Michael turned the knob on shower to as hot as it would go. It was lukewarm and the water pressure wasn't much, but did more than enough to get the job done. Brown streams fell from his body and gathered on the floor of the shower room, quickly getting washed away into the drain. He squirted a healthy glob of shampoo into his hands and furiously rubbed it into his tangled hair, turning it into a bubbling, filthy mass of suds. Michael put his head directly under the water that was rapidly lowering in temperature, scratching his scalp as pieces of God-knows-what fell from the bush on his head.

He brushed his teeth until his gums hurt, and then kept going. After Michael could run his tongue across them and not feel the layer of plaque covering them, he decided that it was time to start shaving. There was already a can of shaving cream in the bathroom with the cap poppies odd, so he helped himself to some of it. Michael squirted a generous amount into his palms and rubbed it onto the respectable patch of hair that had started growing on his face for a kid his age.

The first stroke with the straight razor was weird, seeing as he'd never used one. Being extra careful around his neck, don't wanna die of a slit throat, especially not after finally getting off the road. That would be funny though, wouldn't it? Michael finished up shaving with only a few cuts here and there. He looked up at the mirror and brought a towel to his scalp, rubbing it over his wet hair violently until he was finally happy with the curly texture that it had taken. It was like looking in a time portal to a year and a half prior. Except, he looked a lot older. And a lot more tired. And there was a lot more hair on the top of his head than he remembered having.

There were spare clothes in his cell already. Glenn probably put them there after he told him where the showers were. Michael put on a pair of jeans with a white t-shirt. He raised his lip in discomfort as he slid into the shirt. It was pretty tight on him, even after all the weight that he had lost out there. Glancing around his cell, Michael's eyes caught onto a navy short sleeve button up laid out on the small table in his room. Putting it over the tight shirt, Michael decided to leave it open as he left the cell. He could always button it back up if it got too cold, unlikely, or if he got self-conscious, more likely. His dirty Converse sneakers stood in the corner of the room and he slipped those on over a pair of fresh socks. He was wearing clean clothes. Holy shit.

An hour later, Michael found himself in the prison courtyard scribbling on a piece of paper with an almost completely dull pencil. He hadn't drawn in so long, but now with concrete walls around him and a group of people to watch his back, why not dip back into one of his old passions. He was drawing Invincible from, well, uh, Invincible. He chewed on his lip subconsciously as he made the two oval shapes of superhero's goggles and then-

"You read Invincible?" A voice called out from behind Michael as he idly doodled.

"Yeah, man, of course. It was one of my favorite comics before the whole uh, well, y'know, people eating people thing" Michael replied, smiling through scabbed lips.

"Really? I always try to get Patrick to read some of the issues that Michonne brings from the comic book shop and he never gets around to doing it." He walked over to Michael and kneeled down behind him to get a better look at the drawing. "I'm Carl, by the way."

Oh shit, this was the kid that Glenn was talking about earlier. "I'm Mikey, I got here a week ago, I think, but I was in the clinic-"

"Yeah, Michonne has been talking about you recently. She keeps asking me how you're doing, but like, how was I supposed to know? Y'know."

"She was asking about me?"

"Yeah a lot of people were, from what she and Daryl said you looked really hurt. What happened to you?"

"Ah, it was nothing. I uh, I was starving and I went into this empty house to find some food. Turns out it wasn't empty, and the guys caught me off guard, smashed a beer bottle on my face, hurt like hell. Then they chased me through the woods and shit until one of them got to me." Michael looked back down to the sketch and continued to scribble. "Did I mention that I was also defending a house full of orphans with these massive guns?" Michael flexed his biceps, looking at Carl for a second and smiling.

"Yeah dude, I'm sure you did." He said with a chortle.

"Seriously, that was before I went looking for food, though. They were coming back for revenge after I saved all those innocent children."

Carl laughed. "You're funny."

"Yeah, I try to be. Only thing I have left that stops me from walking straight into a pack of one of those things." Michael pointed to a group of walkers at the fence. "It's like a mental thing, y'know. Like, if you keep focusing on the bad shit that happens to you, you just… snap. You feel me?"

"Yeah, I uh... I feel you." Carl said awkwardly. "What were you doing before Michonne and Daryl found you? Like, before you met those guys, I mean."

"Oh, that? Uh, not a lot honestly. I met some people at the start, but they didn't stick around for that long. I was in this cabin with these people that burned down, had to jump out of the window to get outta there."

