Sorry about the super long prologue. When I was writing it, I didn't think it would be this long.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead, or any of its characters. I only own my OC, Clary Dixon.


~Clary~

The light dies down, and we enter, weapons raised. "Dixon, cover the back," Shane commands.

Daryl and I back in, making sure no walkers follow us. "Hello?" Rick calls. "Hello?"

"Close those doors," Dale tells my brother and I. "Watch for walkers."

Daryl keeps his crossbow raised while I make my way forward, then pull the doors shut. Daryl and I turn back towards the group, and find that we're in a large, spacious lobby. The CDC's lobby. "Hello?" Rick calls again.

A gun suddenly cocks, and those carrying raise their weapons towards the sound. There's a man standing there in sweatpants and a grey t-shirt, holding a machine gun. He looks to be in his mid-forties, and has blonde hair. "Anybody infected?" he calls.

"One of our group was," Rick answers. "He didn't make it."

The man takes a step closer. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

"A chance," Rick tells him.

"That's asking an awful lot these days." His words ring true. Nowadays, having a chance is like winning the lottery before. In other words, nearly impossible.

"I know," Rick says as the man takes a couple steps closer.

The man looks around at our group. Some have faces of hope, some of grief, and others, like myself, are impossible to read. "You all submit to a blood test," the man says. "That's the price of admission."

"We can do that," Rick confirms.

The man drops his gun. "You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed."

A few of us look at each other, then run outside, back to the vehicles. We grab the bags, and run back inside. T-Dog and Dale hold the doors open for us, then close them once we're all in. The man, a scientist, slides his card through a device on the wall, then says, "Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here."

The metal doors close, and the lights go out. Rick faces the scientist. "Rick Grimes."

"Dr. Edwin Jenner," the scientist replies. He leads us to a large elevator, and we all pile in. We're silent as the elevator goes down, and Daryl breaks it by saying, "Doctors always go around packing heat like that?"

"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself," Jenner answers. "But you look harmless enough." He looks down at Carl. "Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you."

Jenner chuckles at his own joke, while Carl looks at me. I give him a small smile that he returns, and the elevator stops. Jenner leads us down a corridor, where the only sound is the echo of footsteps coming from the other members of the group. Daryl and I tread lightly, a habit picked up from hunting that serves us well in this world. "Are we underground?" Carol inquires.

"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner replies, answering her question with a question.

"A little."

"Try not to think about it," Jenner recommends. We enter a large room with computers, a research lab. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room."

There's a humming and beeping as the lights in the big room, as Jenner put it, come on, revealing empty workstations. "Welcome to Zone 5," Jenner says, leading us down the ramp to the ground.

"Where is everybody?" Rick inquires. "The other doctors, the staff?"

"I'm it. It's just me here. I'm the only one left."

"What about the person you were speaking with?" Lori inquires. "Vi?"

"Vi, say hello to our guests," the last scientist says. "Tell them… welcome."

"Hello, guests. Welcome," a computer voice says.

"I'm all that's left," Jenner repeats. "I'm sorry."


"What's the point?" Andrea inquires as Jenner draws some of her blood. "If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever."

"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here," Jenner replies. "Let me just at least be thorough." Jenner pulls the syringe away from her arm. "All done." Andrea stands, and sways on her feet. Jacqui moves to help steady her as the last scientist says, "Are you okay?"

Andrea nods, and Jacqui says, "She hasn't eaten in days. None of us have."


Later on, we all sit around a table in a break room, laughing and eating. I chuckle as Dale continues to try to persuade Lori into letting Carl drink wine for the first time. "You know, in Italy," Dale says, "children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France."

"Mm," Lori says, as if impressed by the fact. "And when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then."

"Oh, come on," Rick says to her. "What's it gonna hurt?"

"Oh, look at you, Officer Friendly," I say. "Encouragin' under-age drinking. Good for you." I bring my hands together in a quick clap. "Two claps for you."

"Well, why don't you have some, too," Dale says, shooting a glance at Daryl.

