Mona had had this dream before. It always started with Maddie's parents, god-like in their radiance, as if they were on higher plain of existence from her own. Effervescent brown skin, eyes that burned like fire on gasoline, and smiles that tore holes in her heart. But their beautiful skin would start to melt as they spoke. The flesh would congeal into a viscous red mess of muscle and blood, until it was a mystery how they were able to speak as nothing that resembled mouths or tongues remained. They'd tell her that they were okay, that they were alive and breathing. Come find us, they'd say and Mona would reply but where?

You know where, would be the cryptic response and they'd laugh. Then the mother would speak, her voice smooth as warm butter, but she would never get past the first syllable. Because Mona would always be woken up. It never got easier to bare.

The pain of Rick tearing her from the dream was all-consuming, as if he'd ripped off a limb and was trying to cauterize the wound. She screamed and kicked and cried. She swore at him and spat insults, but Rick only held her down and let the anger pass. "Mona," he said but his voice was a million miles away, on a different plain of existence to hers because hers was Maddie Maddie Maddie I need to find them I need to find them for her I need to- then Rick slapped her. The girl fell silent, slumping on the bed. "Mona," Rick said again, "You were having a nightmare." A nightmare. Yes, of course, it was only a nightmare. But who was it that said that dreams were premonitions of the future?

"Maddie?" she said in a pinched voice.

"Maddie's fine," she shivered with relief. "You can see her first thing tomorrow. Right now I need your help." Mona reminded herself that they'd been apart for less than half a day. Rick told her that it was 6 o'clock, which mean that they could have only been separated for at the most, nine hours. Nine hours and she was already falling apart.

"Okay," the word seared her lips, "what do you need from me."

Once she'd put on her combat boots and jacket, feeling a little naked without the duct tape armor, he took her to the outer fence where a young woman in riot gear was reinforcing it with logs. On the opposite side were walkers. About 30, Mona guessed but it was getting dark, there could have been dozens more. They pushed on the fence, making it undulate like an uncomfortable metal trampoline. When she noticed them, the woman waved and stopped working and jogged over bouncily. "Hey Rick," she said in an accent similar to the girl who taken Maddie's, "I on new girl duty?"

"Not on your own," Rick assured her, "I'll be here too. We need to get this done before it becomes a problem." She gave him a look that said you know this is already a problem, but said nothing except, "I'm Maggie, you must be Mona."

"Yeah," was her only reply. She didn't feel like talking just yet. The dread of her dream sat in her stomach like she'd swallowed a dumbbell and the words just wouldn't leave her mouth. She thought she could feel bile rise in her throat, until she realized it was just the primal but unfamiliar need to cry. Her teeth ground together until the feeling past.

For an hour or two, the three worked to reinforce the fence in relaxing calm. Rick and Maggie made pleasant small talk, while Mona found herself staring at the women. Pretty. The chaos caused by her dream had dissipated mostly with the systematic action of picking up the logs, bracing them against the fence, and stamping them into the ground. Routine had always made her feel safe. The buzz of the walkers in the background was like a record stuck on repeat, soothing almost, in the same way the sound of chirping crickets in the summer was. But Mona couldn't define her thoughts about their presence. She was stuck between 'this place is going to fall apart I can feel it' and 'nowhere can be perfect this is solvable,' without much give either way. Besides, the fences were strong. A couple of walkers couldn't have brought them down.

The sky was a black hole when the gunshot sounded, sucking the sounds of the night into its irresistible pull. Maggie was hesitant at first, but Rick insisted that she had to be the one to investigate the shot. Eventually, she gave in, breaking into a sprint towards the direction of the noise. The man looked at the fence. More walkers had joined the trampoline party and it was beginning to bend. He ran a blistered hand over his face and grimaced.

"I think we need help," Mona stated. She always hated the pause before the action started, it felt like wasting time, "we can't do this alone."