Carl chuckled. "Yeah, man, sure you did."

"Wish I was kidding. Scariest thing I've ever done. Owner of the cabin knocked over a lantern when he was drunk one night. The whole thing just went up in flames and I went on autopilot, y'know. Kinda fucked up my leg for a little bit after that." Michael put the dull pencil down and rolled up his pant leg, thumbing his ankle.

Carl stood silent for a few seconds, then leaned in close to look at the drawing. "Then what happened?"

"Ran away, man, just like I always did. I had like, no clue where I was going either, so it was just basically a cycle of me walking around in circles I think. I was near Macon when this started. I'm uh, I'm not from around here."

"Where are you from?" Carl asked, a sprinkling of bewilderment in the boy's voice.

"Manhattan. New York City, y'know."

"Really? What was it like?"

"Oh God, don't even get me started." Michael pinched the bridge of his bruised nose, wincing in pain and retreating his fingers quickly. "I hated it. It was loud, it smelled, it was filled with annoying people, but…" Michael sighed. "It was home, y'know. It feels like just yesterday I was fucking around with my friends after school, going to Coney Island and shit." He said with a wistful smile. "But from what Glenn told me earlier today, the army probably bombed it to the ground."

Another prolonged silence fell over the pair, only broken by the quiet scratches of Michael's pencil against the paper.

"What about you, Carl?"

"Dad and I are from Georgia. We lived in King County when this all happened. We started in Atlanta and we've just been moving from place to place ever since. Been at the prison for around…" He paused. "Seven months I think? It's definitely the longest we've stayed somewhere, and it's weird to say, but I'm kind of getting used to it."

"Yeah, Glenn told me everything about Atlanta. He said that he would run into the city sometimes to get supplies and stuff. Was that true?"

"Definitely. He brought my dad back to the camp after one of those supply runs."

Michael noticed the lack of Carl talking about his mother and tried his best to not mention the subject. Don't say anything awkward. Don't say anything awkward. Don't say anything -

"I heard you got shot a few months ago. Are you alright?"

Good job, asshole.

Carl swallowed before kicking at the gravel under his shoes. "Yeah, dad took me to Hershel's farm and he helped me. Don't really remember much of it."

Michael scratched the back of his neck and felt an uncomfortable tingling run up his spine. Yep, definitely made the conversation really weird and really awkward now.

"Hey, I'm sorry for bringing it up, man. I didn't mean anything about-"

"Wanna see it?"

"What?"

"The gunshot. Do you wanna see it?"

"Sure?"

Carl pulled up his shirt, pointing to a discolored divot on his stomach. The scar was small enough to be unnoticeable at first glance, but when you really focused on it, it was painfully obvious.

"Aw shit!" Michael covered his eyes. "Put that thing away, man!" He laughed.

Carl lowered his shirt and chuckled. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, it's uh... it's badass. How'd it even happen?"

"I was looking at a deer and some guy shot it while I was on the other side. Dad said that deer saved my life because the bullet got ripped up a little inside of it before it hit me, or something." Carl rubbed the location of the scar through his shirt. "Doesn't even hurt."

"You got lucky, man." Michael scribbled on the paper. "Seeing how that thing looks gives me some hope for my face, I guess." He chuckled. "Cuz right now I kinda feel like this guy." Michael held up his finished sketch of Invincible, complete with a ripped mask and face covered in bruises, mouth dripping blood.

"Dude, that's awesome!" Carl exclaimed. "Can you make me one?"

"I mean, I can just give you this one, it's just a sketch, anyways."

Michael found himself drawing things for the kids in the prison for the next hour. It was amazing, a total change in pace from the time he spent on the road that he desperately needed. Carl was freaking out about the stupid Invincible sketch he made, which led every other kid in the prison yard to his table, and soon enough he was surrounded by them. They all screamed at him about what he should draw next.

"Do a robot!"

"Robots are so stupid, Luke!" A boy said.

Michael drew a robot. He gave it a cool backpack that was attached to hoses that it held in its hands and shot acid from. It was badass.

"Draw Spider-Man!"

"I just ran out of paper, man. If you can get me more, I'll draw him for you."

The kid left and came back in less than five minutes with a stack of clean printer paper and a new pen.

"Uh, alright, cool. Spider-Man coming up I guess."

