RUNNING BLIND

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Beth jogged along the rooftops of the abandoned city of Savannah, the load she carried upon her back heavy, but the weight on her heart thrice the weight. She held Molly's beloved pickaxe, Hilda, in her right hand tightly, and her head began to throb when the sound started.

The chiming.

Behind where Beth was running from, the large bell atop of the eastern bell tower chimed loudly, each clash! ringing loudly in her ears. She tried not to think about who was ringing that bell, and instead focused on running faster, her feet leaping over small gaps in the roofs as she sailed over the city.

The noise from the bell hadn't caught only her attention though, and the walkers in the streets below lifted their rotting heads and began to stagger in the direction of the deafening sound. Beth saw them hauling their decayed, horrific bodies across the pavements as she hopped from building to building, groans loud and arms outstretched blindly reaching out. It was sickening. Completely sickening, and no matter how many times she saw giant herds of them like this, it didn't change how utterly foul it was. They were the reason things were like this. The reason the world had burned and the people in it had died in the fire. The reason almost everyone Beth loved was dead.

Almost.

Not everyone. Not all of them were dead. Some were still out there, she liked to believe, still fighting . . . Still striving to live. Because she liked to think she had taught at least one of those somebodies that life still held meaning. What she'd been trying to say with every little comment: They're alive, and There's still good people, and even It's beautiful. She had been tying to say, that there were still good things left.

Still reasons.

Clang! The bell chimed away even louder, and the walkers followed after its wake unknowingly, that it was all a grand scheme. A system. A way of herding them, successfully; controlling.

Manipulating their playing pieces.

Beth ran as far as she could along the closely spaced rooftops until she came to a much larger gap that she couldn't cross by just jumping. She stared down into the walker-filled abyss and frowned. The only way across . . . was a large metal sign connecting the two buildings. It looked relatively sturdy, but the coating of rust and occasional creak it made didn't do much to boost Beth's certainty. But with the skyscraper where the others were (or had already fled) in sight just ahead, what choice did she really have?

If it feels easy, don't do it, was what Carl had told her were some of his Mom's dying words. Don't let the world spoil you, Beth imagined Lori saying.

Easy wasn't always the right choice, and this certainly didn't feel easy. So did that mean she should do it?

She remembered Lori's tight grip on her as she tried to pry her away from the swarmed Patricia, who just wouldn't let go of her hand. Would Lori, who saved her life that day, want her to do this? Want her to risk throwing her precious, easily destructible, life away? The woman who'd run her fingers through Beth's blonde hair and stroked her cheeks, telling her that saying everything would be okay wouldn't help. Lori, who like Maggie, had wrapped her arms around her that day she'd taken the broken mirror piece to her wrist, and held on so tight without letting go. Afraid that if she let go, Beth would just float away. Lori, the woman Beth had spent countless winter nights cuddled up beside like a pair of nesting birds, squeezing each other's hands, talking, laughing, being . . .

Would Lori Grimes, the first person to have seen into Beth truly, to have seen the potential hero within . . . want her to do this? Want her to unleash that heroism?

And Beth looked at the skyscraper just ahead and knew what the answer would be.

Don't let the world spoil you. Don't be the coward who runs in the face of danger. Be the hero. Like Rick, like Daryl. Beth needed a hero, but there wasn't one around to give her their heroism . . . So she would become one herself. The image of Lori Beth had preserved in her mind smiled, and her heart ached as she imaged her lips moving to say . . . Be the hero you want to be. Be a heroine.

Be that girl who looked at her reflection in the broken mirror and saw the blood running down her wrists . . . And chose to live.

Reaching for the straps of both packs she wore, Beth pulled the strings and fastened them together tightly around her torso, preventing them from falling easily. She tucked Hilda into the space between her back and the packs and tightened the bind that tied her hair. She took a deep breath, ran a finger down the scar on her cheek—a sort of comforting action she'd developed recently—and exhaled.

She put her the heel of her boot on the sign first, testing her weight before placing her whole foot on. The sign creaked a little, causing her to wince, but didn't move, so she added another foot. When the old metal remained silent, she placed her hands on the rusty railing and began to move along it very slowly.

Her head pounded in sync with her heart, and the hard plaster of the cast on her wrist rubbed across the dirty metal, creating small screeching sounds that pierced Beth's ears. Like the piercing shrill sound of a nail placed to glass.

Halfway. She may as well have been back at the start, because she felt no closer to the end than when she'd started. She didn't even dare look down.

