Corruption {Carl Grimes Fan-Fiction}

Overdose

     My mouth dropped not knowing what had happened to Carl. What that thud was, who had done it. I was so worried, so flustered. The only one that had me feeling safe was hurt, and I had not the slightest of ideas on what to do to help keep him safe now. So many things were flaring at miles per millisecond through my head and all of my anger and confusion was accumulating in my soul. I felt my palms get sweaty and my grip on my knife tighten. My cheeks swelling and the air getting denser around me. I wanted to get him to sanctuary; I had to see what was going on. I had to see, I had to do something. I charged at the apparition with my blade

“You mother fu–”

Bang.

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“Ughh…agh, shit.”
     What… what the hell happened… goddamnit my head hurts…fuck.

     The last thing I remembered was hearing another loud, aggressive popping noise, a sharp pain in between my eyes, and a somber shadowiness surrounding my entire vision. I felt dizzy, unaware… weak. All I saw, everywhere I looked I saw everything in the triples. Like what someone with bad eyesight would see once their glasses fell off. Everything turned bright and that’s when I knew I wasn’t in my cell anymore. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, either. The more conscience I was getting, the more pain rushed to my body. I looked down to the tile flooring – someplace I wasn’t familiar with – and noticed a pattern of falling drops of blood I then realized was coming from my nose. I was cold; shivering, even. My clothes had been completely removed. The jumpsuits, Carl’s hoodie were all gone. All I was left with was an oversized T-shirt and some shorts. What the fuck happened?

     My voice shook while I tried to holler for help. When I thought I was screaming, I was just mumbling and coughing… and this was very frustrating.

“H…help…help, pl…please.” Just using my voice was beyond painful. Shock waves of what felt like needles pinching every nerve in my body would engage. Affecting my head, nose, arms and legs, my back.

     In a reaction to wipe my nose, my hands wouldn’t move. Like they were restrained; stuck… and when I turn to look over my shoulder, I discovered my wrists chained between a thick metallic water pipe with handcuffs.

     What the actual hell is going on? One second I’m having an intimate moment with Carl Grimes, next thing I know I’m fucking chained and held captive in some dirty ass cafeteria I never even knew existed. It was a wide and open area with all the tables pushed against the door. Who would pull such a terrible joke… maybe this isn’t even a game, I mean… why like this? You know, pranks were pulled back then with some silly string and some whipped cream, but in the apocalypse? Huh, maybe this was it. I shook my hands trying to free myself from the chains although I knew it was no help.

“Come on, damned thing…” I whispered to myself in an aggravated tone.
And the more I tried to free myself, the more sound metal against metal made.

I heard someone cough and inhale as if their throats were closing up on them. A very sickening and scary sound it was, and through the haziness of my sight, I saw a little blackness move effortlessly at the other side of this vast room… from what I saw and heard, it seemed a whole lot like a walker, and this was when I began to panic…

     Holy shit… holy, what was happening… where was I, what happened to Carl...? My head started to hurt with my hyperventilating breathing and rushed efforts to release myself from the silver chains around my wrists. I wanted to cry from my pain and worry but my distress was making it impossible for me. I pushed through the hoarseness of my voice.

“Okay! You got me! This isn’t fucking funny anymore, just let me go!” The echoes of my voice traced each other almost taunting me at the fact that nobody but myself responded. “FUCKING ANSWER ME!” I screamed while tugging harder on the restraints.

…

My echoes now were my only companion… I didn’t know what to do…
Then I heard the cough and wheeze again… this time louder.
And I knew that if it were a walker, it would’ve growling more at me because of the noise… Remember the racket attracts them, so it couldn’t have been it. I knew this was a person in the room with me…

“Hey…” I said nervously. “Hey, are you alright…?”
     This wheezing sounded stronger and this persons having a tough time trying to swallow… they appeared to have gone through something torturous and violent… way worse than the way I had it.
     They took in a deep breath.
“…Rose.” He coughed viciously again and groaned.
     And that was the first time I’d ever heard an ailing Carl calling my name and it made me feel sick to my stomach that something detrimental, something so ruinous happened to him. Bad wasn’t even the word to describe his condition.

