I wonder where they are.
What they're doing.
How they're living.
If they're living.
Thoughts consumed my weak mind as I walked back to the farmhouse. The day was still young, and the sun was enjoying its time frying our skin with its heat.
I thought about a lot of things and how I ended up on this unfamiliar farm, holed up with unfamiliar people. Each of them had different stories, different backgrounds, different upbringings, different lives And yet, in times of need, people find people, and they put aside their differences and work together. They become family.
Just like Rick's group.
Hershel and his family allowed Rick's group and I to practically move our lives onto his land, allowing us to live among his daughters and family. He didn't know who we were, what we were capable of, or what we had done in the past.
And yet, he trusted that we wouldn't harm his family, and while I knew I personally wouldn't, I wasn't sure about certain people.
Ever since I met the group, I always put myself in a different category than them, they were a group, and I was just me.
Each one of them still had someone they could rely on.
T-dog was close with everyone but it seemed as though he had a soft spot for Glenn.
Glenn's Family didn't survive, yet he found comfort with Dale and T-dog as if they were his own family, and the sneaky boy had found himself a sweet girl that seemed to care for him.
Dale had taken Andrea under his wing as if she were his own daughter, and while Andrea had lost her sister, she seemed to lean on Shane and Dale for support.
And while Shane and Rick had their evident problems, the two had a unique bond that seemed to strengthen one another.
Luckiest of them all, Rick, who had his family, his pregnant wife and his son, who gave him hope of life at the end of the world. And even if Lori challenged Rick's ideas at times, she would always support her husband and stand by his side.
Lori and Carol also seemed to share a maternal bond, both mothers who worried about their kids and would give up their lives for the sake of the children they bared.
And last of all, Daryl.
He was the mystery. He didn't rely on anyone for anything. The one person who didn't seem to blend in with the group.
Maybe we weren't too different after all.
Standing In front of the big house, I took in the sight of the beautiful white house.
I took a picture of the beauty and waited for the film to develop before writing on the back of the image.
"The Greene's farmhouse. Maybe living here wouldn't be too bad"
I always dreamed of owning such land, with a house that could fit all my children and a loving husband, filled with laughter and love.
Maybe that's why the Greene's land seemed somewhat nostalgic. It reminded me of my fantasy that would never come true.
A fantasy I wish I could have lived in longer, but of course, it had to be broken. by Shane of all people.
"Nice camera you got there." He pointed to the camera in my hands as he eyed me up and down.
I mumbled a quick 'thanks' before attempting to walk past him. But he was quick with holding onto my arm in a tight grasp.
I didn't dare make eye contact with him, because I truly did not want to rile him up and give him reasons to harm me. So instead, I kept my head straight and stared off into the distance as I felt his body leaning into mine until his mouth was near my ear and his breath was fanning onto the side of my face.
Keep it together. I just need to stay calm, and he will leave me alone.
Please leave me alone.
"You won't last long. I bet you'll be the next to die. Too weak for this world. You might as well just end it all, one less mouth to feed."
He does have a point.
He was so wrong about me. He didn't know anything about me, not even a simple fact that would lead him to have any opinion of me, yet his words struck me. maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong, who knows.
But truly I had gotten so used to degrading words being yelled at me that Shane's words seemed so light compared to others.
"Shane!"
Both I and Shane turned towards the direction the voice came from, to see Rick marching his way through the field towards us.
"I gotta talk to you, brother!"
Shane looked me dead in the eyes before letting me go and turning towards his best friend.
Rick made eye contact with me as if to ask me if everything was okay. He looked back at Shane before turning to me and giving me a nod.
I sent a nod in return to show my appreciation, before speed walking away from the scene, and heading towards the RV that was set near the house, where Rick's group camped.
***
"Oh, come on! You can't deny it, Glenn." I laughed as I spoke, shielding my face with my hand from the bright sun on the rooftop of the RV.
His lucky ass has Dale's hat.
"What! There's nothing going on with me and Maggie" his voice got all high and squeaky, just like it always did when he was nervous. He was avoiding eye contact with me and fidgeting with his fingers. Yet, there was a giant smile on his face that told me everything I needed to know.
He's happy.
"Is she your first girlfriend?" I asked seriously, unable to hide my smile when I saw the blush on his cheeks.
"If that's what she is, then yeah. She's the first girl that's made me feel this way"
He was clearly in love, or on the verge of falling in love.
It slightly gave me hope, that maybe the world hadn't fully died yet, that maybe there were still some new flowers blooming through the ashes.
The sound of heavy footsteps cut my thoughts short. Glenn and I turned our heads to see who the angry footsteps belonged to, and of course, they led ut to Officer Asshole.
