XXVI. think I forgot how to be happy
Mia didn't know what to do with herself. She felt stuck. Like her brain and body were working against each other. She wanted to help. To get supplies and go searching for the food bank, but she was denied. In the eyes of the adults, she was exactly what she appeared to be. A kid. A fifteen(?) year old girl. But Mia no longer felt like a kid. She didn't think like a kid. She thought like a person who needed to survive and that meant doing the unthinkable. She wasn't a kid. So she didn't understand why she was being treated like one.
She remembers the first time she went to church with her family. The twins were eight years old. Paris was five. They were too young to understand the word of God that was being preached to them, but Mia observed many of the crying people around her. The ones that got on their knees to pray. The ones who raised their arms to the sky. Who sang along to the hymns.
But the Madeline Jones died and Riley Jones couldn't seem to step into another church afterwards. So his children stopped going. The subject of God and religion was something Mia never understood. But she thought if he saw everything she'd been through, everything she had to do to keep herself alive and what she tried to do to not survive, would he really accept her? Was she the ideal girl to be presented into Heaven? Or was she too far gone?
Rick took Gabriel along with the others so he could guide them to the food bank. Maggie, Glenn, and Tara went scavenging. Daryl and Carol went to gather water. Abraham was still busy trying to get the bus to work. It left Carl and Mia to do nothing but walking around the church. He was outside in the sunlight. She was inside in the dark.
The longer she sat in the pews, the stronger the memories of her family got, and the deeper her sadness became. She stared down at her scared wrists. Fading lines that were reminders of how much she thought her life wasn't worth it. How much she thought continuing to live in a destroyed world wasn't worth it. She thought it was her only way out. She tried to kill herself and now she was in a church sitting in front of God.
There's four coffins lined up in perfect rows in front of her. Open caskets. Her father, mother, brother, and sister. Their skin pale and statue like. Their eyes closed, makeup on their faces to conceal their imperfections. Lined up like four little beautiful dolls still in their packaging.
Mia found it hard to breathe. Her chest started to close. Her hands clawed at her throat, desperate for air. But she didn't move. Her body was locked in place, brown eyes wide and tear filled, as if someone was holding her head to keep her from looking away. She stared into the eyes of her twin brother, his irises red, and his insides torn out. Blood stains on his clothes. The side of his neck ripped out and blood gushing. Paris's body was no longer in the casket – only what remained of her. Her mother was gone. Her coffin disappeared. Then there was only her father, whose right side of his face was no longer there, the skin torn and slashed. His stomach and legs ripped apart.
Finally, she could move, and she dropped the knife in her hand. The blood from the blade coated her skin.
"Amelia."
Mia nearly screamed and she jumped out of her skin. Carl stepped back when she looked his way, her brown eyes rimmed red with tears. She looked completely terrified. "Mia—"
"Jesus Christ, Carl." She gasped and held her aching chest.
Any other time, he would've laughed. "I'm sorry. I said your name, like, three times. You wouldn't answer."
She blinked multiple times. The coffins were gone and her family was gone. It was only them in the church. Mia looked around, still breathing heavily, and she lowered her hand from her chest.
"Are you okay? What happened?" He quickly asked.
"Nothing. I-I'm fine. Just exhausted." She excused.
"But—"
"Did you need something?" She tried not to sound mean.
Carl blinked, shocked and confused. But then he remembered what he came here for. "I need you to see this."
With furrowed brows, she followed him out of the church. But not before looking over her shoulder again to see if she was still just having a nightmare. When she stepped into the bright sunlight, her eyes squinted. She saw Abraham still working on the bus. "What's so important?" She asked.
"Just c'mon." Carl grabbed her hand and led her to the side of the church. When they got there, he stopped and slowly dropped her hand. He pointed his finger to the building. "Look."
Mia followed his finger and her eyes landed on the multiple scratches that marked the white wood. "Whoa." She uttered. It gave the chills.
"That's not all." He spoke again. He gently grabbed her elbow and led her with him again.
Mia's eyes watched him until he stopped them again. She turned her head and took a step forward. The words YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS were etched onto the wall. Her lips parted slightly. "What the hell." She said to herself. She looked around them bundling again. "W-What do you think it means?"
Carl only shrugged. "I don't know. I just found it when I was walking." He explained.
"Carl, I don't trust this guy." She said and looked at him.
"We don't know the whole story. It's probably nothing." He responded with another shrug. "He let us into his home, basically. He can't be that bad."
"Or he's a psycho that's trying to get us to trust him so he can wait for the right moment to kill us all." She hissed in a whisper. She leaned closer to him. "You don't seriously think he's innocent, do you?"
"Nobody's innocent anymore, Mia." He almost whispered. "But he seems harmless. I mean, he doesn't even have weapons."
"That doesn't mean anything."
His lips parted as if he was going to say something, but then he stopped. She looked up at him with those big brown eyes and he saw the fear in her irises. It was always there. But it emphasized now more than anything. "Are you really okay?" He changed the subject. "Why did you look so scared in there?"
Mia blinked and looked away from him. "I told you, it's nothing." She dismissed. She started walking away to go back inside.
He quickly followed her. His hand latched on her elbow again. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I know when you're lying." He said quickly. "You can trust me with anything, Mia. You know that."
Of course she did. But he didn't need to know just yet. He didn't need to understand the things that were happening inside her head. None of them did. "I'm just. . . scared that we're going to get attached to this place and it'll all be for nothing. We've come too far. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."
His left eyebrow raised. "To me?"
"To all of you!" She corrected herself, her eyes widening in the slightest. "You're all my family. I couldn't stand something happening to any of you. I'd go insane."
Carl half smiled. "You worry too much, Amelia." He then realized he was still holding her arm. He dropped his hand.
