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The Sorrowful Deity Possibly so...
The Flash Fanatic Oliver appreciates it.
Person look fam idk
SophTheSoap Gosh! I hope you finally caught some sleep! 1. Thank you. 2. I am not creative enough to make up a good plot on my own. (this is why I am going to fail as an original writing author) 3. Again, agh, thank you 4. Noooo, my friend, there are SO MANY grammar mistakes 5. thank you infinitely I hope you have a lovely day/night/life and I hope all your towels smell of roses and that all your socks are warm and soft and that all of your dish-washing en-devours do not splash dirty water back at you or force you to touch soggy old food in the bowl.
IWalkOnMyOwn Thank you and sorry in advance
TheDarkerSide123 thank you for correcting cereal to serial, that was so important
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
'Cause you don't love me anymore.
Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love...
Morgan still wears his wedding ring, like Rick used to; since now he keeps it in a small glass bowl on his dresser.
"You didn't have to come."
Rick looks over.
"We have to try," he replies. "Even if it's a long shot. Even if it's dangerous. Tire tracks pointed east."
"The Saviors' compound that you and the group..." Morgan stops, starts again. "—that you went to, that was west. Seems like she went east."
"You don't even know her," Rick says.
"Oh, I got to," Morgan says — I frown at him and he catches me in the mirror, "a little."
"Why are you doing this?" Rick asks him.
"What I believe... I'm not right. There is no right. There's just the wrong that doesn't pull you down."
"It hasn't pulled me down."
"I think it will," Morgan replies. "'Cause I know you."
Rick groans, watching the pastures and the trees and the fog as we drive on along a curved road. At some point, Morgan gestures to something ahead.
"There," he says.
"I see it."
A neglected, black, pick-up truck sprouts in the road, and as we get closer, I see several bodies scattered nearby. Morgan parks. I'm told to stay in the car while they take a look, but I still wind down the window so I can listen.
"That's her car."
"You see her?"
"No."
Suddenly, Rick finds someone living and pulls them up by their collar. I can't hear much, but by the looks, he's dead before they get much out of him. Rick sticks his knife through his head and crouches there, blood pooling around his boots. A hawk soars overhead, squawking.
"Saviors were getting weapons from the Hilltop's blacksmith. These men were Saviors."
"There's blood here. She could've been hit."
Morgan is heading back.
"I'm proud of her," Rick tells him.
"How's that?"
"She took four of them down. That woman, she's a force of nature."
"She left because she can't anymore. That's what her letter said."
"She could because she had to. Sometimes you have to."
"There's more blood, opposite these men that leads into the field," Morgan tells him. "It's a trail. Could be Carol's. She could still be alive. She's not here."
"Most of their guns are gone," Rick says, checking his ammo. "She might've taken them."
"Those, too."
"Or she could've died here, even if she isn't here."
"Trail goes this way," Morgan suggests, pointing off to a large pasture. It goes east. In the distance is fog and a few houses.
"They were close to Alexandria," Rick says. "There's even more of them than we thought." He waves me over and I grab my things and get out of the car, and together we push through the long grass through the pasture, east.
"We didn't end it," I say.
"No," Morgan replies. "You started something."
Rick looks at him, then he turns his head up to the sky, as if he's making a small prayer.
We walk on for miles, following the trail of sporadic blood stands. I hug myself, shivering as a hard, frozen wind cuts through the fields. In another pasture, we find a large blood stain and a lot of flattened grass.
"It's not much," Morgan says, "but if it's Carol's, then she's been bleeding for a while."
We keep walking, climbing through a broken fence with a damp, bloody handprint on it, following the trail down a grass slope and past an old rusty sheep trailer.
"So, you out here because Carol is your friend?" Morgan asks.
"We're out here 'cause she's family," Rick answers.
"I've talked to people back there," Morgan tells him. "I found out about what happened at the prison. How you sent her away. She killed two of your people, right? Burned their bodies. What if that had happened today? Would you kill her?"
"If it happened today, I'd thank her," Rick answers. "Or I would've killed them myself. She was right to do it. They were sick, spreading a disease. Same disease that killed Oliver's brother, and ten or twenty other people."