"S'up" Glenn was met with silence as Shane barged into the RV below us.
Glenn and I made eye contact, before busting out in laughter.
"His head looks like a discombobulated egg" I managed to say in between laughs.
"Shut up! He can probably hear you" Glenn whisper yelled in response as he threw his hat at me, the one with the smashed egg in it.
"You ass-"
Shane walked back out, cutting my sentence short."
"You see where he went?" he asked Glenn.
I blocked out the rest of their short conversation, as I was too focused on trying not to burst out in laughter over Shane's bald head and angry red face and fuming breaths.
Glenn turned to me, looking very confused with whatever Shane had told him, and said
"Dudes fully lost it"
***
I sat on the wooden ground of the porch, looking over at the barn that help what was once Sophia, beside me on chairs were Beth, Patricia and Carl, playing some board game I didn't pay much attention to. And on the stairs were sat our lovebirds, loving and doving about God knows what, they had clearly made up after sharing a very intense kiss in front of the Greene house.
I feel like my hand is going to fall off. I miss typing on my computer.
I closed the notebook in my lap and looked down at my arms, all the bruising from Shane had fainted to almost nothing, the small cuts all over my body had healed and left thin white lines in their place, and the stab wound had mostly healed on the surface and was slightly sore.
Thanks to Maggie's closet, I had a new pair of black pants on, after my old pair was sadly ripped and muddied.
"Do you know what's going on"
"Where's everyone?"
I looked up and saw T and Andrea making their way toward us. Glenn stood up and asked them if they had seen Rick.
To which Andrea responded, "He went off with Hershel. We were supposed to leave a couple of hours ago."
Then out of nowhere, his voice sounded, the thick and raspy accent and the usual anger seeping through his teeth, "Yeah you were. What the hell?"
His voice was the one that made me stand up and approach the conversation.
"Damn it, isn't anybody taking this seriously?" he walked closer to us, carol following behind him.
I wonder what going on with those two.
"We got us a damn trail." his eyes landed on mine as if telling me he hadn't given up on finding Sophia. He turned around in frustration, only to see Shane walking up to the group, with a bag of guns in his hand. "Oh, here we go."
I guess that's what he was looking for.
As Shane approached Daryl, he spoke, "You with me man?" handing a shotgun to Daryl, who took it and charged it, the sweat that coated his body defined every muscle that moved his arms, making it impossible for me not to steal a couple of glances at him.
"Time to grow up," Officer psycho said, while he handed out different varieties of guns to the people around.
Giving some speech about picking daisies and being safe on the farm. A bunch of crap talk, in my opinion, he just wanted power back in his hands, and in his twisted Lori-filled mind 'taking charge' of clearing out the barn gave him back the power that he lost to Rick.
Guess power isn't the only thing he lost when Rick appeared.
He wasn't wrong about clearing out the barn, he just had the wrong approach, just like he did with everything.
It was almost sad, how horrible he was at dealing with intense situations.
As Shane continued to argue with almost everyone present, I kept to myself and stepped back from it all. I felt eyes on me, leading me to loop up, to make eye contact with the hunter. He slightly nodded his head and looked down towards the hunting knife that hang on his belt on his right side. I folded my arms over my chest, slightly turning my hips to the left, to show him a similar hunting knife hanging from my own belt. His eyes rolled down my body, and fell on the knife, before they came back up and made contact with mine, his slow gaze making my heart beat slightly faster than normal.
He sent another nod my way before following after the crowd of people, those I hadn't noticed were leaving. Running towards the chaos.
***
May rounds were shot, time after time, Shane was proving his point to Hershel. The poor old man kept holding the pole that kept the walker where it was, watching everything he believed crumble down to nothing.
When the first shot went off, an arm extended in front of me, keeping me back, and his body slightly stepped in front of mine, shielding me from the bullets that were being shot in our direction.
He was protecting me; nobody had stepped up to protect me before then.
Not even when I desperately needed it, but there he was, doing it when I wasn't even in any danger.
The barn was opened, and many walkers spilled out. Rick's group had formed a line in front of the doors, shooting everything that walked out of that barn.
Until she walked out.
Her golden blond hair shone under the sun, the once lively girl had turned into ash.
Her freckled skin was colourless, gray almost. All of the light that she carried around with her had been sucked out of her.
The little girl that had seen nothing of the world, the old and new, no longer belonged on earth.
She was somewhere far away, a place, hard to reach yet so easy to be taken to.
And instead of her happy laughter, echoed her mother's sobs and she mourned her baby.
Sophia walked.