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M E G A N
"Ready to race, Hershel?"
Carl looks across the courtyard, smugly walking up to his mother Lori, the girl Beth and her one-legged father, Hershel. A slight look of relief on the boy's face being something I've never quite seen, as his usual tense expression comes naturally to him.
Their group recently stumbled upon a pair of crutches in one of the supply closets in the tombs, finally being able to get the man back on his feet—foot again.
"Give me another day," Hershel starts. "I'll take you on." He scoffs, looking over at Carl, who lets out a chuckle.
Ever since this morning, when discovering the crutches, spirits being this high has set an uneasy tone in the air. The foreign feeling I haven't gotten a chance to experience yet. Happiness not being on the list of impressions I've gotten from the tight-knit group.
I watch, wanting to let out a smile at the wholesome moment, but ultimately managing to stifle it down.
I spectate the scene happening from the nearest guard tower, where I've been spending all of my time. Rick, Daryl, and Glenn watch from across the field, between the two fences. Their shameless smiles spread from ear to ear.
Everyone that occupies the prison happens to be out and about, except for Gianna and Rosa. The two girls have been disappearing a lot lately.
Suspense lingers in the air, the group—for a moment—too happy to know what to do with themselves.
"Walkers!" Carl yells to his people. "Look out!"
I turn my gaze to see—roughly—a few dozen of the dead making their way into the courtyard, which is supposed to be sealed off. My stomach sinks, landing my eyes upon the threat that I'd been hidden from for so long.
The women scramble to get Hershel somewhere far from the approaching walkers, while Carl whips around, taking out his gun.
A frenzy of bullets fuzzily echoes in the back of my mind as I try to figure out what to do. Lori, Maggie, Carl and T-dog put down a decent amount of the walkers, their limp bodies sinking to the ground after each thudding shot.
I nervously feel around my waist, taking out the pistol given to me by Rick, before examining it. The weapon I've had no training with, other than the hesitant man quickly showing me how to click the safety on and off.
My fingers fumble around with different features of the weapon, trying desperately to cock it. They find a small button that clicks along with the release of the magazine.
I allow the clip to fall into my hand—tucking the pistol under my arm—before I flip it over, shaking it over my other palm.
For a few naive moments, I'm left confused when the cool metal never meets my skin.
No bullets fall out. Its empty.
While under my first, real threat, it doesn't take me long to realize that maybe Rick didn't ever really intend for me to learn how to properly use the weapon he gave to me. It was all for show and maybe even just a sense of security. This weapon is what I thought was supposed to keep me safe, but it was just an empty gesture.
Nobody here really cares about my safety.
My eyebrows furrow, as I stare down at the useless weapon in my palms. That's just what I am to these people. Useless.
With a reluctant sigh, I rush down the stairs of the guard tower, aiming to meet the group in the courtyard. The least I can do is try to help the group usher away the one-legged man. But when I make my way out of the guard tower, those members of their group are nowhere to be found.
I tuck the empty gun in my pocket—not that I'd know how to use it anyways—and my knuckles brush against the wooden handle of my knife. The close-range weapon that I'm not yet ready to test out against the dead.
Glenn, Daryl and Rick shuffle on their feet, running past me and directly toward the danger. I stay frozen in place, shocked at the sight.
I decide to tighten my grip on my knife and join them. My feet hesitantly carry myself a ways behind the men, before pulling myself to stand up on the one table in the middle of the courtyard.
One, lone walker manages to drag its heavy legs passed the men without them noticing, as they frantically deal with several others.
This one is quite decayed. Skinny. The tall walker clammers towards me, it's thin, dry hair moving with a gust of wind.
As it slowly gets closer and closer, I start to have less and less coherent thoughts. I've never seen one this close without a fence between us.
For a second, I squeeze my eyes shut, before realizing that doing that is a horrible idea. I pry my nervous eyes open, keeping them locked on the dead person walking toward me.
It releases a throaty, high-pitched groan. The excitement evident in its yellow, milky eyes as it prepares to have me for a meal. My stance widens, my feet stabilizing myself. I grip the handle of my knife, raising it level with my shoulder, ready to give it my best shot.
My eyes quickly blink open and closed, hoping that—maybe one time, when they open again—the walker will be gone. Maybe this whole thing would've even been a horrid dream.
I squeeze my eager eyes shut one last time, taking a deep breath, before opening them.
Surprisingly, the walker does—in fact—disappear from right in front of me.