"Don't gotta ask for my blessin'," Daryl says. "I was drinking' when I was her age. But, if my baby sister's havin' her first drink, it ain't gonna be some wine shit."

So, while Carl gets a glass of wine, I get a glass of whiskey. I take a drink of it, screwing my nose up at the taste. It's not as bad as I expected. Carl tastes his wine, and immediately sets the glass down, shaking his head in disgust. "Eww," he says.

That gets a laugh from everyone, while I grin at him over the rim of my glass, taking another drink. "Showoff," he says, wiping his mouth with his hand.

"Thank you, Grimes," I say simply.

"Dixon."

"City boy."

"Hillbilly."

"Ooh, you've gone too far," I say, my voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Still don't see how you can drink that," he says.

"Here, I guarantee you'll like it better," I tell him, walking around the table to give him my glass. He takes a drink from it, then screws up his nose at the taste.

"Better than the wine," he announces. "But still no."

"That's my boy," Lori says, while the others laugh at our bickering. Carl hands the glass back over to me and I walk back over to lean on a table beside Daryl. Lori pours the rest of Carl's wine into her cup.

"Just stick to soda-pop, bud," Shane suggests.

"Not you, Glenn," Daryl says, looking at him from across the room. "Keep drinkin', little man. I wanna see how red your face can get."

We all laugh, and I raise my glass, saying, "I'll drink to that."

Daryl swings his arm around my neck, ruffling my hair. "That's my baby sis."

"Get off," I say, but laugh.

Rick clinks his knife against his glass, and we all quiet down. He stands, saying, "It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly."

"He is more than just our host," T-Dog says, raising his glass.

"Hear, hear," Dale says, raising his glass, and we all follow his lead.

"Here's to ya, Doc," my brother says, raising his whiskey bottle. "Booyah!"

This sends up an echo of "Booyah!" and I raise my glass, saying, "Hells yeah. Here's to ya."

Rick looks at Jenner, thanking him properly, and the doctor raises his glass in reply. Shane ruins our good mood by saying, "So when you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?"

"Way to kill the mood, ass-hat," I snap, glaring at him.

"All the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened," Shane continues as if I didn't speak. "Where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane," Rick tells him, his voice full of warning. "Don't need to do this now."

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, isn't it?" Shane asks, clearly challenging Rick. "This was your move, wasn't it? To come here and find all the answers. Instead, we find him. We found one man. Why?"

Jenner is quick to oblige. "Well, when things got bad, a lot of people left. They went to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?" Shane questions.

Jenner is a bit more hesitant this time, but when he does, he looks at Shane and says rather harshly, "No. Many couldn't face walking out that door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

"You didn't leave," Andrea says, stating the obvious. No shit, Sherlock, I think. "Why?"

"I just kept working," he tells us. "Hoping to do some good."

"Dude, you are such a buzzkill, man," Glenn says, and I raise my glass in agreement.


Jenner leads us through a corridor, telling us what we need to know about the CDC. "Most of the facility is powered down, including housing, so you'll have to make do here," he says. "The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in the video games, or anything that draws power. The same applies—" he looks over his shoulder at the adults "—if you shower, go easy on the hot water."

With that, the doctor walks off, and Glenn turns around, looking at us. "Hot water?"

"That's what the man said," T-Dog says, grinning.

"Where the hell is the nearest shower?" I ask. We all take off into different rooms, Daryl and I taking one on the end. We drop our duffle bags off on the couch, and I open my mouth to say I call the shower when my brother disappears into the bathroom. "Hey, I was gonna call the bathroom," I say.

"Relax, I'll be five minutes," comes his reply. I plop down on the couch, digging out my clothes and shampoo from my bag. Five minutes later, Daryl walks out of the bathroom, his hair wet, and I walk in. The hot water is the best thing I've felt in the weeks since the beginning of the outbreak.

"Oh my god," I sigh, letting the hot water run down over my body. I run my hands through my newly cleaned hair, pushing the water off my face and letting more fall on it. I finish my shower, but stand under the running hot water for at least another minute. "Jesus Christ, that's amazing," I mutter to myself.