It was an ok Spider-Man. He couldn't get the anatomy of the legs right and the webs he was swinging from looked kind of ugly, but the little kid loved it.

Michael had just finished drawing this little girl, Molly, a butterfly when he felt someone come up behind him. It was Mika. Honestly, she creeped him out just by the way she stood over his shoulder as he drew, but Michael didn't really let it bother him.

"Can you draw Nick?"

"What?"

"Nick. The walker at the fence."

"You named him?"

"He had a name tag on him. He's right there, don't you see him?" Mika pointed towards the fence in the direction of a lone walker wearing grey coveralls.

"Oh yeah, of course. Uh… that guy." Michael said squinting at the monster pounding at the fence as he handed off the butterfly drawing. "Yeah, I'll draw him for you."

Michael stacked the paper under him and started to draw a cartoonish bald walker with a collared shirt on. He drew a small name tag with "NICK" emblazoned on it in block letters.

"Uh… here you go."

"Nick has hair!"

"Yeah…" He said through gritted teeth. "Yeah of course he does."

Michael scribbled in some hair and gave her the drawing. Mika left the courtyard, leaving the boy alone. He leaned his head on the wall behind him and closed his eyes, the hot sun beating down on him. It felt good though. It was the type of warmth that wasn't unbearable, and it would only be better if he had a cold drink or joint in his hands.

That's what he missed. Getting out of school on a Friday night and going to the local McDonald's with his friends, each of them taking hits of a shoddily-rolled blunt in the dirty bathroom and then coming back out and destroying a few burgers. A smirk creeped up the side of Michael's face as he remembered the time Steven laughed so hard that soda shot out of his nose and all over the table. He brought a hand up to his bruised eyes, sucking in a deep sigh and lifting himself from his seat in the courtyard.

Michael started walking towards D-Block. He swung open the door and scratched his leg awkwardly through his thick jean pant leg. Michael looked up and his eyes widened as he came face to face with Carl and his dad.

"Oh, hey, it's you." Carl's dad said, raising an eyebrow.

"Hi, I'm Mikey."

Rick outstretched a hand, Michael took it swiftly and gave it a firm shake. "Rick Grimes. My son here said that you were quite the artist."

Michael blushed. "I mean I don't know about that, but-"

"Me and dad were just going to go and work on the farm. You wanna help?"

"Carl, give him some rest, he just got out of bed earlier today." Rick elbowed his son.

"I'd be happy to help Ri- Mr. Grimes. I've been spending the past week laying around in bed, it's about time I start to help out around here. Besides I could be like… the foreman or something." Michael flashed a close-mouthed smile. "Is that what it's called?" He whispered to himself.

"Yeah, something like that." Rick smirked.

"Alright, uh let me just drop these off in my cell and I'll meet you guys by the farm." Michael waited for them to pass and ran up the stairs, his leg muscles roaring in pain as he ascended each step.

He pulled his cell door open with a smile. I guess he was "quite the artist" now. Whatever that meant. Michael dropped the pen and paper onto his bed and looked around at the empty cell again. Maybe he could ask Michonne to find him some posters if she went out again. Would that be asking for too much? I mean, she did save his life and- forget it. Michael shook his head and walked out of the cell. Maybe farming wouldn't be the worst decision he ever made.

Farming was one of the worst decisions he had ever made. He had already gotten used to the heat in Georgia, but now that Michael was out in the open with no trees to cover him, the sun was a force to be reckoned with. Michael had stopped sweating after around an hour and a half of work, all of which included picking up buckets of dirt and dumping them a few yards away, which hurt his ribs. He noticed the dull, stinging pain after the third bucket, and it only got worse after every time Rick asked if he was okay.

They started around three and Rick said that it was now five and that they "did enough work for today" and Michael wasn't complaining. He dropped the bucket to the ground and groaned in pain, leaning backwards into a stretch.

"Michael, I said you could've stopped if your ribs were actin' up."

"Nah, it's alright, Mr. Grimes, I'm fine. I'm fine." Michael said breathlessly as he walked up the small hill towards the prison courtyard, grabbing his lower chest and wincing.

"Hey." He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do that to yourself again, alright. You've got plenty of time to get better before you start workin' on the farm with us again."

"Yeah, thanks, Mr. Grimes."

He smiled. "It's Rick."

