We all run into the gate, excited that we have a safe space where we don't have to look over our shoulder.
Alyssa giggles and high-fives Carl, running off with him.
Damien approaches me as we enter the fenced-in area. "So?"
I scoff, "I think I got two words out." He sighs and shakes his head, "I don't know-" "Don't worry about it, alright? Her and I are both still hurting, she's healing in a different way." I sigh and look up at the sky, "I'm gonna try again tonight." Damien nods, "Good idea. She still talks to me as much as she used to but she hasn't said anything about why she won't even be near you."
"I'll figure it out." I look at him, "I always do."
Damien looks around the area, "WOO!" He whoops, jumping. "Fuck yeah!" He smiles a gummy smile, "We can smoke so much weed." I smirk, "Hell yeah we can." Him and I high-five, he holds my hand and shakes it slightly as he laughs in excitement.
A few hours later, the sun has fully set and we're all sitting around the crackling fire, eating some forbidden meat.
Alyssa is laughing and talking with Beth and Carl, per usual. Damien looks at me and cocks his head towards her, raising an eyebrow.
"No." I mouth silently. "She's having fun." "Fuck that." He mouths. He pulls out a nugget of weed and mouths, "This is your reward." I purse my lips and sigh, "Fuck you." I say silently.
I stand up and make my way over to Alyssa, my heart pounding slightly.
Why am I nervous? I'm literally twenty-seven and she's twelve.
Carl nods in my direction and Alyssa turns and looks at me, rolling her eyes.
I clench my jaw and sigh, at this point I'm not even sad- I'm just pissed off.
"Can I talk to you?" "No." I clench my jaw harder and straighten up. "I'm going to talk to you, so it can either be here where everyone can hear us or somewhere private."
She inhales deeply, handing Carl her food. "Fine, but not because you told me to." "Because god forbid you do something I say." I respond, holding my hands up in fake surrender.
I nod my head to the left of us and her and I walk over there in silence. I feel like there's a rope of tension tying us together, the air feels thick, and I'm not used to it being this tense between us.
We get about thirty feet away before she quickly turns to me and says, "What."
The sourness in her voice practically breaks my heart.
"I'm going to try to be calm about this because I know it won't help if I get mad but what the fuck is your problem? You and I have said like four sentences to each other in like eight months! Dad died and almost immediately you begin giving me the cold shoulder." Alyssa throws her arms up, "I don't know! You tell me! Why on Earth would I not want to talk to you?"
"Why would I be asking you if I knew?!" Alyssa rolls her eyes and scoffs. I sigh and put my hands on her shoulders, "What is going on." I look her in the eyes, her brown eyes twinkling as she looks at me. "Please."
Her lip quivers as she sees the desperateness in my eyes to get my sister back.
"I don't know." Her voice cracks so bad that her words come out as a mere whisper. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know how to be around you after his death! You look exactly like him, you act like him, you sound like him, your stubborn like him, everything you do is exactly like him and it hurts. It hurts so bad whenever I'm around you because all I can think about is him and what we don't have anymore!" Tears stream down her face as she speaks. "It's so hard not talking to you because you're my best friend but I figured if I stopped talking to you, you'd stop talking to me and I wouldn't get those...memories of him back. The good ones, the memories of us." She begins to sob slightly but contains her composure enough to hear me speak.
"'Lyss...I-" I don't even know how to respond, I'm completely at a loss for words. "I know." She whispers. "You're angry at me for not talking to you." "No! Well-no!" I cup her face to get her to look at me.
"Alyssa, I honestly just don't know how to respond." She nods and looks at her feet with her eyes, her head still cupped in between my hands.
"I understand that it's hard but I lost him too, 'Lyss. I needed you, I needed my best friend by my side." She begins to cry again. "I'm not saying that to make you feel bad but...please stop treating me like you hate me." She nods, sobbing. Her arms wrap around my waist and pull me into the tightest hug I've had in years.
"I just want my sister back." I whisper, resting my chin on her head. "Me too." She whispers, still crying. The hug feels warm, my heart feels like it's beating again and I feel like all the color just came back in the world. I laugh at the tears that had started rolling down my cheeks. "I hate sappy shit." I say, laughing through my tears and breaking the hug. She laughs through her tears as well and says, "I know you do."
Beth singing catches both of our attention, "So you and Carl?" I ask beginning to walk with her back to the fire. "Ew! Gross. Nuh-uh." She fake gags and shakes her head. I laugh, "Alright then."