I reluctantly shut the water off, not wanting to step out from the warm stream, but I climb out of the shower, wrapping a towel around myself. I start to get dressed, and I actually get a good look at myself in the mirror. I'm so thin I can actually count my ribs. There's not much to eat in the apocalypse, and I'm a perfect example of it. But I really don't mind. I run off of adrenaline rather than food, so I gladly give up my food to my group. To my friends.

I finish getting dressed, pulling on cut off shorts and a shirt Daryl gave me not long ago. I walk out of the room and nearly walk into Shane, who ignores me and continues to his room with a friend named Jim Bean. I somehow wind up in the rec room, where Carl and Sophia play checkers (Carl letting Sophia win), and Carol browses books in the small library. "Knock knock," I say, announcing my presence.

Sophia and Carl look up, the latter grinning, and Carol leans out from behind a shelf to see me. "Anything good?" I inquire.

"A couple things," she says quietly. Despite me being friends with her daughter, Carol is rather shy around both my brother and I. "Some classics, among other things. Also, books with titles I can't pronounce." I smirk at that. "There's War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells."

"Oh, I love that movie."

"Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell," Carol continues. "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne. The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton. I think there's also Harry Potter. The Hunger Games. I think you'd like that one, Katniss."

"'Yer a wizard, Harry,'" I say in an imitation of Hagrid's voice, causing Sophia to laugh. "And did you really just say that?"

"I'm sorry," Carol says. "I didn't mean to insult you."

"Insult me? Are you kidding? That was brilliant." Carol smiles at me, and I say, "Sorry, but did you say The Outsiders?"

"Yep," Carol replies, pulling a copy off the shelf.

I take it from her, saying, "It's my favorite book."

"We read that in school last year," Carl says. "I like Ponyboy."

"'Stay gold, Ponyboy,'" I say, looking over at him. "'Stay gold.'"

"Now that's just mean," Sophia giggles.

I look over at her. "Who do you like then?"

"Two-Bit. You remind me of Two-Bit, Clary. Is he your favorite?" I shake my head, causing Sophia to ask, "Who?"

"Well, not gonna lie, the first time I read it," I admit, "I had a bit of a crush on Dally. And Matt Dillon was pretty cute the '80s, too."

Carol gives a little nod of her head that says, Yeah, that's true. Sophia questions, "So Dally's your favorite?"

"No," I say with a shake of my head. "Johnny."

"Johnny?" Carl repeats. "Why?"

"I don't know, just do," I say, slightly defensively. I don't want to tell them that Johnny and I are alike in too many ways. I don't want them to know who I really am. I leave the rec room, book in my hand. I turn when I hear a voice coming from a room I just passed. "Don't make me drink alone," Glenn says. "Or are you just gonna sit and read?"

He holds a full bottle of whiskey. I consider it for a moment before following him into his room; he could be a dick when he's drunk, like my dad was. But Glenn doesn't strike me as that kind of person. When I enter, he closes the door behind me, and then plops down in the middle of the room. He pats the floor across from him, and I sit, my legs crossed. Glenn sits the bottle of whiskey between the two of us after opening it. "You, me, a bottle of whiskey, and I Never," Glenn says.

I crease my eyebrows. "What's I Never?"

"What are you, a hermit? You've never heard of I Never?"

"I have friends."

You have three friends, Clary. Glenn, Carl, and Sophia. Three.

"A hermit with friends?" Glenn challenges.

"Hermits united. We get together every few years and talk about caves. It's quite fun, for a hermit."

"You are so odd, Clary Dixon," he says with a smile.

"Thank you, Glenn Rhee," I say. "So, how do you play?"

"It's simple, you say 'I never' and then you finish the sentence. If it's something you did you drink, if it's something you never did, you don't drink."

"That makes absolutely no sense."

"Learn by example. I never shot a crossbow. Now you drink because you've shot a crossbow. Your turn."

"I never been mistaken for Chinese."

Glenn drinks. "I never gave anyone a nickname based on their race."

"C'mon, Short Round's awesome," I say, taking a drink. "Wait, do I have to take a drink for each time I've called you Short Round?"

