Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead (TV or comic series) nor the characters in this story. Rights go to amc, Frank Darabont (producer), and Robert Kirkman (comic writer).
Different
"Griselda!" I call, spinning around near the tree. I can hear her raspy moans as she stumbles closer. She lunges, and one of her outstretched hands grazes my shoulder as I step away.
"Come on." I say, giggling. I circle her and quickly tap her on the back. She snarls, turning on me. "Tag! You're it!" I announce gleefully, trotting away. Griselda's long, brown hair falls in her face as she snaps her jaws at me.
"You get away from it!" Carol's voice shouts nearby. She was running toward us, knife in hand, and I instantly knew what she was going to do.
"No, no, no!" I yell, moving towards Griselda.
"Right now, Lizzie!" Carol scolds, luring my 'Tag' partner away.
"No, no, no, no, no!" I plead, putting myself between them, but Carol pushes me, tackles Griselda, and digs her knife into my new friend's skull, providing an instant death. Carol was panting as she pulled the knife free, but I just stared at the blood. It wasn't an uncommon sight these days, but…she was my friend…
"No! No! She was playing with me! She wanted a friend!" I yell, feeling my heart sink into the pit of my stomach.
"She wanted to kill you." Carol revises.
"I was gonna lead her away." I say, looking back to the corpse.
"You could have died." she snaps, looking up at me from the ground with anger.
"It's the same thing!" I snap back, balling my hands into fists. Why couldn't she get it? Why couldn't anyone else get it? "You killed her! You killed her! It's the same thing!" I continue, yelling louder than I ever have before. Louder than the time I was grounded for a week for playing with the neighbor's cat…she was a mean cat. She deserved our play date.
Carol says nothing, looking too surprise.
"What if I killed you? What if I killed you?!" I scream, shaking from my outburst.
She stares at me from the ground. "Lizzie…" she starts, as if to scold me.
"You don't understand. You don't understand." I mumble, looking down a Griselda's wound.
"Lizzie." Carol repeats, touching my shoulder.
"You don't understand. You don't understand. You don't understand!" I'm having trouble breathing, but ignore the pain. "You didn't have to. You didn't have to. She didn't want to hurt any…she didn't want to hurt anybody!"
Carol looks at me like I'm crazy, but that doesn't bother me. She wasn't the first to look at me that way, and if I could stomach it from Mika, I can stomach it from her.
"She was my friend and you killed her! You killed her! You killed her! She was my friend!" I cry, falling to the ground in tears. Carol lifts me to my feet, and I run away, inside the house, where Mika attempts to comfort me. It works, and for a while, I'm a little calm. Angry, but no longer screaming.
After our encounter with the burned ones, the ones we had to kill, Carol asked me if I understood, if I knew what needed to be done. I said I did, and she dropped the subject. Griselda, and the one that I fed on the train tracks, 'Nick', they wanted me to be like them. Carol and Tyreese and Mika can't (or won't) understand…so I have to show them. I need to prove that they're wrong about the 'walkers', at least some of them. I just need to wait until Carol and Tyreese weren't around to stop me, then I could show them all.
Later the next day, my hope became reality as the adults left to get food, leaving me, Mika, and Judith alone. Now was my chance! I find Mika outside, watching Judith attempt to crawl around on a blanket. I plop down next to my sister, eyeing the graves nearby.
"We can go back inside, if you want." Mika suggests, recalling my previous discomfort at the small burial sites.
"No, it's okay. I'm okay." I reply, looking over at her. She looks up at me with a smile that fades when she sees the look in my eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong, Mika." I answer.
"Are you still upset you had to kill them?" she asks.
I shake my head. "No. I get that some of them are bad, dangerous, but that would change if we were all like them." I say, wanting her to see things my way.
"You're wrong, Lizzie. It's like I told you before, they're monsters! They kill people, they…" she starts to argue.
"You're wrong!" I snap, grabbing her arm.
"Ow! Lizzie, it hurts! Lizzie, stop, you're hurting me!" Mika whines, squirming away after she falls on her butt. She's scared, I can see it as she glances at Judith.
"You need to understand them like I do. All they want is for us to change. We just need to change. We just need to be like them" I say. Mika backs away, scared of me, scared of what I was about to do.
I pull out my knife and smile. "It'll be okay, Mika." I coo, stalking closer and closer, step by step.
"Lizzie…Lizzie…" she repeats, breathing hard as I kneel next to her.
"Shh…" I whisper, brandishing the knife.
"Please don't do this. I love you, Lizzie, please don't…" she begs, but my first stab silences her.
"It'll be okay, Mika." I whisper into her ear, and stab her in the stomach again. She grunts and gurgles, growing pale as her blood runs down her clothes and covers my hands.
"I love you, too." I say softly, standing to face Tyreese and Carol as I hear their footsteps. They stop in their tracks, staring in horror at what I had done. Horror. Of course they don't see the beauty.
"Don't worry, she'll come back. I didn't hurt her brain." I explain, glancing at the corpse only to momentarily see the dead body of Griselda where my sister should have been. The blood still drips from my knife and the two of them still look mortified with their wide, unblinking eyes.
I smile at them, proud to finally show them, to prove it to them. It's only when Carol reaches for my knife that I realize she doesn't see what I see, yet again, so I drop the knife and raise my gun on her.
"No, no, no! We have to wait. I need to show you, you'll see, you'll finally get it. We have to wait." I insist, my hand a little shaky. They are silent until Tyreese tells me to put the gun down.
"I just want us to wait." I repeat, looking at him.
"We can wait. We can wait. Just give me the gun." Carol orders, holding out a hand. "We can wait, I swear." she adds when I don't move. I finally obey and she sighs.
"You and Tyreese should take Judith back. It's not safe for her." she says.
"But Judith can change, too. I was just about to…" I start, looking at the baby.
"She can't even walk yet." Carol says, softly, almost sadly.
"Yeah, you're right. I say, nodding in realization.
"So you two take Judith back to the house, and we'll have lunch, and I, I'll just tie Mika up, you know, so she won't go anywhere." Carol orders,
I look down at my gun in her hand. "Promise that's what you'll do?" I ask, hoping she would promise.
"I promise. I'll use her shoelaces." she says, and looks at Tyreese, who picks up Judith. He ushers me inside and I again smile. I'm happy, for the first time in a long time. They'll see I'm right, and Mika won't be a monster. She'll just be different, is all…