Cabin in the Woods
Rick woke up in an unknown bed. It was the middle of the night and his head felt like it was cracked open by Negan's baseball bat. But Negan was locked up, right? He would rot behind bars for the rest of his miserable life inside the cell in Alexandria. Or did he escape and beat the crap out of him in revenge?
Rick's body was hurt and stiff and he could barely move underneath the clean blankets. The bed felt very comfortable, but he knew something wasn't right. What happened to him? His memory was cloudy, and he could only remember fragments of recent happenings. There was an explosion, but that was just a fragment of what happened to him. He tightly closed his eyes and forced himself to remember everything of his last day, but he could not do it.
He rolled over to his side and stared at the window for a second. A small ray of moonlight shone through a gap between the dark curtains and showed the empty vase on the nightstand next to the bed. A few old flower petals were on the bottom of the vase. It reminded him of his first real day in the apocalypse when he woke up from his coma. Had it all just been one bad dream? It couldn't be. Everything felt so real.
'H-hello? Is t-there someone?' Rick tried to cry out, but his voice was unrecognizable. It was nothing but air that came from his mouth. He tried to cough, felt a stinging pain in his lungs and called for help again, 'Someone? Anyone?'
An old, bearded man with a worn cap on his head walked in with a butcher's knife in his right hand.
'You're finally awake.' he sighed.
Rick's eyes grew in fear, seeing the knife but the man walked away again and came back with a glass of water instead of the knife. He saw the fear in Rick's eyes and laughed.
'I'm just making sure that dear I killed today doesn't rot before I can enjoy a few meals out of her.' the man laughed.
He sat down on an old chair next to the bed after helping Rick up into a seating position. He handed him the glass of water and warned him to drink slowly.
'You've been out for a good few weeks. Take it slow.'
But Rick didn't listen. He gulped down the water only to throw it all up over the clean blankets a few seconds later. Rick got himself back into a laying position because that was less painful. The man shook his head and put the glass on the nightstand for his patient.
'Be right back.' the man nodded, and he walked out of the room again.
Rick had not said a word since he met his host and was shocked by everything happening so fast. He was in a bed in a random house and felt like crap, but this man did not seem to be interested in hurting him any more than someone had already done to him.
The instinct he grew over the years of fighting the undead did warn him for the man, on the other hand. Rick grabbed the side of the bed and pulled himself up to get out. He was standing for two seconds before he collapsed and knocked himself out on the wooden chair. The man walked in and couldn't help but smiling.
'Why do people think that old Nigel is a bad guy?' he joked about himself. Rick wasn't the person he had cared for in his cabin in the woods. He found stranded survivors in need of help all the time and thought he could only get to heaven if he helped them. He was a strong believer and never hurt a fly.
A few hours later the sun rose, and Rick woke up again. His head hurt even more than during the night. He tried to get up again and this time it went slightly better. His movement was horrible, and his body was shaking with every step, but he was able to stand on his feet and move slowly. Nigel was enjoying a cup of coffee while he read an old paper of fourteen years ago, he found recently.
'Don't knock yourself out again, please? My back still hurts from getting you back in that bed.' he said to Rick, as he got up and made him a cup of strong coffee.
'Who are you?' Rick asked before sitting down with the stranger.
'The name's Nigel.'
'And why am I here?' Rick wondered.
'I was hunting near the river when I found you. You were close to dying. If it wasn't for old Nigel, you would've been dead already.' Nigel said.
'How long have I been here?'
'A few months, I guess. You've been waking up a lot recently without saying anything before you passed out again. This is the first time you even remember who you are. Or at least, I hope you do.' Nigel said.
'My friends… they're out there somewhere?'
'Friends?'
'A community called Alexandria…'
'Not to shatter your dreams, but there's no place with that name in the area I know. You must have been in that river a long time.' Nigel said.
Rick stared him in the eyes, and it all came back to him. He shot the explosives on the bridge to keep the walkers from crossing. The impact of the explosion pushed him away. He ended up in the river and floated in the water for hours before he washed up to the shore where Nigel found him.
'I've got to find them.' Rick said in a hurry. He wanted to leave, but Nigel couldn't let him.
'When you're ready.' he said calm, 'I'm not going to let you get killed by your stubbornness after all the time I've spent to keep you alive.'
Rick tried to walk out again, but Nigel didn't let him. Again.
'You'll get the chance to find your friends. Just stay here until you're back to full strength. I'll make sure that's sooner rather than later.'
Rick closed his eyes for a few seconds and took a few deep breaths. Nigel was right. In order to find his friends and family, he needed to be in top condition. If he walked out now, he would just be walker bait. He would die in a few hours out there and never reach Alexandria again. If, after all that time, there was still an Alexandria to get back to.
This was a little idea I had spinning in my head about Rick not being taken by Jadis and the helicopter but just by some random stranger that wanted to stay the hell away from the apocalypse.