"Yeah, but this was back then," Morgan tells us. "And you didn't kill her. You sent her away, Rick, and she came back. And she came back and she saved all y'all. People can come back, Rick."
Finally, we come out of a small grove of trees to a large farmland; grass so tall and pale it looks more like hay — the cloud in the sky is making a slow exit east for what looks like a good sunrise.
There's a figure, stumbling through the grass.
"No..."
I run for her, calling out, and as she turns to me I see the gaping slice across her throat and I leap back. It's not her. Rick and Morgan are yelling and I push the walker down and put my knife through its eyeball.
"It's not her," Rick says, breathless and too relieved to reprimand me.
Morgan takes a closer look.
"She couldn't have been dead more than a day," he says.
Something catches my eye up at the farm yard ahead; a gate is closing and a shadow is falling. The others' see it too, and draw their weapons. We go up. A dead walker is laying by the gate opposite this one and several others are strewn about inside the yard also. The dirt-ground is scuffed, as if there was a struggle here recently.
A tall walker shambles ahead, though it's not coming for us — a man rushes around the hay barn and drives his spear through its face with a grunt. I aim at him. He's... wearing armour.
"Hey!" Rick barks.
The stranger jumps three feet in the air.
"Whoa, whoa!" He's gone, scurrying back behind the large rickety barn wall, leaving his spear in the walker's head. "It's okay! I'm not trouble. I don't want any trouble!"
"Come out, drop your weapons," Rick orders.
"I can't do that."
We edge closer.
"The wasted are too close! I'm just looking for my horse. Have you seen him?"
"No," Morgan answers. "We're looking for our friend. Have you seen her?"
No answer.
"Have you seen her!?" Rick bellows.
"They're coming! Just go! Just go!"
The herd he's talking about is small. They crowd where his voice is coming from and he has to stumble out into the field, fast — lining up a shot is hard with so many dead-heads in the way.
"Stop!"
Rick fires his gun, but misses because Morgan shoves him, and then the herd of seven come for us. The fight is difficult but at least it doesn't last very long, and then the three of us are catching our breath, drenched in blood. Rick and Morgan glare at each other. Then Rick marches towards the barn.
"Rick," Morgan calls out, "we didn't know who he was!"
Ignoring him, Rick examines the spear. Blood drips down the handle.
"Yeah, it's one of the Hilltop's," he says, "like the one on the road. Maybe he's one of them. Maybe he's looking for Carol, too."
"Maybe the man is just looking for a horse," Morgan argues. "Maybe he is from Hilltop. Maybe he's from somewhere else."
"I don't take chances... anymore."
Morgan walks east, where the stranger left, and then he turns to face us, his back to the sunrise with pink and orange swirls pooling out around his silhouette like a painting. He looks me in the eye, and then he looks at Rick.
"Those people, the Wolves, after they attacked I found one of them," he confesses. "He had attacked me on the road before, when I was trying to find you. And I stopped him. But I let him live. And then he was there in Alexandria after the attack, hiding in one of the brownstones so I stopped him again. I knocked him out and I could have killed him... but all life is precious."
Blah blah blah...
Rick, too, looks bored. Sweat makes letters in his curly hair against his forehead, and the scar across his nose shines purple in the cold.
"I put him in the cell of the brownstone basement," Morgan says. "'Cause I knew he could change. We all can change—"
"You had one of them alive in the community?!"
"Oh yeah," Morgan answers. "And when the walls came down and the walkers broke in, Carol found out. We fought and that man escaped, and Denise. She had come to the cell to try and help him and he... took her hostage. And then she and that Wolf, they got swarmed, and that man, that killer, he saved her life. And then Denise was there to save Carl. It..." Morgan grimaces. "It's all a circle. Everything gets a return."
Rick and I remain silent. I think about how, for the last two years, I wandered across seven states, lost my family, and found another... all to come right back again, like I'm some dog chasing its own tail.
Morgan keeps talking.
"But the fact is the fact. I did what I did. I let him live... You go home, both of you. Take the car. You're needed back there... You shouldn't be out here taking any more chances."