"Yeah," Rick said. Having a goal seemed to energise him, new determination showing itself through wide eyes and a set jaw. "Carl. Let's find Carl." Mona followed Rick to a block she hadn't been in yet, probably the main building. He stayed outside while she went in, without explaining why. The residents, who were mostly children and the elderly, had made the cells into comfy little rooms for themselves. Some had hung blankets and sheets over the doors for privacy, they glowed with the warm light of wind-up lamps and torches. Most of the kids were playing board games on the floor under the feet of chatting women in dressing gowns. Mona saw that they'd stacked their bunk beds high with soft toys. She could imagine them competing to see who had the most and getting into petty fights if one stole the other's. You could almost forget it was a prison, if you squinted. You couldn't see the unforgiving concrete or the harsh metal bars on the windows, but you could see the sweet blush of lamp light, hear the soft voices of people trying not to wake the sleeping. So Mona squinted and swore she felt the temperature of her body rise with the atmosphere

"Has anyone seen Carl?" She made a conscious effort not to whisper against the gentle hum of the room. No one answered. She tapped her middle finger against her thumb, a nervous habit she'd long given up trying to correct, and made to ask again. But the boy rushed in from a side room, holding an empty bottle of baby formula in one hand.

"What is it, what's wrong?"

"Rick needs you," she said. Then, grabbing her hand to stop the tapping, added, "Now." Carl left the explanation for later and nodded. He retraced his steps the side room and stuck his head around the door. He came back without the formula and with a knife at his hip. The boy followed Mona out of the block in a jog where they met Rick. The man filled him in on the situation as they ran the fence, Carl gritting his teeth grunting in ways he must have picked up from his father. Mona's heart tugged as she saw how crushed the boy was as he learned about the fences critical condition. How long had they been searching for a place like this where they could be safe. Now that safety was potentially tumbling down along with the fences. How could he accept that?

They hadn't been working long before the first log snapped. Carl and Rick pushed with all their strength against the horde, but it was like trying to hold back a waterfall with only your palms. Mona didn't try and help them, a confused look from the two told her they didn't understand.

"It's gonna break anyway!" She yelled, "Get away from it and we'll think of something else!" Carl moved back right away and tried to pull Rick with him, but the man wouldn't budge.

"Dad what are you doing? She's right, we need to get rid of them somehow!" The man's body shook with the effort of holding up the groaning herd. Only when he was pushed to his knees did he accept it. The fence was coming down and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Mona watched the bodies fall to the ground, pushed by other bodies that then fell on top of them. The ones behind that were still standing poured through the gap like an open faucet, or blood from an open wound. Rick swore and dashed out of the way, running after the two kids who had made it to a small building that linked the middle of the two outer fences to the inner one.

"Dad come on!" Shouted Carl desperately. The man barrelled into a dead one in front of him and shoved another to the ground. His foot caught on the arm of a fallen walker and he tripped. Carl took a sharp breath and held it, but the man's hands found the soil before he fell and he hastily scrambled to his feet.

"Come on!" he shouted again. Mona hauled the door of the building open and thanked God it wasn't locked. They rushed inside, quickly followed by a panting Rick, and exited through another door adjacent to the first. Now in the central compound, Rick made towards several plastic bins that stood flush against the fence. In them, were guns. Dozens and dozens of guns. Rifles, machine guns, shotguns and sawn-off shotguns too. Mona wondered how they'd found so many. She'd had a pistol in the beginning but was never very good at using it, a sharp melee weapon was more her forte. The pistol had been lost anyway. Rick pulled out two mean looking guns from the bin, handing one to Carl and stringing the other around his shoulder. He was about to reach for another, but he hesitated. Mona met his eyes with a common intensity that Rick wouldn't have expected from her. She knew what he was asking, 'can I trust you with this?'

"You don't have a choice." Mona said simply and he handed her a machine gun. This time without hesitating even for a second.

The walkers broke through the second fence as they shoved the magazines into their guns. Rick explained how to fire and reload the gun. Carl picked it up instantly while Mona struggled. She couldn't get the magazine to click in properly and wasn't used to the weight or feel of the gun.

"I have to tell you something," she said, sweat beading on her brow, "I'm not very good with guns and I don't have the best aim." Carl swung his weapon onto his back and punched the magazine of Mona's gun into place.

"You don't need to be," he said handing it back to her, "forget about the head, take out their legs instead. We'll do the rest."

"You sure?"

"It'll be fine."

