The signs were everywhere, the ones pointing to Terminus. Rick didn't care. He walked the road with Michonne at his side. No Carl. No Judith. No Daryl. No Beth. No Glenn. No Maggie. Everyone was gone. They were gone because of him.
"It's cooled off some. That should help. I saw more of those signs at the crossing." Said Michonne. They followed the tracks. They walked towards Terminus. Why? Because they needed someplace to go. They needed a purpose. She had been in Rick's shoes. She remembered fog walking, surviving not living. She wasn't going back there and she wasn't letting him go back there.
"Doesn't matter." Said Rick. It really didn't. What then? What if they got to Terminus? They'd, what, live there until it fell? Make some friends and watch them die?
"Hey." Said Michonne, stopping and putting a hand to his chest. He kept walking and pushed her arm away.
"There's no point." Said Rick flatly.
"If there's no point then why are you still walking?" asked Michonne. He stopped.
"What the hell do you want me to say?" said Rick quietly.
"I want you to say that there's a point." Said Michonne. He stared at her.
"Why? What's the point here, Michonne." Said Rick
"There needs to be one." Said Michonne. Rick shook his head.
"I thought there was a point. I thought we'd all grow old together, I thought we'd build something together. We didn't." said Rick
"We did." Said Michonne
"We didn't. We kept on trying to make it like it was before. It's not like before. Every time we find something, every time we have something, it gets taken away. This place'll just be the same." Said Rick
"But it's still a place. Rick, you need to get out of the fog." Said Michonne. He had been like this since they escaped together. The governor had almost beaten him, choked him into submission, when Michonne ran him through. They had escaped on foot after finding Judith's bloody bassinet. Carl, they hoped, had escaped on the bus. When they caught up to the bus not only had it crashed but it was obvious that there had been people there already. Whoever was there had ransacked the bus and killed everyone. Carl was not amongst the dead.
"Maybe this is just what the world is now." Said Rick
"No. The world is not this. You're a fighter Rick, fight this. Fight this for them." Said Michonne. Rick was a fighter. He had fought from death itself. His heart had stopped, he had stopped breathing, and hadn't moved in over a day. Michonne wanted to put him down before he turned, to keep wandering on her own, to let the fog take her. She wanted to but she didn't. Just as she thought Rick was turning he began to move and speak. It was a miracle. That was the only explanation. This was a sign that she, that they, needed to keep going.
"They're dead, Michonne, dead. Our people are dead. Everyone's dead." Said Rick flatly. The bus was full of corpses. The road was full of corpses. The world was full of corpses. Somewhere in that sea of corpses were his son and daughter.
"No, not everyone. I'm here, and you're here, and I think you're here for a reason." Said Michonne. Rick shook his head and kept on down the tracks. They walked in silence until the came to a road. Michonne stopped them.
"There, these wheel marks are fresh." Said Michonne. Thin wheels, not cart wheels. Hoof prints too.
"People?" said Rick softly
"Looks like a lot of them. They've got horses too." Said Michonne. This could be bad. Bandits. Psychos. People with numbers.
"Don't follow 'em." Said Rick. He wasn't ready for people. He didn't want to know if they were friend or foe. He didn't want anything to do with them.
"There could be some of ours." Said Michonne
"Probably won't be. We don't have the numbers to take them." Said Rick. Michonne wanted to argue but didn't. Reasoning was sound.
"Let's avoid them if we see them." Said Michonne. It was too risky. The two of them against however many people there were. Rick was right. They continued walking, making sure to stay hidden. They didn't see any people but avoided the houses, mostly. It seemed as though when they got too near the houses something inside of them would tell them to stay away. They saw signs though, hand painted ones, as they left. They said things like 'Now entering the wild zone'. Someone's idea of humor. Rick was still silent. They walked and walked, leaving the road and following the tracks. They walked until the came upon another crossing, but this one had people. Wordlessly they ducked into the thick brush.
"Whaddaya 'spose is there?" they heard a man's voice say
"Don't know, mate, but it's out of our survey area. The crown said only the habituated zones and they're done." Said a woman's voice
"We should at least give it a look 'round. Might be friendly." Said the man
"No, they've probably got those gun things. Mark it on the map and report it to the Imperial Legion. Let the bloody soldiers sort it. It's their job anyway." Said the woman
"We'll never make the reconciliation committee with that attitude." Said the man
"Won't be makin' it if I'm dead now will I?" said the woman. There was a pop and they were silent. Rick and Michonne waited a moment for coming out of the brush. The people were gone. There was no sign of them.
"That was…weird." Said Michonne. There were other words to use but weird came to the forefront of her mind. She had glimpsed them before hiding. The long skirts and cloaks. She had never seen people like that before, not even when she ran in artists' circles.
"Where'd they go?" asked Rick. No tracks. It seemed like they had vanished into thin air.
"I don't know. I don't like this." Said Michonne. She took Rick by the arm and headed deep into the brush. They ran and didn't stop. Whoever those strangers were it wouldn't be safe to stay and find out what they were about.
Through their wanderings they spotted more signs of human habitation. Foot prints. Cart prints. Signs in an odd form of English. The sounds of dogs barking. Children laughing. But every house they came to they turned away from. It was as if something was pushing on their very souls telling them to go away. Eventually they found the tracks again, and there another sign. 'Glenn, go to Terminus.-Maggie'.
Despite all the strangers around Rick and Michonne carried on their journey, filled with the hope, small in Rick's case, that they could find some of their people.
