I ain't ever felt hell or heaven since. I'm a broken piece of shit and bein' a broken piece of shit ain't that bad at all. Got me some good laughs with Merle after them drunken brawls, and bad broken ribs, or fingers, or swollen eyes in the mornings. But that's life, no? That's life on mine own terms. I didn't care of 'em people 'round me, and I guess that's how you fix broken pieces of shit: you live and live, and you don't need another load in the ass. Ya just gotta breathe for yourself and thas'it. That's what Merle taught me and that's how I's grown.

There ain't hell. Nah no heaven either. This land they call planet Earth is what it is: that place for broken pieces of shit and when we had that refuge of a jail all smashed and sacked, I knew I had to live like that again. To run and run and survive. To be that familiar scent of mine when I's lost in the woods for days that I had to wipe my ass with poison oak.

But then's different.

I had someone to survive with. Had someone to look after when walkers snap their shit at me. Had to go back a few times to see if she's still there. Had to share that meager dew from the dented, moldy, water jug.

Beth.

I hated her. And I hated it. I hated them green eyes that secretly hated me too. Those sick eyes sticky with torment and grief for a family she's never havin' back. She's got the face painted with her daddy's death. And I hated it because I don't damn know how to explain why I wasn't able to save her daddy, or to find Maggie, or to tell her everything's gonna be fine.

Because I blame me too, and I can't do nothin' bout it.

And I hated myself more when I let her slip through mine grasp and had her taken from me. That stupid blonde girl who wanted to play that stupid drinkin' games rather than loot for goods to breathe on for a few more days. That bitch with a bright yellow bloody t-shirt and brown knitted top, who had a stupid foot that got leg-trapped, and her stupid thoughts of writin' a useless Thank-You note on an abandoned house.

But above em, I was drowned in this panic when she cried, when she got limp, and when I watched that cross behind that car drive her away. It was a gross panic I ain't felt before, like I was back on them time when my old man did nothing but beat the shit out of me, or when I's lost in the damn woods.

And all these days what I did was to find them clues to lead to Beth. That girl who taught me to hope, and got me hopin' I'd hear her sing Judith to sleep, or watch her braid her hair, or mess around with my past which she's got no care no matter how fucked up it was.

I did find her, but 'twas damn late. I remember seein' her within reach on that hospital hallway, my adrenaline shot up so high I couldn't breathe that she was actually there, but I didn't know there she'd be last seen standing or last heard talk.

That stupid, stupid girl who wanted to play superhero.

That superhero who burst a virtual bullet through my chest the moment it blasted through her head.

I saw her fall, and dragged the world she fixed for me, and there she smashed it all once more.

And then I knew.

I wanted that stupid blonde girl. Kid or woman or whatever she was, I wanted to protect her. I want to hear her stupid singing. I want her to open them wounds to me: to sing me her joys, and her grief, her laughin', and her goddamn kisses.

But she's gone.

And since then I finally felt what hell's really like.

AthenAres