Mona nodded, a mixture of grateful and selfishly irritated. She was glad the boy was kind enough to help her, but at the same time it pissed her off that she'd appeared weak to him. She made a mental note to do some target practice in the future, maybe Carl could show her how to handle a gun. The idea had an exciting warm glow surrounding it, like the promise of a good memory to come.

"Thank you." Mona said earnestly and the corners of Carl's mouth turned up for just a moment, before he focused back on the walkers spilling through the fence.

"You shoot or you run, don't let them get close," Rick said, deep and severe, pointing his gun at the nearest body. Mona narrowed her eyes and did the same, except her sights were set on its legs, more specifically its knees if she was lucky.

"You don't need to tell me," she murmured angrily, slightly offended at his undermining words. How did he think she'd survived this long? By rushing in guns blazing? No. She'd been careful and stealthy and smart and patient and sure of everything she did. A little respect wasn't too much to ask she felt, through deep down she knew it was just his parental instinct kicking in. But if that was the case, the barrel of her gun floated up the walker's greasy body and found itself a new target, then this was just teenage angst. Before Rick's finger had even touched the trigger, Mona had carved a small, clean hole through the creature's skinless forehead. The girl glanced over at Rick and casually tilted her head to one side, eyes thin and cruel.

"I'm not a child," she spat with a voice that carried poison, and fired into the swarm. All her shots found their targets with ease. All her shots made nice little holes in a monster's forehead. All her shots counted for something bigger.

Mona was joined by an uneasy Carl and a sour Rick before long, and soon the air was full of death and the metallic smell of blood. The walker's heads burst like water balloons, coating those nearby with substances both liquid and solid. They moved forward, tripping over corpses at their feet like they were nothing but bumps in the road. The three living bodies had killed so many, but the rest advanced closer and closer by the second. With the amount of noise and distraction, Rick didn't even notice as Carl bashed one in the head that had gotten too close to shoot. The thing didn't even bother trying to stand back up and grabbed onto Carl's ankle, mouth inhumanly wide. Mona, nearer to Carl than his dad, saw the walker just before it clamped its jaws shut over the boy's flesh. She spun around and pointed her gun at its head, confident now of her aim. Rick saw her too, but he didn't see the walker or that her weapon wasn't really aimed at his son. All he saw was a threat with her finger on the trigger

"No!" He cried just as she fired, the shot burying deep into the walker's skull. The two kids stared at him, eyebrows raised and mouths slightly open in alarm.

"I… I thought that you..." His thoughts confused him. Just a moment ago he would have killed Mona without a second thought if he was capable. And now, he was grateful to her for saving his son? His mind was like a half played board game that someone had upturned in frustration. "I thought you were going to-"

"Well you were wrong," said Mona in a voice that felt like swallowing ricin. "I told you," her bullets flew into the horde and she grinned with the added spice of self-satisfaction, "We're not bad people."

With the walkers gone, all that was left was to make sure they were all dead. They weaved in between the bodies, looking for any movement as if it were a game of sleeping lions. The expressions of the two men were dire and grim, but Mona knew that neither would lose any sleep over tonight. Rick hadn't given her anything to help them with, a gesture that probably meant 'don't get cocky'. So she watched them stick their crowbars are knives into soft, bloodless heads like they were playing pin the tail on the donkey and said nothing.

"Dad look." Carl said suddenly and pointed to a van that had driven up to the inner gate. As she saw the van too, Mona instinctively ran for cover behind the gun bins. Carl chuckled and strolled over to where she was hiding, crouched. He held out his hand. His hopeful smile made her take it. Pulling her up, the boys squeezed her palm reassuringly and looked at her with laughing eyes that spilled emotion. Without turning away, he told her what she already knew.

"Mona, everything's going to be okay." She was inclined to believe him.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it o.

In case I wasn't very good at making it understandable, Rick wakes Mona up after he comes back from exiling Carol. Also, the gunshot that is heard is Herschel's in the place where all the sick people are, and Rick can't go into the block where Carl is because he might be infected and that block is where the non-sick people are.

Maybe tell me what you think in a review and I'll be super happy. I'd really like to know if you like the main character's personality or not, it's difficult to imagine what the reader's interpretation of the character will be because you have such a different idea of how you want them to be in your head that's not always how it translates into writing.

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Anyway, thank you for reading and I'll get the new chapter out as soon as I can (◕‿◕✿)