“Carl…? Carl oh my gosh, are you okay?” He couldn’t even respond, he just continued breathing huskily. “Listen, listen to me, we’re going to get out of this, alright? I’m gonna find a way out of here. We’re going to be just fine, just stay with me, now…”

     The chains were wrapped so tightly around my wrists that every time I pulled and heaved, I felt like my bones were slowly being ripped out of my sockets and my skin was tearing itself apart. But I kept trying to be free. I stretched my leg behind me and tried to push myself out of the cuffs. But nothing. The strain I put in my head from the strength and force I took made everything turn black for nothing but a moment and back to normal again. Like that feeling you get when you stand up too quick? Yeah, only five times worse. I didn’t think it was conventional for anyone to feel the way I was feeling… I felt like I was dying on the inside. Like my innards were concaving on themselves. My blood was steaming, boiling hot, worse than any fever I’ve ever had… everything in my body felt so, so sensitive. I could feel the blood in my veins racing each other in supersonic speeds. I could taste it running from my nose to my lips. I could feel the air caress and kiss my skin. And I feel… nauseous. So fucking nauseous. The light was blinding and agonizing, I just wanted to drop and give up. But I won’t. My body began to tremble and breathing heavily was the only way the pain subsided for some time. I glanced over at Carl again who hadn’t moved still and started to breathe lighter now… it worried me… he sounded like he was fading from me. And I was fading from him.

“Ha-hang in there, Carl...” No response… “…please… don’t go.” Hopeless.
     I began to whimper and cry, although it hurt to. I looked at him once more.
“Plea–”

     My heart nearly stopped. I couldn’t talk anymore. Gagged. Someone gagged me just now. Somebody had a dirty, indigo colored rag and gagged my mouth. I moved my head frantically and screamed so that they wouldn’t be able to finish tying the knot around my head, but they only pulled tighter against my force, and it hurt to deter. I tried to speak through the gag but it wouldn’t work and struggled yet again to free myself from the cuffs.
     The buckle of the person’s belt rang every time they took a step to stand in front of me.

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” They giggled sinisterly. That fucking voice had me fuming. I didn’t want to believe who I was hearing, so I closed my eyes and looked away. I felt him crouch in front of me to have eye to eye contact with me. Boy, did he reek the smell of 20 packs of cigarettes a day and urns of cheap, old whiskey. My breathing and trembling got worse.

“Woah, hey. Are you that excited to see me, sweetheart?” He said calmly. “Come on, look at me.”
     I resisted his command.
.
.
.
“LOOK AT ME!!!”
     Him screaming approximately two inches away from my face of course made me jolt up and I opened my eyes. My voice shook in fear. And there he was.


Axel.


     Those same muggy and grim blue eyes I saw the first time I’d ever encountered such an ugly soul. Expect only this time, he only had one open, and the other one patched up. All blurry and hazy now through my sight. This terror accumulating inside me made it hard for me to focus. My eyes kept rolling back and blinking eerily and he slapped me lightly two times on my face to wake me up.

“Alright come on, now what did I say? First day we met; you remember?”

     I only continued to catch my breath. I didn’t answer him. I looked at him with furrowed brows and only saw the devil on Earth when I peered his direction.

“Hm.” He inhaled and looked off to his right. “’Guess I have to do everythin’ around here…”
     I swallowed hard.
“‘Ain’t your daddy ever taught you? Rules of manners and characteristics number one: Always listen to what the other person has to say.’ Dun’nit ring any bells, princess?” He eased closer to my face. “Ain’t you payin’ attention? I reckon you should.”
“Fuck you.” I spat through the rag.
“Oh, you will.” He smirked slyly while my eyes opened widely. “Well that seemed to catch your attention. I know you must be eager, but just wait a little longer, we’ll get to that later.”