When we make it back to the campfire, everyone looks at us and smiles- slightly or broadly (like Damien). I think everyone noticed the tension between 'Lyss and I more than I thought.
Alyssa and I sit down next to Damien, Carl scurries over to us and sits next to Alyssa.
Damien offers me the weed nugget; I shake my head. "I didn't need weed to get my sister back." He smiles and puts it back in his backpack, "Until next time." He whispers.
Beth stops singing, "Beautiful." Hershel says.
"We better all turn in." Rick starts. " I'll take watch over there. We got a big day tomorrow." "What do you mean?" Glenn asks, poking at the fire with a stick.
"Look, I know we're all exhausted. This was a great win. But we've got to push, just a little bit more." He pauses for a moment. "Most of the Walkers are dressed as guards and prisoners. Looks like this place fell pretty early. It could mean the supplies may be intact. They'd have an infirmary, a commissary."
"An armory?" Daryl asks. "That'd be outside the prison itself, but not too far away. Warden's offices would have the info on the location. Weapons, food, medicine. This place could be a gold mine." Rick points to the prison behind us.
"We're dangerously low on ammo." Hershel points out. "We'd run out before we make a dent." "That's why we have to go in there...hand to hand. After all we've been through, we can handle it, I know it. These assholes don't stand a chance." He tosses a piece of grass into the fire and walks away.
Alyssa looks at me, "Omg, you totally haven't seen how good I am at killing Walkers yet." "'Omg' I 'totally' haven't."
In the morning, T-Dog, Damien, Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Daryl, and I all walk up to the gates, ready to fight the Walkers. I've got my dagger and Damien has his nail bat that he never shuts up about.
"Ready?" Hershel asks, grabbing the gate to pull it open. Everyone nods and he yanks the gate open, T-Dog immediately kills one of the Walkers.
Everybody runs in, killing walkers quickly. We all stand in a tight circle formation to protect all of us. Everyone remaining bangs on the fence and yells for the Walkers to distract at least some of them.
"HYAH!" I yell kicking and stabbing a Walker, blood splatters on my neck and hands. Damien grunts as he bashes a Walker's head in with his nail bat.
"Almost there." Rick says as we pass under a fenced in bridge that connects one side of the prison to the other. He slowly pushes a door open but then looks away and continues walking. He peaks around a corner and quickly backs up against the wall, "Shit!" He whispers. Everyone backs up against the walls as well.
Everybody takes a second to take a breather until we notice two armed Walkers coming towards us. Their whole bodies are covered, they have shields on their faces, pads on their bodies, everything is covered.
"What are we waiting here for?" I whisper, "Walkers. Hundreds of them." Rick cocks his head to the left, "Over there."
Just as Daryl is about to shoot the armed Walkers, two more approach us. Daryl's crossbow fires and the arrow ricochets off of the armor.
We all begin fighting the armed Walkers, our knives, bats, and other objects just bouncing off of the protective gear.
Rick and Daryl run over to the gate with the big group of Walkers inside and close it quickly.
Maggie gets grabbed by a Walker, she shoves her machete through its throat, killing it.
"See that?" She pants.
Wow, doing the bare minimum.
We all begin taking Walkers down, slowly but surely.
I notice a Walker behind Damien. "Damien!" I yell out, warning him. He ducks and I frisbee throw my dagger, it lands right in the Walker's neck, killing it.
"Haha- Holy shit!" I exclaim, laughing. Damien grabs my dagger and hands it to me, "Damn, didn't know you were that hot. If I wasn't gay-" I laugh, "Stop." He smiles and laughs.
We all look around; all of the Walkers are dead on the ground- minus the ones in that closed in area.
Glenn goes to open the gate, but Rick tells him to stop, everyone immediately stopping in their tracks.
"Well, it looks secure." Glenn says, looking around.
"Not from the look of that courtyard over there." Daryl points east of us. He looks and points at a dead Walker on the ground, "And that's a civilian."
"So the interior could be overrun with Walkers from outside the prison." T-Dog says. "Well, if there's walls down, what are we gonna do? We can't rebuild this whole place." Glenn throws his hands up and looks around. "We can't risk a blind spot." Rick warns. "We have to push in." He says, beginning to hurry towards a gate.
We all walk up the steps that lead to a red door. Daryl quickly opens the door and we all slowly walk inside. Inside is another gate as a door and an area that seems like a hang out place. Everything is grey, there's paper and other trash on the floor. It's cold and smells damp.