"I'm not gonna make you. You'd drink half the bottle."

"I haven't called you Short Round that much! Jerk."

"Jackass," Glenn replies. And so, for the next hour or two, Glenn and I nurse a bottle of whiskey while playing a drinking game that results in hilarious revelations, and secrets not to be shared. By the time the first bottle is nearly empty, Glenn has retrieved a second one. We continue the game until Glenn comes very close to passing out, at which I take the bottle and he lies down on the couch. I laugh at him as I leave the room, book in one hand and bottle of booze in the other.

I enter the room I share with Daryl, and the first thing I see is him asleep on the floor. He must've drank so much that he became what he calls "shit-faced drunk." I place a pillow under my brother's head and a blanket over him. I've done it before, when he fell asleep on the couch. He looks younger, more peaceful, and not the troubled, abused man that I know he is. I like seeing him when he's asleep. I can almost forget about everything that we've been through.

I plop down on the couch, finishing the mostly empty bottle before falling asleep.


When I wake, I'm still on the couch, but there's a blanket draped over me and the empty bottle is gone. I have a splitting headache, like I expected. Daryl isn't in the room. I sit up, rubbing my eyes. The door to the bathroom opens, and Daryl steps out. His hair is wet from the shower, and a towel is wrapped around him. "Mornin', Drinkin' Beauty," he says, a grin on his face. "Not bad for a first timer."

"Shut up," I groan, rubbing my temples, which causes my brother to laugh. Instead of speaking, I flip him off. I get a shower while my brother gets dressed, putting my long, wet hair into a braid. I walk out of the room to leave for breakfast since Daryl already left, and Carl looks up when I enter. "Are you hungover?" Carl asks when I pass him.

"You are like Two-Bit," Sophia giggles. Instead of responding, I hit Carl in the back of the head and glare at Sophia. I sit down next to Glenn, who has his head in his hands, moaning. I rub his shoulder, knowing how he feels. Actually, I probably don't, seeing he drank enough to be double shit-faced drunk. As it turns out, he has done many of the things I mentioned. Daryl comes over and sits next to me as Rick enters. "Are you hungover?" he asks his father. "Mom said you'd be."

"Mom is right," Rick replies, sitting down.

"Mom has that annoying habit," Lori says with a chuckle.

"Rick, your kid has a thing for asking people if they're hungover and making their headaches worse," I groan, my head killing me. Carl mouths his apology. I lay my forehead on Glenn's bicep, putting my arm around his shoulders.

"Eggs," T-Dog announces. "Powdered, but I do 'em good. I bet you can't tell. Protein helps the hangover."

He says the last bit as he scrapes some of the eggs onto Glenn's plate. The Korean lets out another moan, one rather close to a walker's. "Where did all this come from?" Rick inquires, and I glance up to see him holding a bottle full of tylenol. He hands it to his wife after failing to open it. "Could you help, please?"

"Jenner," she replies, taking the bottle. "He thought we could use it."

"Thank you. Some of us, at least."

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again," Glenn moans from beside me.

"It was your idea, Short Round," I tell him. He simply pushed a glass towards me in response, this one full of orange juice. "I take back my choice. Get to drinking, Willie Scott."

"Not gonna happen," I tell him, pulling away and picking up a fork to eat some of T-Dog's eggs. Shane enters, announcing his presence with a "Hey."

"Hey," Rick says back. "You feel as bad as I do?"

"Worse," the officer replies.

"The hell happened to you?" T-Dog inquires. "Your neck?"

I look up as Shane sits down. He has three scratches running down the left side of his neck. "Must've done it in my sleep," Shane says.

"Never seen you do that before," Rick says.

"Me neither," our former leader replies. I don't miss the look he shoots at Lori. "Not like me at all."

"Morning," Jenner greets, arriving in the break room. He is greeted by a chorus of "Hey, Doc" and "Good morning, Doc." I, on the other hand, greet him with a "What's up, Doc?"

"The sky," he replies, looking down at me as he passes on his way to coffee machine.

"Oh, dad jokes make the hangover worse. Someone feed me to the walkers."

