Y/n pov
Euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
I brush the sleeping bag I had laid out so that it had no trickles in it. A man from Hilltop patted my back and muttered a 'thank you' before putting a child I assume to be his daughter in it.
Everyone had to move into the Hilltop Manor for safety reasons and sleeping bags were laid out from the front door to the upstairs balcony.
I glanced at Maggie who was holding a candle and coming down the stairs with Lizzie.
"Is everyone okay?" Maggie asked concerned to which I sigh.
"As they can be, sleeping on a hardwood floor." She gives me an apologetic look and looks at the people on the ground laying on their sleeping bags.
I wipe my eyes in tiredness and I can see them notice this. "Have you set up yours yet?" I shake my head at Lizzie's question.
"Nah. It's fine, I can sleep here." I sit down and lean against a nearby wall and put my knees near my chest with my arms leaning on them.
Maggie instantly gives me a scolding look. "You can't sleep there. I'll get you a bag-"
"Don't bother. It's fine, really." Maggie gives me an understanding look and so does Lizzie as they proceed down the rows of people as I rest my head against the wall.
Then silence. I slowly feel myself drift to sleep but right before it, I feel a coldness on my neck. I open my eyes, wide awake and look to see nothing.
Another damn feature of my Insomnia. At least I haven't had a panic attack in a while, actually last time I did I saw this place for the first time.
That feels like years ago. I close my eyes again ignoring my strain of thought, this time ignoring the feeling of coldness and eventually falling asleep.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
I open my eyes to the sounds of screaming and I see a man getting his face chewed off by a walker, not any walker, the walker of the man I helped with his sleeping bag last night.
I stand up and unholster my knives before jamming them into the man's skull. I look around and multiple people are fighting off walkers.
I can see Daryl, Rick, Michonne and Jesus leading people out and I move over to another walker killing it. I kill one after one after one and eventually, they're all dead and everyone got out of the manner.
Daryl and Rick move up to me as I talk. "The hell happened?"
"I don't know. Maybe walkers got in?" Rick looks just as confused as I am and Morgan appears through the front door joining our conversation.
"Maybe during the fight." I shake my head as I look at the man from before.
"These are our own people, though." My sentence was cut short when I heard more screaming coming from upstairs and I quickly run up there.
Carol, Maggie and Lizzie we're looking over Tobin's lifeless body and I look at them worried. "You alright?"
"Yeah just... He wasn't bit. But he turned." There's silence for a moment as I think about Lizzie's statement before it clicks in my head and I look at Rick.
"Negan's bat. It was covered in walker blood. At the time, I thought he just crossed some. But maybe..."
"They have us working for them again. Killin' our own." Maggie looked down in anger.
"It's the fever." A man laying on the bead who was white in colour and had tired eyes, like Carl's, spoke up. "That's what it is. It makes sense now. C-can one of you... One of you's gonna have to do it. I can't. Please."
He begins sobbing and sniffing as he does and we all look at each other in disbelief.
I open the door only to be met with Rosita and Enid aiming their pistols at me and I put my hands up to show it's me. "Hey."
"Good out there?" Rosita questions and I nod.
"House is clear." I step into the room with Enid as Tara speaks.
"How'd this happen?" Silence fills the room as I look at Rick at him at me.
"The Saviours did something to their weapons. Everyone they cut up... Or got shot... They all got sick. Some of 'em turned." I explain and Enid shakes her head.
"What? No." She looks at Tara who didn't seem to be looking like the others which is a good sign.
"Okay." She accepts.
"When we were out there... And you said you were done waiting... I coulda killed him. I shoulda.-"
"No." Tara interrupts me. "He wanted to be with us. And no matter what he did or how hard he tried, I wanted him dead. I just couldn't let it be anything else. Karma's a bitch, right?"
I briefly looked at the sky as the sun appeared over the horizon and then I quickly got back to work tightening the string on my crossbow, tugging at its wires.
"Hey," I look up from work to see Tara holding her arm and approaching me.
"Hey," I say matching her sentence.
"It's been over a day. Still not sick. Doc says I'm cool." I nod my head and smile slightly.
"You're a tough son of a bitch."
"Y/n, it means that Dwight shot me with a clean arrow-"
"Or it means you got lucky." I interrupt at the mention of Dwight. "Could be anything. It's not like a bite. Sometimes nothing happens."
"Y/n..."
"Look, if Dwight knew, could've warned us, could've can't us a message." I justify.
"Maybe he couldn't." a short silence falls as we look at one another.
"He let a whole day go by while our people lay around dying."
"Everybody else in the battle who got injured got sick. That can't be an accident." I nod my head disapprovingly.
"So he just gets a pass? Is that it?" I ask calmly.
"Maybe. Look you said that we might need him, and we might need him now more than ever, and what I'm saying is that if I had killed him... Maybe I would be dead right now. Look do what you gotta do. But know it's for you. I'm out."
