"Honey, I-I'm sorry. We have to go. I love you so much. Your dad loves you, and your mom loves you so much, too, sweetie. If-when you wake up, You'll hate us. I know you will. But-but honey, you're strong. Smart. And you're gonna beat this world. I know it. So, please, please wake up! I-I don't know how I could go on without you!"
Carl gasped, and shot up.
"Mom! Where are you going?!" he croaked, before coughing and laying back down, closing his eyes at the harsh light.
He was thirsty. Horribly so. His throat was parched, dry and crusty, and his stomach was empty.
At the silence in the room, Carl was puzzled. He opened his eyes again, slowly, letting his eyes adjust, before sitting up and looking around.
"Mom?" Carl gasped, barely able to speak with the dry pain scratching at his throat.
He looked around the room, and, seeing a white hospital room, was quite scared. He remembered the last time he'd been in one of these.
He'd been sick. Really sick. They thought he might not even live, his mother had told him after he had woken up from surgery.
"They weren't even sure you'd make it to the operating room. I knew you would. You're strong. Nothing will beat my boy."
Carl had snuggled up against his mom after that, and she hadn't left his side until he left the hospital. Shane had had to drag his father away to work, as well. His dad, if he hadn't had to work, would've frequented Carl's side more than even his mother had.
But that was why Carl was so confused. Why wouldn't they be there?
And then the next thing hit Carl: why was he there?
He couldn't remember for the life of him. It was infuriating, but he eventually gave up.
One last thing hit Carl: where's the nurse?
At that, everything came together. The power was off, his IV drip was nearly empty, and it was cold.
What is happening here?
Carl sat up, wincing as he clutched his aching ribs, and pulled the IV out of his arm, slowly. The spot bled sluggishly as Carl carefully pulled off the rest of the medical equipment, deeming it useless since the heart monitor was off. Which, even more than him breaking out of the hospital, was weird.
He very slowly, and very, very carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. His legs were wobbly and weak for not having been used in such a long time, and he found he had a hard time even just standing.
Carl looked around the room more attentively this time, out of his previous daze, and saw a vase of wilting, dead flowers.
Carl thought the gesture was nice, from whoever left the flowers there (Shane, most likely), but thought it would have been nicer if they'd been there to take care of them. And him.
But Carl couldn't get caught up in that. He needed to find out what was happening, and being a dumb, curious kid wasn't getting him anywhere.
Curiosity killed the cat, right?
Carl ran from the hospital as far as his legs could take him.
Don't open, dead inside
When Carl just couldn't take it anymore, he dropped. He just let his body fall to the ground, and curled up in the grass on the side of the road, just wishing for the nightmare to end.
When he heard shuffling and groaning, Carl ran again, against the pain in his ribs, against the weakness in his body, and the parched dryness of his throat.
Finally, Carl stopped for good. He leant over and puked, wiping his mouth. He shuffled a bit away from it, and then curled up on the ground again, hidden in the bushes. A few feet away from him, a mutilated corpse lay, grasping for the boy and groaning, but unable to move.
It was music to the boys ears. The first voice he'd heard of someone not trying to kill him. Well, at least unable to.
Carl chuckled at that, dehydration, pain, hunger forming hysteria in him and forcing out a laugh, that turned into pitiful sobs.
"Someone help! Please just help me!" Carl croaked, barely able to speak.
But no one came. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days in weeks, months, years, until his death. Eaten by one of those things.
He just wanted his mom and dad. And even though he knew he was being childish, he couldn't help it. He continued to sob, cry, and scream, curling into himself as the sobs shook his ribs and shot a sharp pain through them.
Eventually, his screams faded to sobs, faded to tears, and faded to silence. The groaning hadn't stopped, but it soothed Carl in a weird way.
If he just molded the lack of syllables into his mother's words, he almost felt at home in his bed, after a bad day at school.
Then, Carl stood up. He felt wholly better. Not just mentally, but physically, too. He didn't even feel hungry anymore.
Something tugged in Carl's mind that that might be bad, but Carl didn't care. He felt better.
Then, he saw something that matched his new, more optimistic, mood.
A bike.
Carl rode down the street of his neighborhood, knowing the way home like the back of his hand.
He stopped in front of his house. It didn't look dirty, or dusty, or broken like the hospital and some of the other houses he'd passed.
His house still looked alive, Carl thought. His parents would be there, waiting, right?
Carl walked up the lawn with a smile, but then he saw the open front door.
Without Carl's notice, his smile had faded.
He stepped inside.
And no one was there.
"Mom? Dad?" Carl croaked.
