𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧.
𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐
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H E R
I am not a person who believes in much.
After the world decided to drop everything and end, with my imminent death most likely breathing down my neck, believing in anything became just a puerile daydream.
But, somehow, I have survived. Even when I should not have. Even when others did not. So, perhaps, there was something to believe in. To hope for.
And, at the very least, I did not lose out in anything by simply believing in something. Whatever it was out there, kept me alive. For some reason, for some purpose. Despite the fact that I was nothing, nobody.
When I had first arrived at the prison, I was merely an orphaned child refugee from a town by the name of Woodbury. To break my heart even further, my father and brother had died just days before when we were at war with the place that was now our sanctuary. I didn't get the full story, but I pried enough information from some of the adults on the bus ride over. Simply put, the man who had been running our safe-holding, who we called Governor and trusted, went insane with his power lust and killed almost all his soldiers, and then screwed off into the great beyond when he realized he was fighting a losing battle. The people at the prison were good, just trying to protect themselves. They were going to take us all in. Put two broken groups together to make one large strong one.
What would they want with a bunch of kids and old people? Sure we had our adults who were capable of actually doing things, but the weak outnumbered them greatly.
My father always used to tell me: "Make the best of things, Ellie-Belly." And I would always respond with: "Dad, I'm too old to be called Ellie-Belly." To which he would say: "Alright, Ellie-Belly-Jelly-Bean."
I pressed my face against the cold glass of the rumbling window. My dad was alive a couple days ago. Then he was dead on the side of the road in a pile of bodies. How was I supposed to make the best of that? I guess I should have expected him not to return, because in the beginning my mother never did, either. It was a new rule in this undead world: when someone leaves, don't expect them to come back.
I don't really understand why God picks and chooses who stays and who goes the way He does. Surely, The Lord's plan didn't intend for my family to fizzle out the way it did. To leave girl on the cusp of adolescence, who was once bright and daisy-fresh, to now walk defenseless in a raw, angry world that festered like an untreated wound.
The faces around me mirrored my own, countenances traced with a deep sorrow woven by the threads of loss and loneliness. Parents dead by the Governor's hand, us Woodbury children. Only a couple among us had a mother or father still living. For the most part, we were all were on our own, no longer having an adult to depend on. We were about to turn our new home into a pseudo-orphanage.
The large cement structure loomed forebodingly over us. I had never seen a prison before, at least not in real life and not that I can remember off the top of my head. We rolled through the gates of several layers of upright barbed fences, much less welcoming than Woodbury, and I suddenly became aware that despite it all, we were as much prisoners here as the unreformed residents who dwelled here Before. Except we were being kept safe from the outside world, rather than the other way around.
The bus keeled to a stop and we unloaded in an orderly manner, everyone trying their bests to look organized and self reliant.
And, oh, the air. The first time I had smelt death I knew what it was immediately, it was so strange, like my body just knew. Now, I was used to it. The whole earth smelt like it was rotting, as there was more dead walking it than the living. No matter how far you got from it, it hung heavy. But you breathe it in and deal with it.
My boots hit the concrete and I stepped into the light, it glared in my eyes but only for a moment. I turned slightly, ready to merge into the steady flow of people making their way into one of the buildings when something stopped me dead in my tracks.
A boy.
One I had yet to see before, but there he was, not ten feet away. Arms crossed over his chest, an actual gun hung from his holster and he wore a goofy brown hat that was too large for him. His eyes scoured the crowd for a moment before glaring down at his boots, his mouth set in a firm line of clear annoyance.
He didn't want us here. This was his territory and he watched angrily as we unknowingly violated it.
He glanced up again, as if he could sense me watching him. I felt my cheeks burn for being caught staring. I mean, it was hard not to.
I was one of those unfortunate people who had the terrible habit of staring. Something catches my eye and then the man-made construct of time absolutely eludes me until a simple matter of looking becomes an uncomfortable affair for both parties.
