Emmie laid in her bunk, unable to will herself to move. Her bones felt stiff. Her muscles felt tight. It was almost as if any sudden movement would send them cracking, webs of fractures running along them. Her eyes remained open, staring at the cinder wall that her bunk was leaning against. It was grey and depleted of any sort of interest, but was the only thing she could bring herself to look at. She only closed her eyes briefly when they became too dry, but that rarely happened since her tears were effective at dampening them.
People came by her side often, trying their best to offer the girl what they could. Bowls of oatmeal were made for her in the morning by a gentle Beth, but would be left to sit on the table beside Emmie's bed until she would come back to clean it up around noon when the mush had dried to a thick paste.
"You gotta eat at sometime, Emmie," she had told her on one occasion when she had brought her some crackers around dinner time. Emmie didn't even stir. She moved only a couple times throughout the day. She'd get up from her bunk in the morning, restless as always after having spent another full night replaying the images of her brother's demise in her mind, and head to the bathrooms. She tried to wash her face with a bucket of water, but after the first few days, couldn't even get herself to do that small task. Afterwards, she'd take small sips of water from a cup in the dinning area, barely able to finish the glass, before heading back to her bunk to waste the rest of the day away.
It happened like this over and over again. She barely drank, only consuming what her body absolutely needed so she didn't have to feel the side effects of dehydration, but didn't eat. It caused great headaches to pound in her head and her stomach to feel pains constantly, but to her, that pain was ignorable. The pain inside her mind was the kind that was insufferable.
Anger began to brew inside her, lingering deeper and deeper in her heart than anything else she'd ever experienced before. Although she had never fully recovered from the deaths of her parents, at the end of the day, there was nobody to blame. There was nobody she wanted to scream and and hurt in order to bring them justice. There was nobody that she wanted to kill. She realized how far down her pain was rooted through these fleeting thoughts. She wanted nothing more than to end the Governor's life.
Although she never noticed, the boy, the only other kid her age, would linger outside her cell door sometimes, quietly worried about her well-being. He didn't like the dark circles that had encapsulated her eyes or the way she wouldn't even speak to anyone when she did come out of her room on such rare occasions. He never spoke to her or asked her if she was okay because he already knew the answer to those questions. If he hadn't already been furious at the world for what it had done to his mother, he was now because of what it had done to his friend.
Days passed. At one point, Beth managed to coax some canned tuna into Emmie. She didn't tell the older girl that the only reason she had eaten was because she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to survive without food. People came in to Emmie's cell to try to speak to her, but nobody was able to get even a single syllable out of her mouth. During each of these visits, she'd stay in the same position, remaining constant with her attention being absorbed by the wall as if it had all of her answers. None of those answers were there.
The others worried, but it was only because they had every right to. The girl, once very vibrant, had become grey, almost completely washed away. The tide of depression had taken her and did not let her go.
One day, Rick had come to her bedside to ask her if she'd be interested in joining him, Carl and Michonne on a trip to search for some more ammunition to use in the efforts to win the little disagreement they had landed themselves in with the Governor. She wouldn't budge. Usually, she was eager for any sort of adventure, no matter what it was, so Rick, having to see her pale face, dark eyes unmoving from an unknown sight in the distance, was absolutely sickening to him, but he was unsure what else he could do besides leave her alone.
Besides Beth, one of Emmie's other most frequent visitors was Hershel. She didn't want to speak to him, but he didn't expect her to. After some time had passed, there were days when she would turn onto her back and stare at the metal springs of the bunk above her because she liked listening to what he had to say and it was her only way of showing him that. Sometimes, he'd read her a few chapters of a book, his voice soothing even though she didn't always make out the words he was saying aloud.
One day, it was Carl who finally came into her room with the most important message in a while. She had been able to pick up certain bits of news from the gossip she had heard from her bed and the things Beth would tell her when she came into her cell each morning, but this wasn't the same news. It was news that actually piqued her interest.
"It's over. The fighting, I mean," Carl had told her. Emmie froze even more than she had been throughout the day. Her breathing stopped, caught in her lungs. The boy continued about how there were people coming in from Woodbury and there would be a lot more company around from no on, but she didn't hear any of that. She didn't care about any of that.