After work, he sat at the pavilion and drew the prison yard. Michael had gotten some extra pens from Glenn, as well as an old marble notebook. It had lined paper, but it was better than nothing. Michael was doing one of those single-line drawings that he used to do in art class before the world ended. Was that what he would've done if the dead didn't start coming back to life? Draw for a living? He liked comic books well enough. Maybe if he came up with a good idea a year and a half ago he could've started his own comic. But who would distribute it? Maybe he could've gone the self-publishing route. Get some traction there and then move onto the official companies. Maybe Image Comics. Then he remembered that he would've been fifteen during this time and no one in the comics industry would have even given him a passing glance. Michael shook his head. It was a stupid idea. Daryl came up behind him at some point and leaned down, looking at the notebook, whistling in surprise which made Michael laugh.

He put a hand on Michael's shoulder. "You doin' alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good Daryl." He blurted out.

"Sorry about Sasha this mornin', she didn't mean any'a that."

"I know. She was right about not trusting me at first. I mean, with people out there that could do this," Michael pointed at his face, covered in stitches and bruises, "Why would you?"

"Alright, just makin' sure ya knew that." Daryl grimaced. "You sure you don't know anything about them assholes who did that to you? Never met 'em before?"

"Nope. They had to be in that house for a decently long time though, the place seemed pretty well stocked."

"Michonne and I didn't even see it when we found ya. Must've run pretty far away from it."

"Yeah, probably." Michael looked back down to his notebook and started to shade in a large tree in the foreground.

"Ribs feelin' alright? Rick feels terrible about what happened at the farm earlier today." Daryl brushed his hair behind his ear.

"He's still worrying about that? Tell him it was nothing, really. And hey, I'm still trying to prove that I'm not gonna steal from you guys, aren't I?" Michael smirked.

"Sure."

He stood under the showerhead, letting the cold water splash over him for the second time today. There was something about it that transfixed him. It was something that he took for granted before the world ended, and now, Michael was trying his best to treat every shower like it would be his last. For most of his time on the road, Michael had used rivers and lakes to stay clean. That, the occasional bar of soap, and deodorant pretty much filled out his hygiene quota. That was until he started moving away from rivers and lakes.

He went three weeks without bathing once. Michael stopped noticing his own smell after the first week, and it was only when he got blood all over him that he finally looked for some place to wash himself off. It was weird really, the only thing that really got on his nerves about not showering was how matted and gross his hair felt.

Michael waited in silence for a long time. The shower had turned off and was now leaking scattered drops of water onto his head. Michael's eyes opened and his jaw clenched as he heard the door open from the other side of the room.

Fuck. "Uh, one minute!" Michael screamed, drying himself off quickly slipping into the clothes that he had left on the shower rack.

He walked out of the showers in an unbuttoned shirt and jeans, pulling up his socks awkwardly as he exited the room. Carl looked at him perplexed.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Oh, you know, stuff." Michael said awkwardly, drying his hair violently, dark brown strands fraying themselves into long curls that almost reached past his eyes. He probably should do something about that soon.

"'Stuff.' Sure." Carl snorted. "Look, man, if I find anything weird in there, I'm gonna ask my dad to kick you out." He said, smiling.

"Whatever, man. No more Invincible drawings from 'quite the artist' I guess." He heard Carl laugh behind him before stepping into the showers.

Michael sighed as he sat on the bed. Yeah, farming was probably a bad idea, especially in his state. But he needed to prove that he wouldn't be stealing from them. Or something. Yeah, wait, why did he help Rick and Carl farm today? Whatever, it was done now, and all he got out of it was being slightly more tolerated by Rick and Carl and chest pains. Sooner or later he'd be hounding down Hershel for more of those pills he gave him during the first few days he stood in the clinic. Where was Hershel anyways? He hadn't seen him anywhere ever since this morning. Didn't Glenn say he helped with the farming?

He'd find Hershel in a second, first, he needed to lay down. His back was killing him now, which was not a good combination with the aching ribs. Michael's head hit the pillow, and before he knew it, he was back in the car on the Georgian Freeway.

"Jesus Christ, look at this gridlock."

"Yeah, it's bad. Shit. Hey, uh mom maybe we should get off on the next turn-"

"We had to come to fucking Florida this weekend out of the entire year!" Samantha slammed down on the horn.

"Mom, calm down, I'm sure we'll be out of here soon alright. We'll be back home before we know it okay, we just need to get out of this stupid traffic." He said, raising himself in his seat to get a better look at the traffic jam.

