The impact already had my face stinging from the way we fell into the embrace of hunger for live meat, my heart racing like a machine, stirring up a new batch of adrenaline to make my brain send signals to the rest of my limbs so I could grab hold of what I'm pretty sure is Mark, and kick off the relentless walkers that are floating around in pieces now because we landed on them so hard.
I actually expected more of a fight from Mark, but it was more or less the usual threat trying to keep me down and drown me to death if not maul first.
All in one fleeting moment, quick and frightening, I almost see my leg get tangled in a what my imagination sees to be a thousand hands when really it's just about 5 walkers tops, stuck in some dirt, begging to be fed since they're so skeletal.
It's more clear here, even though it feels darker, and I keep hold of my hat floating away from my gravity free locks of hair while sun manages to shimmer just enough that I can see how dangerous the lower level of this small swimming hole is.
I'd think they had a mind to know what I am the way they're almost glaring at me.
Not really sure how screwed I am for a moment, it's Mark's tug on my collar that brings me back from staring, and I take a final swing of my foot to break free and surface to the cool air.
"Swim over there!" I furiously wipe at my eyes, blinking every two seconds so I can make out a tiny place to walk up and out of here from.
Mark's already coughing his lungs out. I'm guessing he didn't have any time to breathe in before he fell.
"Are you ok!?" I don't really care that much but if he's scratched or bit or something he's gonna have to be put down. I'm not sure how that'll roll over with Jesse. "Hey! Wait!" My knees drag a bit and I finally clear my eyes enough to slowly get the image of Mark's heavy blue jeans wet and somewhat close to his legs.
His shoes are gone, I don't know where, and not giving much of a sh1t, unless he tries to take mine, I throw my hat down and begin to catch my breath when I spot his own cap near my palm...and off his head.
"I-I-" Ok, what gives? Mark's voice is nowhere near as deep or weirdly presented as before when he stutters out something, his head still not visible to me, and he just stays shaky on his hands and knees, coughing up whatever else is stuck down his throat.
He doesn't have his hat on...which means that, whatever he's hiding, I know it has something to do with this cap he refuses to take off...
I take a quick look to make sure he's not already facing me, and dart to pick up his property. I must not have done it so quietly either, because my snatch makes his body react, his hand trying to get it before I do, but I'm on my feet and backing up, ready to yell at him for everything stupid he's said or done since I've met him, until I feel my tongue lose its ability to move, and my vocabulary goes blank at the sight of Mark's face.
What?
Clean from dirt almost, I see bright flawless skin glowing against perfect blushing lips that instantly remind me of pink orchids, and cat like eyes under short, dark but slightly thin eyebrows with sparkling, almost silver colored iris', and long hair that nearly reaches the ground wound and clumped in dark gray shades, wet and perfectly framing the face I just registered in my mind that actually does exist and belong to the kid I was just dragging out of the water.
And I know what this means. One shameless and unplanned glance to her chest, seeing the soaked sweater hug in between and around what I recognize to be breasts makes me blush at the realization that...Mark isn't a he.
Marks a she. A girl.
And she's beautiful. Even if she is glaring at me, she's beautiful.
______________
-Spes' P.O.V.-
"Ah-I-" Carl slowly loosens his grip on my cap without a purpose anymore, and I feel my arteries working hard to bring blood to and from my fast paced heart, unable to stop at the sight of my savior from only a few short minutes ago, stuttering and gawking at me like I'm something rare and totally unexpected in this lifestyle they call 'now'.
"Wha-"
I don't hear him finish the word. I get the fvck off my knees and run my as$ the heIl out of here, trying to get as far away as I can before he calls and chases after me.
He beat me in wrestling before, but I won't let him get the chance again.
I need to get to Jesse. I don't know how, but my saber is still on my hip so we should be able to make it out of here okay.
"Wait!!"
What?!
I don't have to turn to see Carl running after me, leaping over anything I jump over, gaining on my heels that I have to make a sharp turn to try and catch him off guard. Maybe then he'll trip and lose distance in this overgrown forest.
I just got the living sh1t scared out of me when I fell into that pool, those brief but memorable touches of rough skin trying to latch onto me until they slowly floated away from their original sockets that I knew, the dreadful instant I spun my body round in the water to get a better and clear look, that they weren't human.
They weren't anything I'd come across before.
They were...just what dad said they were. Back when he first told me.
_______________
"Oh, damm." I look up to my father's profile, the screen's glow imprinting itself onto his large glasses like a projector, the movement attracting my 11 year old figure to stand and insert my existence in the situation unknown to me.
"What is it father?"
"It's nothing Spes." He quickly gives me a smile, patting my head before I turn my eyes to see an almost blurry image of drunk man on a sidewalk, swaying back and forth before I notice the odd color of his skin.