"Stop," Daryl scoffs.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing," Dale starts, but Jenner cuts him off.

"But you will anyway," Jenner says.

"We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea says.

And with that, we quickly finish our breakfast before following Jenner into Zone 5. "Vi," he says as he walks to a work station. "Give me playback of TS-19."

Vi repeated the command as the computer program brought up a video on the big screen. "Few people ever got a chance to see this," Jenner informs us. "Very few."

On the screen, a blue light flashes as the playback loads, one looking like it could be a brain. Carl must be thinking the same thing, because he asks, "Is that a brain?"

"An extraordinary one," Jenner answers. "Not that it matters in the end. Vi, take us in for E.I.V."

"Enhanced internal view," Vi repeats, zooming in on the brain. Lights flash through the brain, going from one place to another. "What are those lights?" Shane asks.

"It's a person's life," Jenner informs us, as if he's teaching a class. "Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique. And human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl inquires.

"It's what makes you, well, you," I say, looking over my shoulder at my brother. "Those ripples of light are what makes you human."

"That's correct," Jenner says. "Those are synapses. Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says or does or thinks from the moment of birth, to the moment of death."

"Death?" Rick inquires. "That's what this is, a vigil?"

"Yes. Or rather the playback of a vigil."

"This person died?" Andrea says. "Who?"

"Someone who was bitten and infected, and volunteered to have us record the process."

"TS-19," I say. "Test Subject 19. That's what it means, doesn't it?"

Jenner gives a nod without even looking at me. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."

Vi scans forward to the first event, zooming out from to brain. A blackness has started to overcome the synapses, filling up at least thirty percent of TS-19's brain. "What is that?" Glenn inquires.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown. And then, the major organs. Then death." The brain goes completely dark. "Everything you ever where or will be… gone."

Andrea lowers her head, clearly thinking of her sister. "Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asks her mother.

"Yes," Carol tells her.

Andrea sniffs, wiping her eyes, causing Jenner to turn around and look at her. "She lost somebody two days ago," Lori tells him. "Her sister."

Jenner walks over and tells her, "I lost someone, too. I know how devastating it is."

I feel Daryl's hands on my shoulders, and lean back into my chair to look up at him. It goes unspoken between us: That's what happened to Jess. I latch onto his wrist, chills travelling down my spine as I remember my undead uncle snapping his teeth after me, hungry for my flesh.

"Scan to second event," Jenner commands. "The resurrection times vary widely. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, and seven seconds."

A small red light flickers in the back of the patient's head, then grows. "It restarts the brain?" Lori inquires.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick questions.

Jenner turns to face him, gesturing to the screen. "You tell me."

"It's nothing like before," Rick says. "Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part—that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."

A flash appeared on the screen, followed by what looked like a bullet cutting through the patient's head. "God," Carol says. "What was that?"

"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea says. "Didn't you?"

"Vi, power down the main screen and work stations," Jenner says instead of answering.

"So, they're somewhat alive," I say. "But they ain't human. They're empty of everything we have. A conscience, a soul. Thoughts. They're just a moving body, fueled by the instinct for food. Fueled by hunger. They're alive, but just enough to move and feed. A better term for them would be the walking dead."

"If you want to look at it that way," Jenner says.

"You ain't got an idea 'bout what it is, do you?"

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui interjects.

"There's also that," Jenner tells her.

"Somebody must know something," Andrea says. "Somebody somewhere."

"There are others, right?" Carol inquires. "Other facilities?"

"There may be some," Jenner informs us. "People like me."

"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asks.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives. All of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"So it's not just here," Andrea states. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"

Jenner says nothing. "Jesus Christ," I mutter.

"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again," Daryl says.

"Doctor Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to as one more question," Dale says, speaking for the first time since coming into Zone 5. "But, I do have one. That clock." He points to a clock on the wall. "It's counting down. What happens when it reaches zero?"

"The," Jenner hesitates, obviously trying to come up with a good excuse. "The basement generators, they run out of fuel."