Everyone disperses to cover more ground; Damien and I take the north corner.
Rick finds the comms tower and slowly climbs up the steps. He comes back down fairly quickly with a ring full of keys.
Rick nods in the direction of one of the gates, we all walk with him to the door. He reaches inside and puts one of the keys in the keyhole.
Click
He turns the key and unlocks the door. Everybody files inside the grey, trashed, smelly hallway of cells.
I turn and look back at the door, "C Block" a sign reads.
"Never thought I'd be excited to be in a prison again." I scoff. "Again? And plus, has anyone ever been?" Damien asks, looking at me over his shoulder. "Oh, believe me, with the shit I did in that gang, I would be in prison until the sun explodes- I didn't kill anyone!" I quickly say, noticing his expression. "Got close to it but... never got the chance." He scoffs and nods.
Maggie and Glenn leave to gather everyone, they all come back shortly after with all of our bags.
"What do you think?" Rick asks. "Home sweet home." Glenn sasses. "For the time being." Rick adds.
"It's secure?" Lori asks. "This cellblock is." Rick says. "What about the rest of the prison?" Hershel questions. "In the morning, we'll find the cafeteria and infirmary." Rick walks down the line of our group. "We sleep in the cells?" Beth asks.
"I found keys on some guards. Daryl has a set, too." Rick grabs his keys and shows Beth. "I ain't sleepin' in no cage." Daryl grunts. "I'll take the perch." He speaks.
Alyssa points to the far cell, "We sharin' one or you and Damien?" "You guys can share one." Damien smiles, "I just like hear-" "Stop." Alyssa and I both say in unison. She giggles as she realizes we said the same thing at the same time and runs to the cell, I follow.
"Bleh, smells like you." She fake gags. "Asshat!" I exclaim, hitting her lightly on the arm. She giggles and throws her bag on the top bunk, "I call top!" She climbs up top and climbs into bed, I'm pretty sure as soon as her head hits the pillow, she falls asleep.
We all put armor on, ready to search the Prison inside and out. Lori, Carol, Carl, Alyssa, and Beth are all staying back. "Think I can bring my bat?" Damien asks. "Damien, if you bring up that goddamn bat one more time I'm gonna shove it up your ass." "I'm gay, maybe I'll like it." "Oh my god." I laugh and shove him lightly, he laughs back.
We file out of C block and begin to walk through the prison, our ears and eyes open for anything that may catch our attention.
The hallways are musty, water is dripping from the pipes above us. There's dead Walkers everywhere, some older and some newer.
It feels like forever of us walking through the halls, waiting for something, anything.
Eventually, Daryl and Rick skid to a stop, "Go back! Go back!" Rick whisper-yells. "Walkers!" Daryl says. We all turn and begin to run, trying to outrun the Walkers.
We try all sorts of turns but everywhere we turn, more Walkers show up.
Walker growls seem to get closer and closer.
"In here!" Rick whispers, opening a door and letting all of us in. I look around, "Where's Glenn?" I pause, "Oh and Maggie."
"We have to go back." Hershel says. "But which way?" Daryl asks.
We slowly stand up and exit the closet, searching for Maggie and Glenn. "Glenn?" I whisper down a hallway, nothing.
Hershel's screaming causes everyone to run to a hallway, a Walker is munching on his leg.
"No, no, Adrian please!" His screams of pure horror and agony are the only things I can hear other than the sound of tearing flesh.
I shake my head to get the vision out of my head and try to focus on saving Hershel.
Hershel is wailing as Glenn and Rick help him stand. "No!" Maggie bawls. "We're blocked! Go! Go!" Rick exclaims, him and Glenn lugging Hershel off with his arms wrapped around their necks.
T-Dog breaks a chain on a door and we all run inside, Daryl closes the door quickly.
Hershel is whimpering as we lay him down.
"Hold him down." Rick says, unbuckling his belt.
"Alright," He says, grabbing his axe. "Only one way to keep you alive."
He begins to pound the axe into Hershel's shin, cutting his lower shin and foot off. "Oh hell." Damien says, turning and looking away.
Hershel's cries of pain slowly come to a stop and his leg finally breaks off.
"He's bleeding out." Rick says.
I turn and see men standing at a gated in room, "Y'all see that?" I ask. Everyone turns and sees them.
"Duck." Daryl says to Rick, standing and aiming his crossbow at them.