"Is be dead?" she croaked, the grim question being the first thing to have come from her in far too long. She turned all the way around to face the boy, his blue eyes staring back. He tried to hide his surprise at her sudden moments. "The Governor - is he dead."
"He uh . . ." He didn't want to tell her the truth, but just by looking at her glassy, discouraged eyes, he knew he didn't have the right to withhold it from her, either. "He's gone. That's why the others are here." He thought about going into a tangent about how much he was unhappy with the newcomers, but it didn't matter because the girl's attention was lost again.
"Okay," was all she said before turning back onto her side and staring off into space.
Emmie realized very quickly that she didn't like all of the Woodbury people because they had a way of invading her space, specifically her peace and quiet. Had Carl confided his feelings in her that day when he had told her about the Governor's disappearance, she would know she wasn't the only one. One morning, she stood up from her bunk, took the sheets from the bed on the top since nobody shared a cell with her anymore, and draped them over her door in the means of privacy from the wandering eyes of the newcomers that would often walk past her room. She wished they would just mind their own business, but they never did.
Eventually, after weeks of picking at her food and her only excuses of movement being walking too and from the bathroom since Emmie no longer even went to the dining area anymore because there was usually an audience awaiting her, Rick stopped into her room.
"Emmie, I know it's hard, but why don't you give today a try? Maybe you can try to work on things a little bit? Take some small steps?"
"Nothings going to be better until he's dead," she said simply. Rick didn't press on, but she almost wished he would've instead of stalking from her room and leaving her alone again. It was then that she finally realized that she didn't want to be alone, but had convinced herself that it was the way things would have to be.
The next morning, as soon as Beth brought her a bowl of oatmeal, she sat up to eat the entire thing. Beth was surprised, wishing that she would've made more. The bowls she had started to make for Emmie had gotten smaller and smaller since there was no point in wasting food for the girl not to eat any of it. Not today. Emmie shoveled every spoonful into her mouth, even though it took some time since her stomach wasn't used to holding such amounts of food. She continued to sip up an entire glass of water alongside it before mustering the strength the meander into the shower room.
It was almost embarrassing to her how slowly and weakly she had to walk and the looks she was given as she moved, but she refused to stop. She washed her body and greasy hair, her skin begging to be cleaned. The water was cold, but it was also awakening which caused her not to mind the temperature too much. The shampoo she had used smelled of strawberries, a scent that made her long for home and comfort. The thought sent her into a downwards mental spiral for a moment in which she stood with the cold water drizzling over her skin, staring at the floor and feeling helpless. A day ago, this thought would've consumed her and she would've strayed back off to bed, but she refused to do that to herself.
She pulled the knots from her hair with a comb and put on some fresh clothes. One of the last times she had changed was on the actual day of Milo's death, but only because she had been forced to rid herself of the soaking blood on the fabric and all over her skin. Back in her cell, she changed her bedding and tucked it neatly around the mattress. The simple motions made her feel exhausted, her chest heaving for oxygen. She barely got enough to satisfy her as her heart raced. Emmie didn't know if she even had the strength, but she pulled herself back together and headed in the direction of the library.
Emmie's legs screamed at her, trying to let her know that her knees were ready to buckle at any given second, but she didn't answer to them. She could feel the pain, but knew a book might be able to soothe it.
The library, as on most occasions, was empty, but this didn't stop Emmie from walking inside and switching the dim lights on. In fact, it only encouraged her to do so. She walked down the aisles slowly, using the shelves as support as she scanned each one, looking for any book that seemed interesting enough to take. She settled on one about insects, aiming for some lighter reading material.
With the thick book tucked under her arm, she was ready to go back to her cell and begin reading, but didn't think that making it back safely was an option for her, so went towards the back of the murky room and settled inside one of the bare shelves against the wall. She fit perfectly and the space itself wasn't bad once she swiped the dust away with her sleeve.
Emmie pulled the book onto her lap, turning to the first page. Things weren't good. She wasn't good, but she had to make herself better as much as she could. That was the only way she'd get the revenge that she had convinced herself she needed.
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A/N: Ummmmm . . . I just wrote three chapters today . . .
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