     What. A. Fucking. Pig. I knew what this meant, and this only made me feel resentful. I didn’t know what to do, what to think, what to feel… I was weak, locked in shackles, in pain… I looked over at Carl to see if he was getting any better.

“Here.” He pulled down the gag from my mouth and picked up a dirty looking water bottle. “Drink up.” He poured the water in my mouth for me.

     I didn’t swallow it; instead, I held everything inside my cheeks and spit it all out in a mist at his face. Who knows what could’ve been in that. He shielded himself with his arm, and he looked back at me. I wiped my mouth with my shoulder and flashed him the deadliest stare I could pull off. He chuckled.

“I’m gonna ask you again, and this time, you’d better watch your actions.”
“I’d rather you kill me before you have me drink that shit.”
“Hah, ain’t that right?...” He stared at me for a few seconds and that made me feel weird…

     Next thing I knew I could no longer balance the weight of my head on my neck. That asshole punched me. And with everything I was feeling on top of it, this made it all unbearable. I felt thick globs of blood hang and fall from my lips and the line of my consciousness running thin. He quickly grabbed my cheeks and forced the bottle into my mouth and poured the taint water in. It wasn’t until I started coughing insanely when I noticed what he did and that I allowed the poison into my system. I tried to make myself puke but when I tried, I remembered my hands were chained. I continued to choke.

“There you go. That last dose should put you right to bed.”
“Wh-What are you talking abou–”
“Ahh, I might’ve crushed a shitload of ibuprofens and put it in that drink Carl gave you earlier.”
     No way… I glanced over at Carl again.
“The glass, the glass of foggy…water–”
“–You were supposed to be knocked out for longer. Hell, you weren’t supposed to be knocked out yet, but of course, you had to charge at me with that knife of yours. Gave ya a good whack right in between your eyes with that there rifle.” He cocked his head the rifle that was propped nicely beside an idle Carl. “You left me no choice, princess. But what you just drank right now should be enough to put you out. Close enough to kill ya, but it won’t.”

     This pain was intolerable for me to handle.

“400 milligrams each. Ten pills. Not too bad, ain’t it?”
     That was considered overdosing… this could kill me…

“And I had to think of a way to discipline you after what you did to my eye. Don’t you know I covered for you when everyone asked what had happened? Said I… ‘Reached for a –”
     I merely joined him and spoke in unison. He stopped speaking in the middle of his sentence when he realized he didn’t have to explain anymore.

“‘…book on the highest shelf…’”
“‘…book on the highest shelf in the library and the corner of a hardcover book hit you’…I know.”
“So you’ve heard.”
     I peeped at Carl once more. He was no longer in that spot anymore…
“Why do you keep looking over at that punk? He’s just as good as dead.”
     I saw Carl in the corner of my eye flashing a finger over his mouth at me. I bought him some time.
“You know? You’re right, Axel. You’re absolutely right.” He looked confused, but I knew he wanted to hear more of what I had to say. “Carl… he’s nothing. I’ve come to realize that now.”

“What made you change your mind, baby girl?”
“He’s… weak, he’s stupid. He was never able to do anything to make me happy.” I kept a steady stare at Axel so that he wouldn’t turn around to see a limping, yet sauntering Carl. “The first day you and I met, Axel, you brought me pain, adrenaline. And after a few days of thinking, I started to realize that I liked that pain... But I didn’t know how to express myself. So I got scared…”
     He seemed to be buying into my story and nodding in short motions.
“I was too scared to admit it, too scared to show it. But not anymore. I know that with you, I’ll always have every ounce of pain I could ever desire, and I’ll never get tired of it. Isn’t that what you want, doesn’t that sound nice...?” I swallowed really hard to keep up with my lie. “…my prince.”
     Axel automatically laughed under his breath. He pulled the gag back up to my mouth to shut me up.
“That has got to be the biggest bullshit I’d ever heard in–my–life.” My heart and hope dropped to the floor. He was about to stand up and discover Carl trying to look for a weapon around the empty cafeteria. I shook my head frantically
“No, no. It’s true, I could prove it. I-I swear to god I could prove it, Axel. Honest.”
     He smirked at me and pulled out a knife from his back pocket. It looked a lot like mines. He held the point to my neck, and I had to hold in every drop of fear I accumulated.
“How does this feel?” He poked the blade deep enough to puncture me.