With a grunt and the squishing sound of a tough stab, the walker's groans immediately ring silent. Glenn stumbles backwards after struggling with it for a few moments.
"Come on," He starts, raising his arm toward me. "I'm not going to let 'em get you." He says, with a ghost of a smile. The sweaty, breathless, man—in a hurry—helps me quickly climb down from the table.
The man and I catch our breaths. I subconsciously cling on to him after barely avoiding a painful death.
After getting a taste of what this group has been through for the last ten months, I find myself gulping down a nervous lump in my throat.
My body stays firmly pressed to Glenn's, as he's my only means of protection. The only person who's treated me like another one. A person.
It takes just a few moments of the confused men and I scanning the area with our eager eyes. I feel the man's body quickly jolt as I continue to hold onto him.
"The gate is open!" Glenn screams as more walkers start to pour into the courtyard. "Stay here, okay?" He quickly grabs my shoulder, before bouncing on his feet and leaving me stranded. I hastily return a nervous nod.
The men scramble, taking out walkers as if it's their second nature. Something that will soon have to become a second nature of my own if I want to learn to keep myself safe.
My mind can't shake the fuzzy feeling, and my ears can't make out any sound other than the racing of my heart.
The three men run up and jam the gate closed, while several walkers pound on the other side of it. Using all of their might, the men get the gate closed, waiting for Glenn to lock it.
Daryl and Rick quickly shuffle backwards from the gate, switching their gaze toward me. Almost as if to check on me. Maybe they actually want to make sure that I'm still okay, over here. I subtly nod toward the men, under their unreadable glare.
"Those chains on the fence didn't break on their own. Someone had to have used an axe or cutters on 'em." Glenn says in a panic, holding the perfectly severed chain pieces in his hand.
The men look around and their gaze—once again—fixes upon me. This time, instead of a concerned glare, I get the harsh, squinting eyes of the two suspicious men. I hesitantly open my mouth to say something.
"They're all out." Rick mutters, scanning the clear area with his eyes. The man avoids saying what he's really thinking.
The sudden blaring of the prison alarm catches all of our attention. Without missing a beat, the men scramble around trying to figure out what to do.
The repetitive alarm cuts through my mind's fuzziness and instead instills a feeling of fear inside of me. One of the only things that I was told is that loud noise means danger in this world.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Daryl screams, as frustrated as the rest of us.
Before I can process the noise, Rick follows up on his own dirty looks, walking up to me in his most threatening manner. The man—without hesitation—cocks his gun, aiming it straight at my face.
"Do you know anything about this?" He screams over the sound of the alarm. I take a step back in response.
My throat feels stiff as I try to form words. Nothing. I shake my head.
Rick walks towards me with his finger nearly squeezing the trigger. My eyes widen, as I don't have enough time to flinch from an imminent bullet going through my head.
At the last second, he aims revolver at the speaker on the wall behind me. Pieces of the metal—along with clumps of dust and dirt—fly everywhere after he takes his shot.
My mind races, trying to think of an answer to give the men.
"I know who might know something." I finally say, looking around. "Who were the only people not outside when the walkers got loose?" I ask him, my voice reaching a yell over the sound of the alarm.
The suspicious men and I exchange looks. Whatever they're thinking, I'm not able to catch onto, until Rick shuffles towards me, at full speed.
"You're going to show me where to find the alarm, now!" He says over the pounding alarm, roughly pushing me in front of him.
Glenn and Daryl open the door to the danger of the tombs, as Rick and I make our way across the courtyard.
Rick quickly shoots two more of the speakers on the outer walls of the prison before he returns his angry eyes to me and we disappear into the darkness of the tombs.
☆
As Rick slams through the doors to the breaker room, he roughly pushes me alongside him. Glenn and Daryl push two walkers back, knocking a few more of them over.
The two men hold the doors shut, while the undead slam on the other side. A sizable amount of them have accumulated as we previously made our way through the tombs.
"How do you shut these down?" Rick screams at me over the sound of both the walkers and the alarm.
"I've only worked in here a few days, I—I need a second to think." My expertise on the matter being new because I was never given the authority to interact with the generator nor the alarm. My eyes search around for a moment, landing on the control panel for the backup generator. "Over there!" I scream. "Rick, try that!"
Rick goes up to the metal-box that encloses the control panel and immediately begins trying to pry it open with his sturdy knife.
As the man concentrates on trying to quickly open the metal box, Rosa creeps around the corner of the machine—a metal rod in-hand. My eyes widen and my concentrated face drops.