It was when she was halfway, however, that the sign began to creak more. Her heart-rate sky-rocketed at the sound and her stomach did great huge flips as the sign began to shake under her weight. She took another small step and could feel the thing about to come crashing down. About to make a run for the end, the metal snapped just behind her and the sign started falling . . . Falling down into the sea of walkers below! She ran along the falling bridge way and made a leap for the other building, colliding with the brick wall and having the wind knocked out of her upon impact.

She grunted and groaned as she struggled to hold on, and felt the cruelty of her own singing voice entering her throbbing head; effectively taunting her.

Hold on, hold on, you gotta hold on.

The song lyrics echoed through her head as sweat dripped down her brow and into her eyes. She tilted her head and wiped it on the collar of her shirt, feeling her arms trembling.

A warm ocean breeze blew through the air then, coating her sweat-clad body and making her shake. Hold on, hold on. Why was her own voice so taunting then? The memory of her singing couldn't have annoyed anyone more than her in that moment.

"No . . . !" she choked against the hard wall, "I won't . . . Not now . . . I won't go down . . . Not like this!"

Not without knowing what happened to them whilst she was left in the back of a car. Not until she had an answer to—Where were you? Why weren't you there with me?

Why was I all alone?

So Beth swung her leg up onto a drainpipe and panted heavily, more sweat dripping down her face, as well as something dark and coppery . . . Great. The damn bullet wound had re-opened again. She made a mental reminder to get Edwards to stitch the thing up better, that is if he was still out there.

He was. They all were.

They're alive.

And so was she.

She clung to the wall tightly with her legs and arms, before reaching back cautiously and taking Molly's pickaxe out. She swung its sharp point hard into the wall, cracking a few bricks, and breathed.

If this didn't work . . . She didn't even want to imagine what would happen.

Don't think. Just do.

She pushed the sharp end of the axe hard into the wall and kicked off, sliding down like a zip wire with loud crunches of breaking bricks. The wind blew onto her face and through her hair as she slid down, and she resisted the urge to squeal, half out of fear and an odd kind of thrill.

She landed at the bottom on a hard bit of ground beside a waste bin and fell onto her back, the two packs cushioning her crumpled fall. Her breathing came out in harsh, thick pants, and she clutched Hilda's handle tightly, holding it to her chest.

So far so good. She hadn't landed in a splat at the bottom. Now she just had to make her way through a sea of walkers that were intently following the chimes of a bell, and hope they didn't try to bite a chunk out of her. Her eyes opened and she pushed her lips together in a firm line.

If it feels easy, don't do it.

This was as far from easy as Beth could think.

She picked herself up from the floor and pressed against the wall, slinking back and trying not to draw attention to herself. But she couldn't just go out there as she was. They would notice. They always did. She needed something to help blend in . . . Something that would work as a camouflage . . .

Something like the dead walker she saw slumped beside her in front of the bin.

She grinned and kneeled down beside it, tucking the pickaxe back into the packs and shoving her hands into the creature's torn open abdomen. She winced and bit down on her lip to suppress expressing her disgust out loud, and wiped the slimy guts and rotted intestines all onto her front. It was repulsive. Disgusting. And everything else that meant absolutely gross. But Beth thought it was better to feel icky and abhorrent than to be dead.

Smearing walker blood and dirt from the ground on each cheek with her fingers, she stood back up and shuddered. She didn't want to get used to this. Rick and Glenn must have felt just as awful as she did when they'd done it, on their tales from escaping Atlanta. Beth had always loved hearing those stories. Of how Rick had led the group out of the fallen city and essentially saved as many of them as he could.

She'd always loved hearing those stories, and now . . . She had some of her own to tell when she found them again.

Beth balled her fists tightly and walked out into the herd of the undead, staggering past them in a slow and walker-like manner, thankful that none seemed to notice her as something other than what they were. They were all walking towards the sound of the bell, Beth going the opposite direction, but still, none turned on her. The ones she brushed past merely groaned and continued on their way.

She carried on like that for a while, striding towards the skyscraper that wasn't surrounded by walkers anymore, all of them now marching towards the bell tower . . . Which had stopped ringing.

Molly . . . Beth wanted to sob.

So much better than plain shitty.

Beth sauntered through the herd and nearly breathed out in relief when the numbers finally began to drop as she neared the skyscraper. How was she even supposed to know if they were still up there though? They could have taken the advantage of the bell and made a run for it, meeting Morgan at the cars. How was Beth to know where they were . . . ?