"We'll be back home before we know it?! Think Michael! I mean, look at this!" She pointed towards the sea of cars ahead of them and then covered her face with her hands, weeping into them. It was a shuddering, helpless sob that filled the whole car with the sound of anguish. It was a terrible noise. The sound of a mother who had lost the ability to protect her only son, and Michael knew this.

He rubbed his mother's back as it hitched with each wail. Dread creeped through his veins as she kept crying and time kept ticking. She turned back to him, eyes filled with tears. Her face wasn't normal. It was twisted and warped in all the wrong ways and looked like she was screaming in abhorrent terror. Michael cringed in his seat and squeezed tightly onto his seatbelt, knuckles turning white.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Samantha wept as she hugged him tightly from the driver's seat.

She continued crying until dark figures surrounded the car. He couldn't make them out but they were there and they were trying to get in. Michael was underwater and he was drowning and he couldn't breath.

"Get away from the window!" Her voice was muffled and Michael could barely understand.

More figures were around the car, bashing at the windows and leaving terrible streaks of viscous fluid on the glass in their wake. Michael and his mother stood still in the sinking car as the people that he couldn't comprehend kept trying the break in. They didn't stop, they never stopped.

The window shattered next to him and he screamed and screamed and kept screaming.

Michael shot up from his bed in a cold sweat. "The dream" again, fuck, man. He wiped his eyes dry and took a deep breath. Two nights in a row. And this one was bad. It was really bad, and he hated it. Michael pulled his knees to his chest and cried quietly in the darkness of his cell until the sun eventually peaked through the barred window and it was time to put everything behind him for the time being and put on a stupid fake smile for the people at the prison again. His ribs hurt less than they did yesterday, which was a good sign. But he was still going to ask Hershel about those pills, though.

THREE WEEKS LATER

As Michael groggily stepped out of the cell block, Carl and Patrick were already eating breakfast. He rubbed the last bits of sleep from his eyes as he walked up to Carla and said good morning with a grin, tongue instinctively poking at his missing tooth. She gave him a bowl of oatmeal and an apple and Michael thanked her, promptly turning to Carl's table and sitting down.

"How'd you two sleep last night?"

Patrick started first. It was the usual drawn out explanation of how his night went. "Pretty good, Beth and I played some board games with the little kids until pretty late, Carol came in and yelled at us." He snorted with laughter.

"That's nice." Michael looked behind Patrick, squinting his eyes. Mika was sitting in front of the fence, giving her undivided attention to the rotting corpse smashing its body against the chain link. "Is she still talking to that thing?"

"Who, Mika?" Patrick asked without turning around, mouth full of oatmeal.

"Yeah. Hey, did I tell you that she made me draw one of them when I first got here. She said that it had a name and everything. I mean, I'm sure she's a nice kid, but." Michael paused, "She just gives me the creeps, y'know."

"She made you draw one of them? And She gave it a name?!" Patrick said with disgust in his voice.

"Yeah, Nick, I think. Like I said, pretty weird."

Some of the adults had set up a small stereo near the pavilion, it wasn't much, but it was definitely some well needed entertainment. Michael bobbed his head with the beat of the music as he drew in the marble notebook, Carl and Patrick sat next to him on the table.

The notebook was about a quarter full by now. Michael had been purposefully taking his time and not wasting pages on full pieces that he would never finish. He thought of saving the thing as almost a 'relic of a forgotten time' if things ever went back to normal. They never were going back to normal.

The sketchbook was mostly filled with the usual things that a teenager would make. There was a lot of grotesque, gory stuff that Carl seemed to think was cool. Patrick wasn't really a fan of it, though. Michael had met the kid on his second day at the prison and the pair got along pretty well. Although Michael was only a year older than the other boy, he still felt like he was too immature for him to really connect with. Should he be worrying about people being immature? I mean, Patrick was a kid. Michael was too, technically, but it's different. Or is it? Did Michael just feel like he was better than Patrick because the kid played with LEGO at fifteen years old? Or was it because Michael had been surviving alone out there for the better part of a year?

"What do you think they're gonna bring back from the run today?" Patrick asked.

"I don't know, man. Hopefully some more trail mix, the one with the M&Ms in it." Carl replied, head down on the pavilion table.

"She made me go uh, uh, uh."

"What'd you say?"