"Well, if I don't, who will?" She said back, the corner of her lips turning upward. He kept saying her full name. Even when she didn't want him to, the way he said it made her smile.
His smiled widened when she smiled. She took off walking again and his eyes followed her. She paused again and turned around. "Come back inside with him."
Carl nodded and walked with her.
Hearing each other's laughter was a sound the adults plus Mia and Carl weren't used to hearing lately. For so long it was go, go, go for them. Always on the move. Always keeping their eye on watch for everything around them. They didn't have time anymore to sit around and be a family. To laugh and joke with each other. Mia almost forgot what their laughter sounded like. What their genuine smiles were like. What her smile was like.
"C'mon little lady, I know you can do it!" Abraham shouted in her ear.
Mia stared at the cup of liquid in her hand. She looked at him again. "I'm fifteen." She simply stated.
He shrugged like it was nothing. "Never stopped me."
Rosita scoffed. "Abraham, that's a terrible idea."
"I agree." Maggie objected as well.
"Oh, come on now." Rick chimed in, smiling with amusement. Judith sat on his lap. "Mia's old enough to decide."
"What's it gonna be, small one?" Abraham nearly shouted again.
Mia looked at all of the adults watching her, waiting for her to decide. They were amused by the situation. She looked to Carl but all he did was shrug. "Don't look at me."
She rolled her eyes. Everyone around her chuckled. She stared at the cup of wine again in disgust. Sucking it up, Mia brought the cup to her lips and drank it. Immediately, she spat it back out. "Oh, God." She gagged.
Abraham let out an obnoxiously loud laugh, one that made Rosita flinch, and he slapped his thigh. Maggie and Glenn laughed at her red face. "That was horrible."
"Might wanna keep that thought from now on." Said Glenn with a funny laugh.
Carl laughed at her and she punched him arm. It only made him laugh more.
They had food, water, and shelter. For one night, they didn't have to worry about being killed or killing something or someone. They could just be a family. "You should've seen your face." Carl continued to laugh.
"I'm going to throw it in yours if you don't stop laughing." She threatened and held the cup up. She laughed herself after that.
"I'd like to propose a toast!" The huff ginger announced to them all. The chatter died down. "I look around this room. . . and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title." He smiled and held up his cup. "To the survivors."
"Survivors! Cheers!" They all changed back and lodged their cups.
"Is that all you want to be?" He kept on. It got silent again. "Went up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat? Cause you can do that. I mean, you got the strength. You got the skill."
For a long time, Mia didn't think there was any of option but surviving. She did it on her own for so long. She killed over and over again. Spent so many lonely nights not sleeping. She had her family taken from her. The prison taken from her. Every good thing that entered her life ended up gone one way or another.
"Thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now, we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip." Abraham declared.
Judith let out a soft coo. Rick wished her softly and she laid her head on his chest.
"Eugene, what's in DC?"
They turned their attention to Eugene. Mia shifted herself on the pew she was sitting in. "Infrastructure constituted to withstand pandemics even if this fubar magnitude," Eugene started. "That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart."
She desperately wanted to believe his explanation could be true. But there was something in her stopping her. Maybe she'd gotten used to the way the world was. And that was a sad thing for a girl so young.
"However this plays out. However long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you've ever been since this whole thing started. Come with us."
Mia chewed on her tongue. She glanced to her right, Glenn meeting her eyes, but he didn't smile. He looked like he was contemplating. Looking to give her an answer.
"Save the world for that little one. Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there who don't got nothing left to do except survive."
Maybe it was too late for Carl and Mia to have a new life but Judith was a baby. She didn't understand what was going on. She could grow up in a better world. Have a fresh start. Not ever have to know the horrors that they lived in.
And that's when she thought about what her father wanted for her and her siblings. Riley Jones wanted to save the world. To make it better for this son and daughters. To one day give them the life they once had. But the world was cruel. It didn't want him to succeed. He was taken too soon. They all were. Mia had to suffer with knowing that she was the last Jones alive.
Lori Grimes wanted her son to beat the world. To find a life worth living. Maybe this could be his chance to honor that.
The group was completely silent even after his speech was done. They contemplated the statement, glanced at each other. Judith made another noise. "What was that?" Said Rick. It made them all laugh. "I think she knows what I'm about to say." He said to Tyreese. "She's in. If she's in, I'm in." He declared. "We're in."
The group cheered. "Yeah! Let's do it." Their voices overlapped.
Mia stood from the pew. Carl watched her walk around. "Where're you doing?"
She looked down at him. "I'm just gonna get some air." She said and quick him a quick smile.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No, that's okay. I'll just be a few minutes." She responded and gave him a quick smile. She avoided eye contact with them and she left the church.
She sat on the bottom steps of the church. It was pitch black. The talking and laughter from inside echoed. She should've been happy. She longed to feel happy again. For a while, she did. When she found the prison and her people, Mia felt on top of the world because she wasn't alone. She was safe with them. Until she wasn't.
Reality came back to her. She was just a girl with scared wrists and a bruised neck. A girl whose body was beaten and tired. A monster with human flesh. The world wouldn't miss it. It had bigger problems to deal with. She had a chance to get her life back, they all did, and yet all she could think about was how she didn't want to start over without her family. Her father deserved to see a new world. Paris deserved to start a normal life. The twins deserved to just be kids.
Mia rested her elbows on her knees. She looked at her wrists and eyed the scars. She pressed them to her lips and unreleased the tears. A cry escaped her lips. She cried for those she lost to the evilness around her. For killing her brother even though it's what he asked of her. She clutched her aching chest and cried louder, it being overshadowed by what was going on inside. She just wanted the pain to stop.
That's when she felt a blunt force to her head. She fell to the ground and everything went black.
it's not an Ally story without me finally updating after forever and it ending on a terrible cliffhanger.