And that's when she saw it.

The sign on the side of the building, words marked in blood drawn out across the grey plaster.

BETH. GOT THEM. GO TO MEETING PLACE. —MORGAN.

Beth's heart pounded and she squeezed her fists. A message, for her. Her name, written in blood, with a memo entirely for her. GLENN GO TO TERMINUS. —MAGGIE . . . GLENN . . . GLENN . . . Never Beth . . . Never her little sister's name . . . Why?

Because Maggie had given up on her a long time ago. Maybe they all had. But that didn't stop Beth from believing in them. And now, with this note from Morgan, written with her name right across the top . . . Beth was filled with the feeling that she was important too.

She hadn't been forgotten or presumed dead.

Beth blinked back the tears of happiness that had begun to form and strode on towards where they had left their vehicles. She wasn't forgotten, she was worth believing in. Worth holding on to.

Hold on, hold on.

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"How long do we wait?"

"As long as we have to."

". . . What if she's not coming back?"

"She is."

Dr. Steven Edwards listened to the others' conversation but didn't contribute. He just leaned against the steel body of the car and chewed on the skin around his thumb. Occasionally, he passed quick glances towards the heart of the city where they'd last seen Beth and wondered. Wondered if even she, who seemed almost invincible, could make it out of that.

He clutched the hilt of the knife she'd given him tightly, beads of sweat gathering on his white knuckles as he squeezed, passing more glances at the inner city as he did.

"She could make it," he heard Effy say hopefully, "We've seen what she can do. She's tough."

"Very." the man, Morgan, agreed with her.

Edwards had watched the previously solitary man dip his hands into the body of a fallen rotter and paint a message onto the side of the building he'd rescued them from . . .

A message for Beth.

He'd told them of her plan to set the bell off, and how she'd gone running with the other woman, Molly. Would they ever come back? Edwards honestly didn't know. But he thought, that maybe this time . . . He could believe.

Believe in her.

"Do the cars still work?" Tanaka inquired, as Shepherd turned the key in the ignition and one of the cars roared to life.

"That one sure does." he grinned at the action.

"Hey listen. I think she will . . . But what do we actually do if Beth doesn't come back?" Shepherd asked, her resolve weakening with every passing hour.

"She will," Effy reassured her. "We should wait, no matter how long it takes, 'cause she will."

Edwards thought the girl's sudden undying loyalty to Beth was a little confusing and rapid, but he didn't question it. He supposed she must have gotten under her skin, and made her question her beliefs of reality a little. Beth did that. Made you see things just a bit differently. Opened your eyes and made you think . . . What if?

Even Dawn hadn't been immune to that aspect of her.

Effy passed a tiny smile. "I'll wait. She saved my life so many times already, and she didn't have to. Didn't have to save any of us, but she did. So for that . . . I'll wait."

"Me too." Morgan nodded, tucking his hands into the large pockets of his coat. ". . . She saved my life as well."

Something about the way he said it made Edwards think that he didn't mean in an entirely literal way.

Tanaka chuckled then. "Does that a lot, don't she? Save people. Has a weird way of doing it since I'm missing an arm now from it . . . But it's 'cause of her I'm not one of those things now. So I'm grateful."

Edwards readjusted his glasses and sighed. Grateful. That's what he was, he supposed. Grateful to have been saved by the girl he'd taken in under his wing back in Dawn's cruel system, whom he'd used-no, betrayed to save his own skin. He knew that look she'd given him after that act all too well, the sheer look of disgust, of disappointment. A look that spat . . . Coward. He knew he was a coward, but her knowing that too hadn't sat well with him.

He envied how she went against the system he'd been trapped in for years, and refused to back down. Envied her willpower. Her ability to stand up and not back down, not even from Dawn.

That itself had been a strength, and that was what he envied.

How did he believe she would come back from the fallen city of Savannah? Alive? Normally, he would have passed such a thing off as impossible. But with her . . . Her, with her big doe eyes and billowing blonde hair, and a face lined with scars and bruises, he thought . . . There was a chance. A chance for all of them, a chance at something greater than just survival.

Beth Greene was their last chance at hope . . .

And there she came, walking out from the remainders of walkers that were retreating further into the city. At first, he wasn't sure if it was her, but upon closer inspection it was unmistakable. Her blonde hair streaked with even more blood, and her cheeks smeared with brown. She was too far away for Edwards to see her eyes, but he knew there would be that fire burning away in them that always did.