Michael looked up from the drawing. "Oh, uh, nothing, I was just singing with the song. I used to have this on my iPod before it ran out of battery and I had to ditch it." He smiled and gestured with his hands to the beat of the next line. "We are as prickly as a couple of porcupines."

Carl laughed. "You are so stupid, dude."

"It's not my fault that I have a refined musical palette." He said in an aristocratic tone, twirling the pencil he was drawing with in his hand and promptly dropping it to the floor. "Shit."

The boys laughed and continued to talk until Michonne came over and dropped off a small pile of comic books onto the table.

"I knew you'd be here, forgot to give these to you earlier. I'm heading out again in an hour."

Carl's face lit up as he snatched the comics from the table, all still in their plastic covering. Invincible #53, #54, and #55.

"Thank you!"

She ruffled his hair. "No problem, and remember, same as always, cough 'em up after you're done." Michonne smiled and turned to Michael. "How do you feel?" She leaned on the table, placing a hand on her hip.

"I'm doing a lot better. I think I'm gonna get some of these taken out today." He pointed to the stitches.

She smiled widely. "Good, we can't have you scaring us like that again. I'll talk to you boys later." She waved before walking back to D Block.

"Dude, I am so reading those before she does."

"What? No way, man, you've already read them."

"Yeah, and you have too."

"Well, I know that, but… I'll take you to my cell later today and you can pick issues out if you want. The place she goes to has the Image stuff, Marvel, DC, and all that, y'know."

"Boring." Patrick said, grinning while looking at his nails.

Carl brought Michael into his cell. He'd been in there a few times when Carl needed to get something or another, but he never really took the time to look around. The main thing that caught his eye was the cowboy hat on his bed.

"What's that all about?"

"That's my dad's. He used to be a cop, gave it to me after I got shot."

"Your dad was a cop?" Michael paused. "Rick the Farmer? He was a cop?"

"Yeah, Mikey, back in King County."

"I don't know what that is."

"That's where I grew up. I told you- Oh yeah, sorry, forgot you ain't from aroun' here." Carl put on a hick accent for the last part of the sentence and Michael chuckled.

"Jus' a city slicker from New Yawk." The 'slicker' part whistled through Michael's missing tooth. "Look, I'm already getting a hang of the accent."

Carl shook his head and bent down, digging under his bed.

"Y'know, it makes sense now."

"What?"

"Your dad being a cop."

"Really? I definitely told you about it before." Carl scoffed. "Probably forgot it just like everything else I told you about."

"Yeah." Michael laughed to himself. "So what'd he do? Did he ever get into any crazy car chases or something?"

"He got shot. Right before everything."

"Jesus Christ, him too?! Is there like a Grimes family curse or something?" Michael exclaimed. "Where was it? Was he alright?"

"He was actually in a coma for a few weeks. I thought he was dead." Carl paused. "That's what Shane told me and mom at least."

Over the past few weeks, Carl had brought up "Shane" regularly. From what Michael could gather without prying too hard, he was basically a surrogate father for Carl and something happened between him, Rick, and his mom. Come to think of it, yeah, Carl had mentioned that his dad was in a coma during the first few weeks of the world ending. Maybe he should start listening to the little bastard some more.

He was wrenched from his thoughts as Carl pulled out a stack of comics as big as his head.

"What the hell, man!? You read all of those?"

"Basically, yeah, there's some Savage Dragon in there but I could never get into that kinda stuff. Mostly Invincible and Spider-Man for me, maybe some other Marvel or DC stuff here and there."

Michael clapped Carl's shoulder. "That's my boy, now let's see the goods, c'mon."

He walked out of Carl's cell with three issues of Invincible and a single issue of Ultimate Spider-Man. Jackpot.

Back on the road, he read a lot. A lot of really crummy, boring books, but they were better than nothing. He was in the middle of reading a huge, paperweight of a novel, American Psycho, when that guy knocked him into next week, literally. The book was great, he'd never watched the movie but heard it was pretty good as well. Maybe he could find a copy of it in the prison library.

Walking across the D-Block catwalk, Michael opened the door to his cell and fell onto his bed, kicking off his shoes as he landed on the mattress.

Around an hour later, all four of the comics were thoroughly consumed, and one of the Invincible comics, issue #33, was partially re-read. Spider-Man was in it for a single panel, which he totally forgot about. Maybe he could start drawing a comic in the notebook. He had the time to do it, and Carl would definitely get a kick out of it. Maybe they could write it together, at least it would be something to do rather than watching rotting corpses throw themselves against a chain link fence.