     Dear God I wanted to scream and cry from my dismay. All the anticipation made me so unbearably dizzy and sleepy. The adrenaline made me not feel the pain I was feeling just a few minutes before, it was like a drug. Like morphine.I had to keep this up. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t whimper. I just had to take it to prove myself. To own up to my lie. He slowly passed the blade across my neck and I felt the warmth of my blood covering my cold skin to drip and seep into my clothing.

     Axel began to giggle but it didn’t last that long.

*WHACK*

     Axel groaned in pain and dropped the knife.
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER.”
     Carl hit him with the butt of the rifle all his might on the side of his temple. Sloppily, but surely. But as soon as he did, he also groaned in pain and dropped the weapon to hold his bleeding stomach. I quickly wondered what might’ve caused that laceration. I took a look at my knife that Axel dropped and tried my hardest to kick it to Carl. I screamed through the gag

“CARL, THE KNIFE.”

     Both Axel and Carl raced for the knife in the center of the room. They fought and tussled, and Carl put up a good fight despite his injury. He tried to aim for Axel’s good eye and gauge it out with his fingers. He tired, but it wasn’t enough to blind him. I’m sure that only irritated him more. He ended up with the knife in the end, but Axel punched him sending him straight to the pavement. I wanted to help so fucking badly, but all I could do was sit back and watch.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!" Axel drew out a pistol on Carl that was already lifeless and struggling for air on the floor. His mouth was pooling with blood. He looked like he was about to slip away. Like the fates were one second from sniping the string to Carl’s life.

     I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle seeing Carl so defenseless like this. I’d do anything to make sure he’s safe. To keep him alive. Even if it’d cost me mine. I wouldn’t care. As long as Carl was safe.

“Axel, Axel, Axel, please don’t –” His head whiplashed straight to me
“YOU SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH!”
“Axel, PLEASE don’t do this. Nobody has to die. Please. I’m begging you.” His eyes squinted to me.
“But Rose. My dear, sweet Rosaline. Why, don’t you like pain?”
     My brain went blank.
“If I shoot him, that’d be enough to prove to me that you fancy pain as much as you said you did.”

     Shit…
“Just leave him alone… please. Do anything you want to me, just don’t hurt him. It doesn’t have to be like this Axel. Haven’t you done enough to him? Just look at him.”
He began to lower his gun.
“Carl had nothing to do with anything, it was all me. Take it out on me. Just…just get it over with.”

     Axel stood there staring at me for a few seconds before he took another pair of handcuffs in a box in the corner of the room and chained Carl’s hands the same way he chained mines. He looked down at a limp Carl and said

“That one’s a keeper. Too bad she ain’t gonna be around too long for ya.”

     He walks over to me and kicks my stomach to catch me off guard, and that’s when he started to beat me senselessly. His intentions were to punch me so hard that my cheeks would swell to the point where it was impossible to open my eyes. One by one, his punches started to hurt less and less. Like my face was numbing. I was crying, weeping in hopeless pain. At first it felt like someone pouring rubbing alcohol on an open wound, but only for a moment. And then it felt like someone hitting you with a sock with a stick of butter inside. Pow, pow, pow, again and again, and he wouldn’t stop. I could taste so much blood collecting in my mouth. I could feel it dripping from the corners of my lips. I couldn’t swallow, neither. I could hear Axel asking me repeatedly

“How do you like that, huh? How do you like the pain?”
And then said
"It's only worse if you try to fight it. Trust me."