"Tell the truth," I say. "What really happens at zero, Jenner?" He doesn't answer, so I turn to the screen. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur," Vi answers.


I follow Glenn, Rick, Shane, and T-Dog down the steps to the basement, Rick in the lead with a flashlight. The lights flicker on as we walk down the steps. "Decontamination? What does that mean?" Glenn inquires.

"I don't know," I say. "But I don't think it's good. Didn't you see how Jenner clammed up?"

"Yeah," Shane agrees. "I don't like that. And the way he just wandered off."

"What's wrong with him?" T-Dog asks. "Seriously, man, is he nuts, medicated, what?"

Rick points down a hall, and we follow him down it. We enter the basement, lights flicking on as we do so. Rick sends Glenn, T-Dog, and I in one direction, and him and Shane in another. All we find are dead generators and empty fuel drums. Suddenly, the lights go out, then faint ones come on. "Hey, who turned out the lights?" I call.

"Not the time for a Doctor Who quote, Clary," Glenn chides. Glenn, T-Dog, and I meet up with Rick and Shane. "Did one of you guys kill the lights?"

"No. What'd you guys find?" Rick replies.

"Dead generators and more empty fuel drums than I can count," T-Dog answers. We hurry back up the stairs, and when we enter Zone 5, I can hear Daryl interrogating Jenner about the lights. "Rick?" Lori calls.

"Jenner, what's happening?" our leader asks.

"The building is shutting itself down, dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. It started as we approached the half hour mark," Jenner says. He looks up at the clock, which is nearing thirty. "Right on schedule." Daryl takes the bottle of whiskey from Jenner's hands, spilling some on the floor. The doctor looks at us, then says, "It was the French. They lasted the longest, as far as I know. They stayed in the labs 'til the end. They thought they were close to the solution."

"What happened?" Jacqui asks.

"It's the same thing that's happening here, isn't it?" I ask. "Facility wide decontamination, whatever the hell that means."

"No power grid," Jenner says. "Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. How stupid is that?"

Shane starts to go after him, but Rick stops him. He turns to his wife and son, telling them to get their things. He tell the same to rest of us. As soon as he says it, an alarm starts blaring. "The hell is that?" Daryl exclaims, standing next to me as we head to our room. "Doc, what's going on here?"

The doors suddenly close before we can go anywhere. "The hell are you doing?" I exclaim.

"Did he just lock us in?" Glenn asks, then exclaims. "He locked us in!"

"You son of a bitch!" Daryl shouts, dropping the bottle as he starts forward. "You son of a bitch!"

"Shane!" I shout, seeing as he's the closest to my brother and strong enough to stop him. The officer pulls my brother away from the doctor, as T-Dog and I run down. I push Daryl back, who is fighting against Shane, as T-Dog shouts for him to stop. Rick walks down, a look in his eyes I've never seen before. "Jenner, open that door now," Rick commands.

"There's no point," Jenner tells us. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Then open the damn things!" Daryl shouts.

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door is closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." Jenner pauses a moment. "It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick inquires. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?"

Jenner doesn't answer, so Daryl shouts, "What happens in twenty-eight minutes!"

"You know what this place is?" Jenner exclaims, standing to face us. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff!"

"You're doin' a pretty shitty job of it now!" I shout.

"We prevented things from getting out! Things that you didn't want to see, ever!"

"Do you think we wanted to see this shit! Most of us lost our family or our friends! You did a helluva job of not letting this get out!"

Daryl places a hand on my arm, pulling me back, as Jenner composes himself. "In the event of a power failure, a catastrophic one, H.I.T.'s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H.I.T.'s?" Rick questions.

"Vi, define."

Vi launches into a long description, and I don't understand most of it. Other than the only thing equivalent to the power of a H.I.T. is a nuclear bomb. "Jenner, what does that mean?" Daryl inquires.

"It sets the air on fire," he says simply. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything."

I reach behind me for Daryl's hand, but I find he has left me. I turn to see that he's at the door, kicking it and trying to get it to open. "OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!" he shouts at Jenner.