I had never in my life seen anything quite like him. He was like some sort of adult in a child's body.
Something in his expression changed. In his eyes... pure hatred. I hadn't even spoken to him and he already loathed me.
Loathed all of us. To be exact.
What must we be to him? A load of pansies, swaddled up and left on their doorstep like a nameless infant. Sure to deplete resources, cause things to go awry, be nothing more than a fatal nuisance. He had a right to being upset at our intrusion, but I could not find it in myself to feel bad for him. I think I had an excuse not to feel bad for anyone. Orphans get few privileges, I let myself indulge in this one.
As if just our presence had set off a temper tantrum, he spun on his heel and disappeared around the corner of the building. Fists clenched and feet stomping.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Sasha. Directing me to go after the others as the last of us drained into the building.
x-x-x-x-x-x
I learned later that same day in the afternoon that his name was Carl. He was their (our) leader, Rick Grimes', son.
Although I heard much about him, I hadn't seen him since I had unloaded from the bus.
An older, pretty, blonde haired girl named Beth informed us, meaning most the older kids who could pay attention for more than ten seconds, all about the leader's boy who stayed locked away in his cell instead of greeting everyone, making us wonder what was up with him. I had kind of figured it out, considering the look he had given me.
"He's shy. It's going to take some time for him to come out and meet you guys. But don't worry. It doesn't mean he doesn't like you. He just... hasn't been around kids in a long time." I noticed that she seemed to be looking directly at me as she spoke, in between glances back at his closed-curtained cell. "But he's going to have to get used to it."
I liked the way she said the last part. Like she doesn't take any of this moody twat's hissy fits in which afterward he locked himself away in the dark silence of the cement caged room that we all were assigned to start living in.
"Can't you just make him come out of there?" Lizzie asked.
Lizzie was my friend, in a way. It was a complicated relationship. Closer to that of sisters than anything else. Younger by a year but somehow so much more confident than I. As in not afraid to tell you what she honestly thinks, which caused a lot of quarreling between us as I had grown comfortable enough to not be submissive towards her upheaval. She was as spunky as they came, knocking around in her cowboy boots and ashy ponytail that swished around with her theatric movements.
Beth smiled at her, she had almost a maternal sense about her. A thoughtful gaze and gentle gestures. I decided she was trustworthy. "He'll come out on his own time as long as you give him some. I promise."
"He better, or he'll starve." Lizzie said quietly so only I could hear.
I knew what it was called when people made a great effort to avoid a person, place or thing. They're called aversions. So I assumed that Carl Grimes had an aversion to people he didn't know, or perhaps just people on general. There, I used it in a sentence.
My mother always made me do that. Gave me a new word a day and then had me use it in a sentence whenever I could. It's like she thought if I had a big enough vocabulary I could be a doctor or something.
Beth motioned for us to move forward, out of C-block and towards our new living compartments.
I stayed several feet behind the group, still taking everything in when I felt someone watching me. I turned quickly and saw the white sheet of the boy, Carl's, cell flutter slightly before resuming to its unassuming form.
I didn't know what to think.
I heard the sounds of the group getting further away as the tour continued so I made my move and booked it out of there.
In my head, I began planning what I would say should I ever run into the leader's boy, as I had a running rate of not exactly having stellar first impressions. If this was my home now, I wanted to at least do my part of not seeming totally daft. Plus, I didn't like the idea of not being liked. Especially if it was baseless.
Little did I know how wrong Beth was. Because it was going to be a long time before I saw Carl Grimes again.
Makes me wonder if, instead, he had been the one seeing me.
≫ ──── ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ ──── ≪
hey losers get in we're going on an emotional rollercoaster that is 'all the lovely bad ones'
teehee buckle up my boopiekinz!!
edit:
this book was written 2014-2019, a five year period where i was completely unhinged and mentally unwell.
what can i say, hell is a teenage girl <3