"Rick, watch out!" I scream to the man. He whips around to look at me, and ducks just as she slams the pole into the large metal box behind him. The rusty, metal breaker box cranes as it bends.
Rosa tries to roughly pin Rick up against another electrical box as they fumble around with the metal rod between the two of them. He hardly struggles as he pushes the girl to get her off.
After he manages to pin the girl against the breaker box, she flips the rod, hitting him over the head. Both of them clammer to the ground. The small, teenage girl putting up a surprisingly strong fight.
The continuous noise of the walkers slamming on the door stops as Glenn and Daryl decide to back away from it and grab their weapons. The two start taking on the small herd of walkers by themselves.
Thinking on my feet, I creep past Rick and Rosa and make my way to the smashed-in breaker box. I easily manage to get the padlock on it open as the combination already entered is just one number off from the code I remember.
My fingers frantically fumble with the lock, before I'm able to pull it off of the box, opening its damaged door. An overwhelming sight of several different buttons doesn't phase me before I start rapidly pressing them from left to right.
As I continue to pound my fingers on the buttons, I look over my shoulder at Rick and Rosa, struggling with each other. I quickly tuck in my lips at the sight, pursing them as I see what the girl's gotten herself into, messing with that man.
In sync with the click of some random button, the blaring alarm fizzles out, before coming to a stop.
I tip-toe my way past Rick and Rosa, knowing that the man is more than capable of battling against the young girl.
His only problem being that he—morally—has to at least try to avoid hurting her.
Glenn and Daryl continue to take down walkers by the entrance. The dead just seem to keep on coming through the doors. Right after one drops, another one immediately drags itself in, taking its place.
As Glenn puts down a few of them, I look over to Daryl. The man's eyes remain steadily down the aim of his own crossbow, not paying attention to the walker creeping around his side.
Without much thought, I take out my knife. I run toward the walker, not quite thinking my actions through. Just before the dead can stretch its jaw over Daryl's shoulder, I ram myself into it. The thud making the man quickly turn around.
I fumble with my knife, before groaning out in pain. The wooden handle had managed to slip down in my grip, my fingers now squeezing the blade of it, as I've just thrown myself at one of the dead.
With a quick sling, Daryl's crossbow fires, sending an arrow into the head of the walker at my fingertips. The body drops, leaving me to deal with the numb sensation in my hand. I look up from my bleeding fingers, to the man.
He manages to let out a nod. His thoughts being nearly unreadable behind his squinting eyes and furrowed eyebrows.
Out of breath, I manage to return the same nod.
The doors loudly slam closed, Glenn struggling with the dead banging from the other side. I quickly shuffle on my feet, picking up his metal rod from the floor and handing it to him. The man shoves it between the handles, backing away from the jiggling door.
Daryl, Glenn and I all take a few seconds to breathe, before the sound of shuffling comes from behind the breaker box. The fight between Rick and the girl that I'd managed to completely forget about.
"It's Rick." I mutter to the men, causing them to look at each other before running across the room.
As the two continue to tussle on the ground, Gianna has now joined the fight.
While I have some confidence that Rick can handle the two girls, worry instills in myself when I see Gianna pull out an axe, raising it, trying hard to gather enough leverage to take a swing at him.
The man manages to knock the weapon out of her hand, both of the girls stay on his back as the three of them all inch toward his revolver that skids across the floor.
The gun that happens to land right in front of my feet.
Gianna and Rosa manage to hold the struggling man down as both of them focus on keeping his hand from reaching his gun. One of their hands gripping his mangled hair, and both of their bodies struggling to hold down his strong torso.
"Megan!" Gianna calls out to me. "Grab the gun!"
I stare down at the weapon that lies in front my feet. Hesitantly, I bend down, allowing my curious fingers to curl around the heavy grip.
My finger clicks the safety off, the one feature Rick taught me to use. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Glenn and Daryl tighten their stature at the threat I now pose to them. I rise, standing tall, examining the loaded weapon in my grasp.
"Shoot him!" Gianna pleads to me, standing up and backing away from Rick, giving me a clear shot. "We can take back the prison." She nervously says.
Pursing my lips, I raise the heavy revolver at the people in front of me. My nervous, shaky finger firm on the trigger.
"Rosa." I mutter, my eyes stay glued to her as she grips Rick's hair, keeping him to the ground.
The girl takes the hint and stands to her feet, quickly backing away from Rick, in order to get out of my aim.