Flames dancing in the blues, lighting the skies with their blazing ferocity.

He heard the others' sharp intakes of breath at the sight of her, and didn't miss Tanaka's muffled: "Motherfucker . . ." out of disbelief and also, relief.

Effy threw her arms up in the air to get the bloody blonde's attention and waved frantically, face bearing a grin so wide Edwards was sure it should have broken her face. Tanaka copied (with his only arm of course), a grin matching Effy's upon his face; and Shepherd merely flashed one of her infrequent smiles. Morgan just leaned against the car door and wore an expression that seemed to say, 'Told you so.'

Edwards himself couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face at the sight of her.

There she was, making his optimism on her return lived up to. Nothing could kill her, it seemed now to the doctor. Not a bullet to the head . . . Not two overrun cities . . .

She was truly, in every sense of the word, a survivor.

"Beth!" Effy called, and the blonde looked at them then.

After staring at them for a while from where she stood, her face too broke out into a grin, and she gave them a wave.

Edwards could see her eyes then. Big and bright, almost twinkling actually, as stupid as it sounded. They were glittering with something akin to starlight, and suddenly her feral appearance and demeanour seemed to melt away to show the teenager she still was at heart.

It was easy to forget how young she was with all she'd been through, and all she was capable of. Hard to see the innocent child hidden away like a distant memory, like a secret.

She was far from innocent now. Hardened. Strengthened.

Forged from hot iron into a piercing blade.

Power.

She broke out into a run then, arms swinging at her side and the two packs strapped to her back moving with her. Her ponytail bounced above her breast, and it was then that he noticed the tiny braid hanging in it . . . Small, childish almost, hardly noticeable . . . Like her . . . But he had still noticed.

Effy ran to meet her, and they collided in one another's embrace upon contact, making Tanaka laugh as the pair hugged. Morgan walked over to the two and put a hand on Beth's shoulder, and she smiled up at him, her arms still wrapped around Effy. Her nod held something that looked like gratitude in it, though Edwards couldn't place what she had to be grateful for.

They were the grateful ones . . . Grateful for her. They owed her everything. There wasn't anything she owed them. Not anymore.

She was no longer a part of the system.

None of them were.

"Looks like you found us again," Shepherd said to Beth, who flashed her the famous grin. "Welcome back."

It was then that Edwards noticed the absence of the other blonde woman Beth had introduced them to along with Morgan . . . Molly. Morgan had said she'd been with Beth when they went to ring the bell, so where was she now?

He thought he might already know the answer.

"Where's Molly?" he still asked.

Beth's face fell at that and her grin vanished instantly. Edwards felt guilty that it was him who was responsible for that. She released Effy from her embrace and scrunched up her mouth in sadness. Sadness . . . Now he knew what the answer was definitely going to be.

She drew the weapon she had strapped to her back . . . The pickaxe Molly had used . . . And held it in her hands. Edwards wanted to take back his question and wipe that sad look on her face.

She had saved them, and all he had given her was grief.

"Molly . . ." she whispered, eyes fixed on the axe. "Molly saved us. It was her final act . . . She chose to save us."

The others were silent for a while, Edwards noticing the water steadily forming in Beth's eyes as she stared down at Molly's weapon. Would she cry? he wondered. Would she, who was so much stronger than any of them, shed tears? She was human, he remembered. It wasn't like it was a sin if she did. But he still thought, that seeing her cry, of all people, would make him feel even weaker than he already felt.

To see that she really could break, after all, like a little wooden doll that the archer had carried out and away from the hospital, until she came hobbling back, cracked and bloody. Broken.

But not unfixable.

Morgan spoke up. "She wouldn't have done it if she didn't want to. Save us, I mean." he said, "You know how she was. She must have wanted to save us because she saw a reason to . . . You gave her a reason."

"Before we parted ways . . . She said somethin' to me." Beth said quietly. "She said there was a chance."

"A chance for what?" Shepherd asked.

"She didn't know. A chance for something greater. I don't get what she meant . . . But I hope I do someday . . . A chance . . ."

Edwards thought he understood, but he didn't say anything. A chance for something greater . . . A future . . . A possibility.

Hope. Beth Greene held that hope. And with her, they could follow her to something better like she'd said. Something else. Towards family, friends, civilisation . . .

Towards life.

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