"Out of my way!" Shane shouts, running up to the door with an axe. T-Dog throws one to Daryl, who joins Shane in trying to bust the door open. I sit on top one of the workstations, counting down the seconds until our deaths. Jenner talks to the women who sit on the ground, Carl and Sophia in between their mothers. I look over at Shane, who has come down from the door. "Can't make a dent," he tells Rick and I.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner informs us.

"Your head ain't!" Daryl exclaims, coming down from the door with his axe.

"Whoa!" Rick exclaims, as he and Dale move to stop my brother. I wrestle the axe from his hands, saying, "Put it down, Daryl! Put it down!"

"You do want this," Jenner says. "Last night, you said it was only a matter of time before everyone you loved was dead."

"You really said that?" Shane inquires. "After all your big talk?"

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick says to Lori.

"There is no hope," Jenner says. "There is no hope for any of us."

"You're wrong," I say. "Jenner, you're wrong. There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but there is someone, somewhere, that still has—"

"What part of everything is gone don't you understand?" Andrea says. Jenner agrees with her, believing that this is "our extinction event."

"This isn't right," Carol says, her voice shaking from crying. "You can't just keep us here."

"One tiny moment," Jenner says, leaning forward in his chair. "A millisecond. No pain."

"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!"

Jenner continues trying to persuade us to stop trying, but Shane isn't having it. He cocks a gun, putting the end of the barrel in Jenner's face. "Open the door," he threatens. "Or I'm gonna blow your head off."

Rick tries to tell Shane that if he does this, then we'll never get out of the CDC. Rick wrestles the gun from Shane, but not after the latter shoots some computers. Our leader hands the gun to T-Dog, and continues trying to get Jenner to open the door, but takes a very different path. He asks Jenner about why he stayed when others ran or opted out. As it turns out, he stayed because he made a promise to Test Subject 19, his wife. He explains to us why he stayed, the promise he made, as Daryl goes back to pounding on the door.

"Your wife wanted you to go as long as you could, right?" I say. "That's what we want to do. We want to go out there and go as long as we can. Try as hard as we can. We want to try to live as long as we can. It's what your wife wanted you to do. So c'mon, give us our chance."

Jenner is quiet for a moment, then says, "I told you, topside's locked down. I can't open those."

He walks over to a desk and swipes his card. The doors open. "C'mon!" Daryl calls. "Let's go!"

We run up the ramp to the door and out into the corridor. Rick and Jenner say their goodbyes, Jenner whispering something to Rick's ear. "C'mon, we got four minutes!" Glenn shouts.

T-Dog tries to pull Jacqui up the ramp with him, but she has decided that she wants to stay. We run to our rooms as fast as we can, getting our bags. Andrea decides to stay behind, but Dale tries to persuade her not to. He waves us on, and we reach the lobby within a minute. The doors won't open when we get up there, so Shane and Daryl try to open the windows with the axes. All it does is scratch the glass. It doesn't cut it, doesn't break it, just scratches it. T-Dog tries to use a chair to bust it open.

"Outta the way, boys," I say, putting a clip in a handgun. Shane, Daryl, and T-Dog jump down from the windows, and I unload half a clip into the window, but it's useless. "Dammit!"

"The glass won't break?" Sophia questions. Carol starts forward, digging in her bag. "Rick, I have something that might help."

"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna go it," Shane says.

Instead of producing a nail file, she produces a grenade. "Holy shit, Carol's packing heat!" I say.

"The first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket," she says, handing it to Rick. We all dive for cover as Rick pulls the pin and sets it by the window. He runs for cover, and the blast throws him into the air. But the window shatters.

We run out of the CDC, killing walkers that stumble towards us after being drawn out by the blast. The group hurries to our cars, Daryl and I climbing in his beat up Ford truck as fast as we can. "Daryl," I say, seeing two people exit the building. "They made it. Andrea and Dale."

Rick suddenly blows the horn of the RV, and Lori yells for Dale and Andrea to get down. Daryl and I duck down in truck, him covering me, as the CDC explodes. Even though we're far away, I can still feel the heat from it. Jacqui and Jenner are dead, and the rest of us are still alive for another day.