Immediately, Rick also rises to his feet. His nervous eyes staring at me, opposite the barrel of his own gun. Rick meagerly raises his hands in surrender, his lips parting, as if he wants to say something.
Before he has the chance to form any words, I switch my gaze to the girls standing behind him. My aim following suit.
"Come on, Rick." I say, looking at the ruffled-up man. He looks both confused and awe-stricken when I don't take my chance to attack him.
He slowly makes his way across the room. I flip the gun in my hand, handing it to him by the grip instead of the barrel. The man grabs his gun while making steady, nervous eye contact with me.
Rick then takes his python and hesitantly lifts it, aiming it across the room, at the girls. A relieved grin on his face as he looks over at me. A glimmer of hope in his exhausted, baggy eyes.
The girls, however, remain furiously betrayed. Their antics exposed, and their efforts being all for nothing.
I stare at them, my wide eyes gaping at their angrily confused glares. My focus switches from their faces, to Rosa's arm as she pulls something out of their back pocket.
"Rick." I mutter.
But it's too late. Rosa draws her gun. Gianna takes notice and immediately follows her lead.
Glenn and Daryl quickly react on instinct, doing the same, immediately drawing their weapons toward the girls.
I can only hope that the girls haven't yet noticed that their weapons are not loaded, as I stand under their aim.
Maybe Rick did have a valid reason when deciding to give us empty weapons.
☆
A standoff between my group and Rick's left myself being the only standing survivor of the Georgia State Juvenile Detention Center. Not knowing how to feel—only a few quiet days after the prison almost met its end—I sit in my new cell and stare at the cinder-block wall.
A bottle of water, a pack of crackers and a can of peaches sit by my side, courtesy of Rick and his men.
I've been left in the dark as to the circumstances of my placement, considering what my group did. For the past few days, I've been pondering the idea of being thrown out or possibly executed.
"Grab your stuff." I hear a raspy, southern accent mutter from the entrance of my cell. "You're coming to cell block C."
I look over to see Daryl, his crossbow dangling behind his shoulder, contrasting to the usual position where he has it aimed directly in my face.
"What?" I say, barely meeting his gaze before I stare back at the wall. My gaze then quickly drops back toward the floor.
"You helped us." He starts. "You're one of us, now."
Hesitantly, I choose to listen to the man, although I don't have much of a choice.
As I begin to move my stuff back into my original cell, I notice nearly everyone sitting around, not saying anything. Normally, their eyes would be glued on me, overanalyzing my every move.
Glenn uneasily shifts around uncomfortably under my gaze, before leaving the corridor and going out into the courtyard.
I quickly place my bag down and follow after him. The bodies of the walkers still scattered all over the ground.
The man nervously looks around for a few moments, before his eyes drop to my bloody fingers. He haphazardly points. "You should probably go see Hershel about that."
"What's going to happen to me?"
"You're probably going to need stitches." He starts. "And maybe ev—" The man stops when he notices my anticipatory expression drop into a stern one.
Realizing that there's no avoiding the true extent of my loaded question, Glenn sucks in a breath, and squints his eyes over towards the field. "That isn't what you were trying to ask."
"Nope."
He tears his eyes away from the field, looking to me. The man giving me a small—but forced—smile. "What you did back there—without a doubt—makes you a part of our group."
"Really?" I ask.
He nods.
"Does Rick think that too?" I retort.
"He didn't know if he could trust you." Glenn states. "We'd usually have a meeting about these types of things." He says. "But before Rick found out about Lori, he asked me what I thought about you. He wanted to know what I'd think if you moved into our cell block." He nods in my direction.
I shift my weight from one leg to the other. "And what did you say?"
"That I thought it was a fine idea." He lets out a smile.
Selfishly, I allow a smile to creep its way across my face. The feeling given to me by the man's gentle words is my first one of belonging. A thin beam of hope.
That is, until my smile drops.
"Wait—What happened to Lori?"
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3779 words
A/N
I wish the show would've done more with the prisoners after they became members of the group. They killed off axel and oscar almost immediately after they redeemed themselves.
Seasons 3-4 of TWD are the BEST.
Edit: March 25, 2022
I AM SO SORRY TO ANYONE WHO READ THIS CHAPTER BEFORE I EDITED IT, IT WAS ANSOLTUELY RANCID
i made Megan kill a bunch of walkers?? like sis you're four years old, imma need you to calm down
Thanks for reading xoxo
☆ ANYWAYS, DONT FORGET TO VOTE AND COMMENT ☆