Tara walks away leaving me distraught in my thoughts to kill Dwight. After a second, I return to adjusting my crossbow fixing the height of the quiver attached to it.
Someone taps my shoulder and I look to see Lizzie wearing The Kingdom's blue body armour. "Maggie needs us in the office."
I nod and attach my crossbow to my back before following her up the Manor entrance steps and into the first room on the left where Rosita, Maggie and a woman from the Kingdom who I heard mentioned as 'Dianne'
"Our ammo?"
"'Bout what we thought. Not enough to fend off another attack of that size" Dianne responds to Maggie's inquiry.
"Well, maybe we don't gotta worry about that no more. At least for now. Maybe going hand-to-hand's our only option." I join in the conversation with my explanation.
"You think they're low on ammo?" Rosita directs towards me.
"Well, they must be gone through a whole bunch of it getting through them walkers at Sanctuary."
"And there's not a lot of places to find more." Dianne follows me.
"Mierda. They have a bullet maker. They can make more." Rosita clarifies giving Maggie a distasteful look.
"You think the Saviours have what he'd need to make them?"
"If they don't, I know where they'd find it." Maggie nods.
"I can scout out the area, see for tracks on the road. Hell, might even find the Saviours that escaped last night." I add and Maggie gives me an approving nod.
"I can go too." Lizzie inputs and I walk out of the room beckoning her over with my hand as I do.
"You had to pick today to lose your bike," Lizzie complained as I walked across the desolate roads.
"I didn't lose it. It's in Alexandria. I just... Couldn't get it before we left." I explain but Lizzie still doesn't lose her moaning mood.
"Uhhhh, still." I shake my head at how childish she acts until I hear a voice faint into the woods.
"Shhh. Did you hear that?" I question Lizzie who shakes her head. I peer my head in between two trees to see Morgan and Rick staring at each other and talking. "Hey."
They get startled a little but ease up after seeing me. "What are you doing out here?" Rick asks and I notice he's wearing his fur coat again.
"I should be asking you that. Lizzie and I are seeing if the Saviours are by the bullet factory, the one Eugene mentioned. You?"
"I'm out here for the escaped saviours. Same with Morgan. You see that herd?" I shake my head, Morgan had a crazed look in his eye like back in Atlanta when he went crazy and tried to 'Clear' as he called it. "We gotta finish this, all of us."
Morgan nods and readies his staff in his hand which now had a spike on the tip and was covered in blood. I nod as well and move with Rick as he walks through the forest.
Ultimately, we reach a road where we can see a blood trail and a severed hand and foot laying on the ground. "Y/n!" is the last thing I hear before Black clouds my vision and I'm sure I hit the concrete floor.
My eyes flicker open to reveal my hands tied behind my back attached to a railing, we were in some type of broken-down restaurant and the escaped saviours talking to each other. "We had to get off the road, out the forest, and still... Maybe we didn't do it in time."
"Yeah, but maybe we did." Another saviour adds. I look to my left to see Lizzie, Morgan and Rick tied up the same as me.
"Well, maybe they don't look so hot because we have off a part of them! We gotta leave them."
"We can't do that, we'd be killing them." The other saviour gestures towards the two saviours lying on the floor, one without a foot and the other without a hand.
"Look at them. They're dead already." The other Saviours look distraught and I quietly whisper to Lizzie who was closest to me.
"How long was I out?"
"Long enough to end up here." She responds as quiet as me.
"Look, if we deliver Rick the Prick and his other sidekicks here to Negan, we win. The big man will recognize us for who we are and-"
"Hey. The kid's awake." The saviour who seemed to be the leader walks over to me and squats to my level.
"Rise and shine, Dixon. You ready to do some walkin'? Yeah. Of course, you are. Pack it up, boys! I'll get rid of the dead weight." He picks up a table leg which had been sharpened.
"Wait! My truck's not far." Rick interjects which makes the man stop. "We can get 'em to Hilltop's doctor. They could come back with us. You all could. You didn't want this. You made a split-second choice, and you chose wrong, but it's not too late. You cut us loose, you cooperate... We'll give you a fresh start. A chance to become a part of our community, to become one of us. I'm giving you my word. There's not a lot that's worth much these days, but a man's word... That's gotta mean somthin' right?"
The Saviours fall in silence and look at each other deep in thought until the leader breaks the quiet. "You asshats aren't dumb enough to believe that."
"We can hear him out. W-we could talk it over-"
"Thing is, there isn't time for that." I interrupt recalling Rick's words. "There's a herd out there, close, probably headed this way. You're all gonna need to make a choice, and it's gonna have to be now." I keep a straight face and the leader Saviour kicks a chair and raises his hand.
"Wake up, everybody! There isn't any herd. There isn't any 'deal' waiting back at Hilltop. You think these asswipes came to save us? They came here for blood. Hell, this one strangled one of his own guys to death with his hands." He points to Morgan. "Ricks's claims are a steaming pile of bullshit." Morgan nods his head.
