It's been awhile since I wrote Walking Dead... but I was so inspired by that quote from Rick at the beginning of this week's episode. (The title Quote). I just... everything is breaking and it's destroying me. It's short, but I have a hard time writing the characters, so I hope it's still good.
It's short.
We're Dying Here
The clock was frozen: ten-o-clock. The sky was red. Death crippled the landscape. Everything was black.
Cigarettes littered the pavement; shotgun shells, bloodied hands, sweat-drenched hair, the smell of rotting corpses. It was like home, or what home had become since the dawn of the Dead.
Since the dawn of the Walkers.
Tears washed dirt from their faces as they stared into the mist. The mist that was coming. The mist that scared them; forced Daryl to his feet, dropped Rick to his knees; the mist that crippled Hershel, and left Carl without a mother.
The mist was the beginning of the end, and Glenn couldn't help but grab onto Maggie's hand and squeeze tight. If this was the end, he'd go down with the one he loved.
Maggie's grip was just as tight as they drove toward the beginning of the end: their end.
Who knew what troubles would lie in that dirt-washed town? Who knew that behind that bucket of baby powder lay a danger they'd long forgotten?
Glenn kissed Maggie, pushing a token of affection against her dry lips, and she smiled against him, humming as she cupped his cheek, "I love you." It was their mantra. They were in love and they would not forget the small hope they protected in the sea of despair. Who were they to show affection at camp with Rick breaking down over Lori, and Daryl swallowing his tears as he stood over Carol's grave.
They were the answer to the never-ending question: how do we go on?
There was a girl watching. She saw their love, she wanted to protect them from the hurt, from the pain. She wanted to stop it. But, how could she when she knew so little?
Were they the people she wanted to be? Or were they the evil she ran from? The evil she disobeyed?
Who could she trust in a world full of lies?
When she sat on her bad ankle, doing nothing but watching as they were carted off to that evil, she knew she'd done the wrong thing. The right thing was to protect, and so she picked up that red basket. She picked up that lost hope they'd discarded as they were thrust into captivity.
She made her way to their home and she helped. She helped for the one's she'd lost to cruelty. She helped for Andrea, who still had so much trust, and so little to lose. She helped because Maggie and Glenn were lost in love. They were still too far gone to thrust their blade into Merle's matching black eyes.
They were too in-love to sacrifice their heart to an evil that wouldn't die. They couldn't trust him, but they couldn't give up on each other, so they let it pass as they drove off to their possible destruction.
So, she helped. Michonne helped.
She found her way back to their camp, and she curled her rough hands against the metal of that prison fence. She stared into the lost eyes of that man and she knew she'd done the right thing.
She had helped, and now their salvation was at hand. If these people knew Merle, then they knew Andrea. And if they knew Andrea, maybe they could save her. Maybe they could...
She stopped. It was too much to hope for in a world so cruel. She'd just have to wait. And she would. Because wasn't that what she'd done all along?
They were dying. Everyone. "We're dying here." Rick said, as he had poured his broken heart into the phone he'd hoped would bring their salvation.
"We're dying here."
And they were. They were dying for life, for salvation, and above all else, for hope.
They were dying for hope that the world would return and life would begin anew.
They were dying for hope.
It was almost heart-breaking how literal that fact was.