     I guess I had no idea what I set myself up for. He wouldn’t let me take a fucking breath before I got punched again. When I expected another hit, he stood up to unchain me from the pole and then chained only my wrists again.

“Pull anything, and I will kill you. Understand that, princess?”
     I didn’t answer him. I looked at a silently crying Carl that held his head lower than his spine. He took the last bit of his energy to shake his body to free himself in frustration. I knew what he was thinking. That he couldn’t help. That he fucked up. That that promise he made when we first met couldn’t be kept…

“‘…I’m here for you. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.’”

     But I understood. I knew he shouldn’t burden himself for this. It wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could’ve done.

“It’s alright, Carl.” I pushed through my shaky, perplexing words “It’ll be alrig–”
“– Oh, shut the fuck up.” Axel stood me up and started taking me to this metallic roller shutter and opened it up. I didn’t want to walk in. In was a dark, 5x5 square footed concrete room.

“Go on.” I could barely stand on my feet, but I suspected what was next for me. I’d rather have all of my limbs chopped off with a chainsaw than be raped. And the fact that Carl was right in the other room to hear it all makes it worse.

     Axel pushed me inside hard enough to make me fall to the ground, making me scrape my face across the floor. I didn’t have my hands to break my fall, but the gag around my mouth made it not as bad as it normally would’ve been.

One of my biggest fears was becoming a reality. I never thought it’d end like this… being locked in a room with this asshole… But as long as it was for Carl, as long as he was fine. I’m already feeling sleepy so I know those are the ibuprofen pills kicking in. Maybe I’ll see hallucinations, maybe I won’t remember anything. Maybe the pills will kill me so I could turn and bite his dick off. Yeah, that’d be the way. Hah, I make myself laugh.

     Hah…hahaha, I… I feel so… light. Like a feather. Like I could fly. So giggly and jumpy. Careless. So carefree. Is… is this what it feels like to be on drugs? Am I even awake? Am I alive? I-I’m looking around and I see darkness. My hands are free, Axel isn’t here. I’m walking in an endless space. I looked for anybody. Carl, Daryl, Rick, Shane, Patrick, Beth… I called for them, but all I heard was my voice. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed because of the eerie vacantness surrounding me… I didn’t know where I was… I didn’t know if I was dreaming, I didn’t know if I was dead… but where was the light at the end of the tunnel? If I were dead, I’d be someplace else by now. If I knew I was dead, I wouldn’t be walking around alone like this… unless I’m in hell. I… I’m so damn scared… just please… please give me another chance… I’m sorry for whatever I did, all of my worst mistakes. For not being good to myself, for not being somebody someone loves. For killing… I’ll change, I promise, don’t let it end here, please…

AUTHORS NOTE:
     Heya my beautiful and loyal readers! I feel like it’s stupid to apologize for not updating fast enough because every time I promise to update quicker, I never end up doing it, which I can’t help :( School has been holding me back from so much, plus keeping up with an Instagram page, and a YouTube, taking drawing requests, having 24 projects to do in school for advanced placement art class, and it’s really so tough.
     But this is by far the longest chapter I’ve written, counting up to 4,000 words! I hope you guys found this chapter anticipating and well written enough to make up for the 4 months I’ve gone without posting! I love you guys so, so much, I never thought so many people would love reading this experiment of a story. You guys keep me going because honestly, this wasn’t supposed to go farther than chapter 3!
     And thank you so much for 18.7 reads, 720 votes, and 179 comments! You all are incredibly amazing, thank you for making me come this far! Stay awesome, readers!
     Don’t forget to read online to check out awesome gifs to match the story’s scenario or to check out Rosaline’s Instagram page! {She’ll try to keep up with that too!} Comments are very much appreciated!