A/N: I tried my hand at writing something that was very dark and innocent at the same time to fit with the perspective of a child in the Walking Dead world. Please read and review!
Summary: The Governor's little girl learns about life and death all on her own. [one-shot]
Hush, Little Baby
There's blood on the wall, on her lips and on her dress -but none of it is hers.
It's strange to her that one colour can be so overwhelming. It made the wooden floorboards dark, almost like wine laid across black cloth, like velvet, she thinks. Wine she remembers because it was red, deep but translucent in a glass that curved and straightened in such a strange way that it felt interesting to hold in her hands, though her soft palm could not bend around its circumference. Velvet she remembers because the moment she could not trust her hands, the glass fell, and the wine painted across her mother's lap, across the black dress and the sparkly sequins. The glass hadn't broken, but she remembered the way that the deep, deep red made the black of the dress sink into its own colour, and it was suddenly darker, much darker than it had been before.
This time, she knows that the red flecked on the white of her dress, the red that stains the floorboards, is not wine. Though, she does wonder if she pressed her small fingers to her mother's back, to the crinkled fabric of her mother's blouse so slick with the colour she knows to be darker than red, but lighter than black, if it would feel the same -damp and soft and cold, like the wine did. She doesn't dare to yet, not when her mother is asleep like this. She'll sit and wait, until she wakes up, and promise, cross her heart and hope to die, that she didn't make this mess and spill all the red onto the floor.
She brings her legs closer to her stomach and runs a finger across the cool metal. Her parents always told her not to touch knives, because they could cut and cutting hurts… But, she found this one on the floor and it doesn't hurt her, it makes pretty lines in her skin She can't see the lines in her mother's skin, but she knows that they must be there, because if she presses too hard with her fingers against the harsh edge of the blade, little dots rise from her skin, red and glaring, but fascinating, because she doesn't know what they mean. This must have happened to her mother too, something confusing, and maybe bad or maybe good, she doesn't really know.
Naturally, her fingers unclench, and for the first time it stings, and the line in her skin is too deep because there aren't any beads, just a thick line. "Mum?" She's scared, a feeling like being alone in the dark, and she is, but she hadn't noticed until now. She calls again and crawls to the crinkled, white blouse and brushes back her mother's hair. Her palm touches skin and its cold, then touches the red, and its warm, so warm.
She runs, because there is too much red on her now and maybe stepping into the dark will make it blend away. The lamplights give pockets of brightness, so she finds herself bounding to each circle of yellow, like the bases in the softball court. The light makes the dark go away, this is what she knows. And when the light is covering you, you're safe. She wants to be safe, but she's alone, and alone in the light is only slightly better than being alone in the dark. There should be a word to cry out, so all the colour can go away, and all the dark can be replaced with its opposite, but she can't remember that word yet, or she can't seem to force it out. There's a tightness in her throat, and its forcing tears to her eyes, and now she can't run. It's such a dangerous thing to be still. Especially when so many other things are around her, moving, with their scraping-bone movements and growls and reaching hands. Are they monsters or people?
White skirts flutter and skim the cold sidewalk as she huddles, covering her knees with her arms, and ducking her head to smother the tears into her dress. There are loud sounds disturbing the chorus, making her ears ring. They're powerful sounds, like fireworks and a rock being thrown through a window. She covers her ears too, but none of it stops…until it does.
And she feels herself being lifted into the air, into a pair of arms that hold her painfully tight.
"Penny, baby girl. God, I thought I lost you." There are kisses falling in her hair, all scratchy and rough. "I thought I lost you." Its Daddy's voice, like chocolate, like all of the ebony keys on a piano being pressed one after the other.
Her brown hair is brushed back, even though it returns to flutter over her eyes like an echo that promises to come back. His arms shift with the weight of her and she's scared he's going to put her back down. "Don't go", she says.
"I won't. I won't ever leave you."
And he doesn't. He never will.