"Father...what is that? It doesn't look like a man. But then again he does." A grotesque one I nearly thought. I would've called him that if I'd fully known the use of the word, but I was too caught up in figuring out what I was watching to speak it off my mind.
"This?" I watch my father put his finger on the screen and I nod. "This is what used to be a man, but is now an improved yet flawed stage in mankind's ability to evolve physically." He clears his throat. "Enhance 5 notches." The screen becomes clearer within the next second, and I stare at his mouse single out the face of the creature that begins to frighten me.
"It looks like a monster!" I bring my hand up to clutch his lab coat, if only a little. I remember I'd been trying to break the habit.
"Well, it may very well be...but don't think of it as a monster Spes. Think of them as...maybe a little sick."
"How did they get sick?"
He hesitates before thinking up some more pretty half truths to reality that I grew to find out later on.
"Remember I said you're blood is special? I accidentally gave it to some people, and a lot of people are ill now. That's why I'm here. To make them better. And I need your help. That's why I give you injections."
"So, I'm helping you." I smile a little. "If they're not monsters, then what are they?" I frown, still unsatisfied with the frozen image of cold dead eyes and gray skin with worn down gums and aged teeth on the computer looking at something in the distance.
They looked scary then. Even though I didn't get a good look...they look even scarier now.
"What shall we call them? Hmm...They are, 'The Infected'."
____________
The Infected.
Sure.
"Stop running from me!" A pair of hands grab wherever they can to yank me around, Carl's breaks not so good that we both crash onto the hard ground, my side immediately in pain but I can't even curl into a wounded position in time when I'm trying to get this as$hole off my body.
What the heck is he doing?! Oh my gosh Jesse was right...
He's going to rape me!
"Don't touch me!!" I try my best to lift my arms but he has them pinned in his palms tightly secured next to my head while caging my hips in between his knees, his chest heaving in and out while he stares down at me, still a little caught off guard by my true identity that he waits a second or two to speak.
"Ugh-Stop it!" He struggles to settle me down, opting to keep my legs from kicking when he sits and presses on me below my waist, his strength really shining through when I growl in a loud frustration that he's being relentless in keeping me beneath him.
"I'm telling you to get off of me!!"
"Not until you answer me what the heIl is going on!! Why were you pretending to be a guy!?" His deep voice has to shout over my constant huffs of upset breaths.
"Why the heIl do you care!?"
"I-"
"Get off of her!" I turn and see Jesse and the other 3 members of Carl's group watching while my captor gets the wind knocked out of him from my partner grabbing hold of him to push him off.
Thank fvck!
Oh perfect.
Rick's just processing the fact that my hair is longer than I'd implied it to be that Daryl quickly stomps over to throw Jesse to the side and pick Carl up from his lain down position.
"Spes run!" Jesse alerts me but I'm already caught by Daryl to even think about it.
Forget the difficulty with Carl keeping me down, I'd have to be a man to even hope to escape this rednecks grip. Dammit!
"You ok?" Rick checks his son while he nods and turns to look at me again. "You two have anything else you might be hiding?"
"Surprised you kept it a secret this long." Daryl growls in low amusement. "I was wonderin' when you'd slip up."
Jesse and I both share a look before I frown and turn to see Daryl's squinted eyes glint in the sun.
Slip up?
"What does that mean?" I gasp and struggle again. "You knew?!"
Seriously?!
"Can't exactly miss it." He hooks his finger into my large and heavy coat before pushing my head so I go forward and the oversized covering stays in his possession so my hidden figure is even more exposed, be it large or small sweater, the outline is there and obvious.
I can tell by the look on Michonne's face and Rick's slight ironic smirk in his beard that Daryl was the ONLY one who picked up on it.
"Wh-Why didn't you say anything?"
"Why didn't you?" Daryl pokes back at Jesse and I take this chance to get a better look at Carl, not so stunned anymore, but still eagerly keeping his eyes on me while I waddle back to stand and admit the jig is up and I'm officially a girl again.
"It was about my last group. Something happened to them and...I didn't want it to happen to her." My young adult ally pauses. "I didn't know if you could be trusted." His tone of voice is almost shameful or apologetic towards the confession.
Well sh1t. From the looks of these people they're trying to figure out what's going to happen now, and to be honest, I'm so ready for them to tell us to get the heIl out of here because I doubt I'd be any more comfortable now, especially when our trust level is already so fragile.
"Look I know we probably screwed up, but you can't blame me for this. Or her. If you're decent, and you know that we're cool...I'd like to stay, with her."
"What?!" I hiss at Jesse and they all stare at me like I'm a crazy b1tch.
"Spes-"
"No! There's no way I-" My throat gets cut off when I feel something rise and burst past my mouth and onto the ground, so painful to my chest that I have to get on my knees again and cough in between small amounts of throw up.
