No good deed goes unpunished.
It was an old saying that Lincoln, the optimist that he was put little stock in.
It was this foolish optimism that pushed him to take in stragglers outside the Royal woods Mall to offer them sanctuary as the world continued to be devoured by monsters.
Such a generous act could only be repaid with betrayal and brutality.
His sisters laid dead. His children and himself barely escaping to Flipp's old gas station. He had a bullet in his chest.
There was a storm raging outside, and his children where shaking from the coldness, filthy, stained with blood, their own, those of some of the people they killed trying to get away, their mothers' and Lincoln's.
Lincoln lay dying on the floor, Lyra had ordered everyone to try to make a stack of old magazines makeshift pillows.
"Don't worry dad you're going to be ok-" Lyra began
"I'm dying," he said finally.
Lupa rolled her eyes. "Because you're a fucking doctor all of sudden? Huh. Shut the fuck up."
"I'm dying," Lincoln said resolutely.
"Your mothers and I always taught you to be kind. To care about others. To be good. That was wrong. Don't care about kindness, don't care about goodness, or others or evil. Care about survival." Lincoln murmured weakly to his children.
His eyes turned to Lyra. "You'll have to lead them. Keep them safe. Do a better job than what your mothers did I did. You have to promise me this-."
Tears and snot rained down Lyra's face. "Dad-I think you'll be ok. God will-"
"Promise me, goddamit." Lincoln snarled. Lincoln never swore at his children. But these were his final moments he couldn't afford to coddle them.
Lyra nodded weakly. "Thank you." he then addressed the rest of the room. "I love you all."
Those would be Lincoln's final words.