"You know, you're right. I came to do what I was supposed to. To kill every last one of you." The leader picks up his Assult rifle, which was strapped to him, and aims it at Morgan's face which doesn't react. "You should save your bullets, 'cause you're gonna need 'em. That herd, it is comin'. Maybe they'll hear the moans or the coughs, you know? Maybe they'll just stumble in through the open walls, but they're comin'. And then after, after when you're just torn skin and lose teeth and blood... When you're nothing but the stuff they didn't eat... Well, that'll be q damn shame. Because I won't get to kill any of you myself."
The Saviour's look at Morgan disturbed and the leader speaks again before standing up. "We're done. Let's dump 'em and bounce. I want a sandwich-"
"See? It doesn't change." Morgan interjects. "It never changes. And I don't die. I don't. Nobody dies! 'Cause everyone turns! Hey! Everybody turns!" The leader goes back to Morgan and aims the rifle once more but the barrel is pushed away from another saviour as he speaks.
"Hey! You'll ruin our chances of getting back to Hilltop." The leader pushes off the man and aims his rifle down.
"Walkers! We're surrounded!" A saviour shouts from the door as everyone turns their attention to it.
"Thing is, we've already killed you," Rick says calmly as walkers move through the door and the Saviours unload bullets into them. "You're too weak to take on this herd alone. Cut us loose. Give us our weapons. We can help you!"
"No! Nobody's cutting anyone loose! I'm killing these pricks right now." The leader aims his rifle at us but another saviour takes him to the ground making ng him drop the weapon and flee through the herd of walkers seemingly unscathed.
I feel my ropes getting looser and a I look behind me to see a saviour cutting my binds and just in time as the walkers attempted to grab me to no avail.
I move to a table keeping our weapons and I pass everyone their respective weapons while holstering my knives and picking up my crossbow to shoot a nearby walker.
Rick and Morgan move back a bit as Rick checks his magazine. "Move up, we're almost out."
Rick gives me a subtle look and I look at Lizzie the same who nods. Suddenly, Eick moves forward and plants his hatchet into a Saviour's neck and Morgan does the same.
I quickly turn around and ping an arrow into a Saviour's skull and Lizzie does the same just after me.
The last saviour charges me and I block the arm he had a knife in before reflecting him to the herd which grabbed him and tore out a part of his shoulder before he gave up.
Speaking of the herd it had now been thinned down to only about 4 walkers which you killed effortlessly. Morgan walked to the side of the room where the private area of the restaurant was and disappeared from my view.
After a while and some screaming he came back around the corner with his hands coated in blood and a blank expression. "Found the leader."
I heard a croaking and see a saviour on the ground choking on his blood looking at Rick who crouched to his level. "Y-you... Said-"
"I lied."
"I didn't... W-we c-could've. Lived... After-" Rick cut his sentence short as he pulls out his Python and shoots the man in the head, killing him instantly.
I load another arrow into my crossbow just in case and we all look at each other with bloody faces. Morgan hit everybody with his spike before walking slowly to the exit. "Everybody turns."
Rick moved to keep up with him and stop him in his tracks and Lizzie and I also follow. "Mogan you saved me. I would've died. Maybe on that street, right in front of your house. You didn't know me. Why'd you do it?"
"We should go-"
"Just tell me. Why'd you save me? You had your son there."
"No."
"You did."
"Hey, no." Morgan continuously denies it as Rick repeats his question.
"Why'd you save me? Why?"
"Because. Be... Because my son was there." Without another word, Morgan exits the building and Rick slowly follows with Lizzie but I stay looking at the mirror to my side and seeing my bloody and broken face.
The Hilltop gates open and I look to who opened them to see one of the Saviours we held hostage here nodding at me. I at first feel confused but brush it off quickly.
I slightly drag my feet and see a fire with Jerry and Henry, Ezekiel's adopted son, sitting around it.
I walk past it going to the manor when I notice Dianne and Alden, another saviour who was held hostage, staring at me with distasteful gazes to the steps of the manor and I stare back the same, presenting my bloody face to them in the process.
I go inside and look for Maggie but to no avail so I go to head back outside but Lizzie puts a hand on my chest. "Don't you ever stop?"
I shake my head and scoff a little. "Come to my room, have a shower, and get a good night's rest. I promise you'll feel better."
I nod my head and she leads me upstairs into her room where she guides me into the bathroom before leaving. I turn on the shower and undress putting my clothes on the side, my knives on the sink and my crossbow laying on the tiles.
I move into the shower and feel the cold water from my skin and remove the dirt and blood from my body.
After a while, I get out and wrap a towel around my waist and as I go out I look at the mirror and look at myself, my insomnia clearly getting to my eyes.
For some reason, I start to feel angry and lift my fist before slamming it on the tiles next to the wall, letting blood trickle down my fist
but I felt no pain. Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.
(I Hope you enjoyed this chapter of a tale of y/n Dixon and I hope you enjoy the rest of your morning/day/evening. good morning, good evening and good night.)
(3,179 words)