I notice the familiar hopefulness I used to be able to find in his eyes is no longer there.

He just nods.

Her death covers his face like a mask. It coats his skin, leaving nothing of the old Glenn exposed. I hardly recognize him. He’s not the Glenn I knew back at the farm. The life is drained from his body and he speaks with a despondent tone that I’ve never heard come from him before. He stares at me like I’m not really there. His eyes look past me. Like I’m just empty space.

Everything about him is different even though I keep trying to convince myself that he’s the same. He’s off—everything about him is changed. He continues to stare at me like I’m not really there, but it’s more like he’s not really there. The realization that this man standing in front of me is someone I’m meeting for the first time is like a knife that someone is slowly pushing into my chest.

“How long have you been on your own?” Daryl questions, laying a sleeping Sam on the couch.

Glenn takes a step closer to me. “Few hours. I was with another group but somehow we got separated.”

 “Glenn, I’m—“

“Why is there so much blood on your shirt?” Glenn asks, cutting me off.

I look down at my shirt, having forgot that it was coated in human blood. “I don’t know why, but these people tried to kill us,” I explain.

His eyes go wide; his body tenses. “Was it a man and a woman?”

“I think so. It was dark and we didn’t really get a good look—“ I start.

His lip twitches and his fists curl at his sides. “Did you kill her?”

I frantically search his eyes. “She was going to kill us, we had to kill her. Glenn, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why would you do that? Why would you kill her? She was all that I had left!” he seethes.

My brain refuses to process what’s in front of me. My eyes keep trying to see him—the Glenn that I know, the Glenn that I want to see. I can’t make sense of the man standing in front of me. I don’t know who he is.

“Glenn, what the hell you angry for?” Daryl’s voice rings in my ears. “She was gonna kill us—and Sam. What else were we gonna do? How do you know them?”

Glenn paces around the room. He runs his hands through his hair with a vacant stare in his eyes. I just keep watching him, waiting for him to return to who I expect him to be. I keep refusing to accept that he’s the way he is: that he’s crazy; that he doesn’t make any sense.