"I'm not going without her—"
"Oliver..."
"Rick," I say back. "She's still out here. We can't just—"
"I will find your momma, boy," Morgan tells me, completely serious. "I will."
I glare at the ground. Morgan nods.
Another small prayer is taken up through the clouds:
Let them find home,
amen.
"You both go," Morgan tells us again.
Rick nods, and as Morgan turns towards the rising sun, away from us, says, "You're coming back."
"Yeah," Morgan answers. "But if I don't, don't come lookin'."
"Take it," Rick suggests, presenting a handgun.
"No, I—"
Rick twists it around, holding it up. "Take it..."
Morgan accepts it.
"Morgan?" Rick asks before he goes. "Michonne did steal that protein bar."
Morgan laughs. "Oh, I know..."
Rick turns and walks away.
"Morgan," I say, "she's not my mom..."
He thinks about this, and then he nods and says, "She is..." and I watch him go, frowning, until Rick calls me to hurry and we make our way west to the car.
"Can I drive?" I ask along the way.
Rick smiles.
"Oh, come on," I complain, "why not?"
"I will be an old man by the time I let you drive me anywhere."
My sigh is long and slow. Rick squeezes my shoulder and shakes his head.
"C'mon."
Back at Alexandria, Abraham is waiting for us with a cigar in his mouth and a rifle under his arm.
"Morgan's still out there looking," Rick tells him. "Is Michonne here?"
"She's still out there, too."
It's been hours. Rick and Abraham look out through the fence. Rick looks shaken, pinching his nose and wiping his eyes.
"You afraid to go back to it?" Abraham asks. "Let somebody close?"
"Yeah," Rick answers. "Yeah..."
"Mm," Abraham concurs. "Me, too."
I get this bad feeling in my gut.
"But now I think I'm that much more ready to tear the world a brand-new asshole," Abraham adds. "Any second now... Any second."
I did as I was told and brought home all the pairs of glasses in my house from Lorton. My father's don't help but Patrick's do. I sit in my room while one of Aiden's old RunMixes plays from my stereo, an album he'd named: THE END IS NIGH which is just a bunch of songs about the apocalypse.
At some point, someone comes into the house. I was hurting myself and I wasn't expecting anybody to come over, so I don't have much time to pull down my sleeves and wait for the pain to go away before Carl is entering my bedroom.
"Hey."
I smile at him, busying myself at my desk with my book.
"I heard what happened," he says, taking a seat at on my desk. "Dad just told me."
"It's fine," I say. "They'll come back."
He nods. "Yeah, they will."
It's quiet for a moment.
He points. "Like your glasses."
I pull them off. "Oh. Yeah. Thanks. They're Patrick's."
He smiles.
I must still look in pain because he looks me up and down, smile fading. "You doin' okay?"
"Yeah, man. Why?"
"Well... just, after today... you can talk about it, if you want."
My eyes start to water.
"Oliver?"
"Sorry... I... You just..."
"What?"
"You're just so clear right now."
He laughs and hugs me. I hug him back, forcing back more tears, and then finally I pull away, shaking my head.
"You were right, that day you got shot..."
"I... I don't remember a lot."
"You said it doesn't help, saying goodbye," I say. "That it doesn't change anything. That it always hurts. And it does."
"Oliver..."
I shake my head. I swallow. And I say, "I... I think we should stop..." I have to hold my breath for a second. "I just..."
"You just what?"
I look at him.
His eye is wet, suddenly.
"I don't think we should do this?" I say, feeling sick. "I... I shouldn't have kissed you yesterday. I wasn't thinking. I got carried away. I'm just..."
"You're afraid."
I feel my face wrinkle into a grimace.
"You are," he insists, wiping his face. He shakes his head and gets up.
"Carl—"
"Forget it," he says, leaving. "See you around, Oliver."
I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does
Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye...
Notes
Song was End of the Wold by Skeeter Davis.
I've been reading a lot of I'll Give You the Sun – by Jandy Nelson, and Bite – by K.S. Merbeth. SHE ANSWERED MY ASK ON TUMBLR.
Happy reading.