Silence greeted him, and Carl's smile fell off his face completely. He dashed through the living room, his parents room, the dining room, even the bathroom, before landing outside his bedroom door, never having been so scared to go into a room in his life.
Still, he opened the door and walked inside.
His room looked like how he'd left it. Whenever it was that he'd last left it.
But then Carl saw the hat on his bed. It was his dad's hat.
Carl picked it up gently, placing it on his head, holding in the tears threatening to spill over his eyes, if there were even enough left to truly cry.
He choked back a sob as a piece of paper fluttered from the bed. Carl leaned down to pick it up, holding his hat the way his dad always had.
On it, read:
"Carl. I'm sorry. We love you, and we stayed as long as we could."
And then the tears spilled, hitting the same spot as previous tears left on the paper.
But they hadn't stayed long enough
Carl wandered aimlessly, walking along the sidewalk. Sometimes he saw the people, but he ignored them.
They didn't catch up.
Carl stopped. He was tired of walking.
If he had nothing left to walk for, then why not just sit?
So he did. He sat on the grass, curled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them.
He sat, thinking.
Why had they left him?
Why couldn't they stay?
Why were those things there?
Why does everything hurt so bad?
He remembered, finally. But in a weird way, it wasn't surprising. It was like he knew what happened, even though he couldn't remember it. So when it finally came back, he wasn't surprised.
He had been hit by a car.
Lame.
And then a shovel came crashing onto his head.
"Wake up, kid."
Carl turned his head to the sound, opening his eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light.
"Dad?" Carl gasped out, his throat hurting again, along with his head.
"No, I'm sorry."
Carl opened his eyes all the way, and sat up. He was in a bed.
The room was tan, and next to the bed were two dark brown side tables that matched the bed frame. A man stood over Carl.
The man was nice looking, yet somehow intimidating, like a mother dog protecting her pups.
Carl turned his head to the pain in his wrist, and tugged at the zip tie holding his wrist to the bed.
"I'll let you go if you answer me one question: were you bit?" the man said, enunciating every word.
"By the people? No," Carl croaked. "Does it matter?"
"Do you not know, boy? They turn you into one of them."
Carl turned his head toward the man, suddenly intrigued. "What even are them?"
The man shook his head, "How do you not know?"
"I just woke up in the hospital this morning. My parents are gone, my neighborhood's empty, I'd like to know what's happening."
Morgan looked surprised, but he answered Carl's question. "They're dead. The 'people'. They will devour you if you let them, so you need to fight them, but they only die when you get to the brain. We call them 'walkers'."
"Why?"
"It's as good a name as any."
Carl was satisfied, and nodded his head. For whatever reason, that made sense to him. After what he had seen that day, it really matched up. He didn't know why the dead were walking, groaning, shuffling, dragging themselves towards any living meat, but for the moment, it worked for Carl.
"Duane? You can come out now."
A boy, about Carl's age, shuffled through the door. He stopped once he was in the room, and looked at Carl, guilty, before waving.
"He's my son, Duane. I'm Morgan. Now, I can tell you need some water…"
Carl had stayed with them for weeks, helping them find food, weapons, and supplies. In exchange, they helped him live.
Carl made a good friend in Duane, and Morgan was like Carl's father figure. Not to say Carl didn't miss his father, even if he did resent Rick for leaving him.
It was after about a month of staying in the same area that Morgan decided they needed to move. They were going to starve once food ran out, and it was starting to get cold.
So, Carl took them to his dad's old armory to get guns.
"How did you even know about this place, Carl?" Duane asked.
Carl smirked. "I told you, my dad was a cop."
"Well, you did good, kid," Morgan chuckled, looking at the guns held in the locker.
And that was how Carl got to where he is now, stuck in a tank, two dead friends, and no way out.
Duane was devoured by the horde, and then Morgan killed himself trying to save him. Carl was stuck in the tank alone.
He had a perfectly good gun, he might have a fighting chance, with how the horde is distracted, but Carl decided against it. Better to let them disperse.
Or…
Carl crawled to the walker in the corner, checking its head, and pulled a knife out from his jacket.
Carl took a deep breath. And plunged the knife into the walkers stomach.
Carl was once again stuck walking. He had no place anymore, no drive to even be alive. He felt like he should be too young to think these things, but it was what was going through his head, and he couldn't stop it.
Carl hadn't had the chance to mourn yet, but now tears spilled over his dirty cheeks, and dripped off his chin onto the bloody clothes he had on.
He needed to change, but he couldn't be bothered.
Carl kept walking. It was the only thing that could keep him alive, if he even wanted that. But for now, it didn't matter.
"You're strong."
"You can beat this world."
"I love you so much."
"You can beat this world," Carl recited into the wind.