"Is she sick with something?" Daryl points the question to my friend, who's already rubbing my back and shaking his head in confusion.
"I don't know! Hey!? Are you ok?! What's wrong with you?!"
"I think it might be from earlier." Carl cuts in and I try to catch my breath after spitting up some extra half digested food I munched on before.
The taste is never good going up. Ugh gosh.
"What?" Michonne turns to look at her friend.
"Just now, we found a fountain and Mar-uh, she fell in, and there were Walkers down there. We didn't get hurt but it was close."
Damm right it was close. Too close.
I'm not exactly sure about the particulars, but my father always said that getting bit by one of the Infected, or as these hicks say it, Walkers, is a death sentence. I think my nerves caught up with me just now that I only had this to express it.
"You sure you weren't bit?" Michonne jerks her chin to me and I nod before scoffing.
"So what's going to happen to me? Worst nightmare, or...what?"
"What do you want to happen?" Rick finally leaves his son's side to stare at me get back on my feet, the slight ache in one of my ankles from all those sharp turns back there, kicking up whatever leaves had fallen earlier this month, and start to feel a little uncertain at what to answer his question with.
I wanted to join this group in the beginning, basically because they were people and I was getting bored and I'd never seen anything like what I saw back at the city unless it was splashed on TV, in pretty cheesy ways I might add, but now?
I really don't know. Me and Carl bumping heads aside, this group hasn't been a bowl full of cherries.
But...one look at Jesse, his hope to stay swirling in his eyes, and the slight realization that, this place, no matter how many times I compare it to the short comings compared to home, it's just, never going to be home, and that doesn't have to mean it's wrong...but, I'm not used to it.
And I don't think I'd want to get used to it either.
If I go to D.C., I go on my own.
That was my original plan. I may have let myself believe I needed Jesse, but I don't. I change my mind. I can do this myself. I don't even know if I can trust these people to protect me or even consider moving their precious backpacks to another state, so why risk it?
I should be grateful I'm not getting butt-fvcked or violated by who knows who and get the heIl out of here.
Just my luck there are actual freaks out there, the 'crazy' as opposed to these 'new sane' people, and I run into trouble with no one to help me.
Or...worse. What if I run into some of those things again?
"Daryl, I want you to take everything back. I'm goin' to go with Mark to get her stuff."
My stuff?
"I'm guessin' that you and Jesse probably had a backup storage somewhere in case you made it out alive and weren't welcome?" I look at his eyes display a sort of wise, fatherly kindness before he nods to Michonne and the rest, Jesse having no choice but to go with them, and I stand stationary, my last glance being to Carl who's already starting to look at me different now that I'm not a guy.
Like, things are starting to make sense, and I'm wishing they'd start to make sense to me too, because I'm still clueless as to what the heIl is happening.
I have no choice but to lead Rick back to where Jesse and I left the truck for a get away yesterday afternoon.
Perfect. Fvcking perfect.
Well, who knows? Maybe it is.
_____________
-Carl's P.O.V.-
"How did you know?" I whisper and look back to see Jesse explaining himself to Michonne even though she's giving him a face that screams 'I don't give a flying sh1t' and I look at Daryl glance my way.
"Kids as feminine as they come. Voice is a plain tell." His tone swaggers with his walk, relaxed and laid back. "Even in the dark you could catch her tits rounding out."
He doesn't hold back, that's for sure.
Next few steps, I scoff and shake my head at how stupid I am for not figuring it out.
"What?"
"Nothing it's just...I can't believe I didn't notice. Or figure it out." Am I that retarded?
"What would you have done?" I see the church slowly start to come into view as we further our trudge down the road.
"Something? Told somebody? Why didn't you?"
"What for? Ain't some big state secret we gotta know about. It's a gender. Not gonna make a heIl of a difference when it comes to attitude."
"Yeah but if I'd known I wouldn't have-"
Wait a minute.
So, Mark or whatever her name is, was a girl the whole time, meaning, when she went to go to the bathroom, she was, no-I was standing while she-
And then I needed to-
Michonne and Jesse soon pass me, and I could give a crap while I cringe at the idea of treating her like a guy the whole time she's been here, everything making sense, even though there's still a few blanks to fill in, and I really begin to wonder about my dad's trip with whoever her name is.
What they're talking about, what they're doing, because knowing my dad, this is the perfect time to discuss whatever it is that determines whether these two new people stay, or leave.
I'm not sure what I want, but it's pretty clear, I have no freaking idea what I'm going to say to her when she gets back.
If she gets back.
____________
Not totally interesting, not a cliffhanger, sorry if it was boring, etc... but wowza! Found out! Aha and of course Daryl knew all along. So like him. Also, if there are any typos or grammar issues, sorry if it's exceedingly bad, I didn't get a chance to proofread.
Anyway! What do you think? She gonna stay, or leave? O.O
G'night! Ta