Michael laid on his bed for a few more minutes, letting the relaxing silence wash over him as he thought about starting the comic book. Then he realized that he needed to meet Hershel and take the stitches out.

He was talking to a blonde girl, her name was... Beth. Wait, was it Beth?

Hershel looked past his daughter and into the doorway, gesturing for Michael to come in.

"Uh, sorry if I was interrupting anything, Hershel, I just wanted to know about getting these stitches out."

"You weren't interrupting anything, son." Hershel lifted himself from his seat, fidgeting with his suspenders. "Bethy, can we talk about this after I'm done helping Mikey, here."

She opened her mouth and it looked like she was about to speak for a second, but she just took in a deep breath and turned around.

"Sure, daddy. Bye!" She waved to both Hershel and Michael.

"Girls." Hershel said with a grin as he opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of tweezers.

"What happened?"

"She's found herself fancying this boy, Zach." He shook a bottle of rubbing alcohol and opened the cap, spraying a little onto the pair of tweezers. "And the thing is, he's planning on going on the run tomorrow."

Michael had heard about "the run" a few times over the past few days. Apparently, they'd been planning on going to the Big Spot a few miles away. Glenn told him that they used a boombox to draw some of the walkers out, and that the place was pretty much empty now.

"Does she not want him to go on the run?"

"Yep, that's exactly what it is. Now, I know I'm a member of the Council, but I can't just control what a person does or doesn't do."

"I mean, yeah, I totally get it. Besides, Glenn told me that they cleared the place out a few days ago. He should be fine, right?"

"You can never be too sure, Mikey." Hershel rolled up his pant leg, revealing his prosthetic. He tapped it a few times before looking up and smirking.

"Oh, yeah. Right."

Hershel told him about the missing leg when Michael was still in the clinic. Apparently he had gotten bitten while they were clearing the prison and Rick had to cut his leg off. Michael didn't even know that you could survive a bite from cutting the limb off until Hershel told him about the leg. That probably would've been good to know earlier.

Hershel wiped the tweezers dry and placed them onto a sheet of gauze, repeating the entire process with a pair of medical scissors. "Alright, you ready?"

Taking the stitches out of the gash on his cheek felt weird. It wasn't necessarily painful, but there was definitely an uncomfortable amount of pressure. Hershel made sure to stop after every stitch to make sure Michael was okay. He reminded Michael of his grandfather. And that just so happened to be what a lot of people around the prison said about Hershel, actually. He was a calm, but powerful presence that owned whatever room he was in.

"Aaaand, that's the last one." Hershel pulled the final suture out of Michael's cheek. "I'd give you a lollipop, but we're running low, as you can tell."

Michael laughed before lifting himself from his seat and looking into the mirror in the corner of Hershel's office. His hair was still growing steadily. Curly strands fell over his eyes and steadily approached his nose next. As for the cut on his cheek, the scab was still pretty clear, but thinking back to how the injury was when he first arrived at the prison was like comparing night to day. The nose was a light shade of purple now. Eyes still had some bruising under them. And the tooth was still knocked out of his head.

"What do you think?"

"It's great Hershel." Michael touched the scab. "Thanks."

Hershel cleaned the tweezers. "I'm glad I could help."

He left the clinic, taking the scenic route through the courtyard and waving to Luke and Molly who were running around in the prison yard. Michael nodded at Bob Stookey as he passed by. New guy, don't really know him that well.

"Natalie." Michael said, waving at a woman holding a basket of dirty clothes.

"Hey, Mikey." She called back, spinning around to look at the boy as he walked past her.

He stopped near the pavilion and looked out into the yard, taking a deep breath and smiling. Only three weeks and this place already felt like home. There was something about it. The community. A group of people coming together to build something bigger than themselves. That sentimental shit always got him emotional.

"Dude!" Patrick's hand slapped him on the shoulder.

"Jesus Fuck! You almost gave me a heart attack, man. What's up?"

"Daryl brought back a deer!"

"For real?"

"Uh, would I lie about something like this." He said, sounding offended. "They just cut it up to get ready to cook it a few minutes ago, took the guts out and stuff."

"Yeah- yeah I know what they do, Pat. Where's it at?"

They found the deer being prepared and Rick told them both to go back to D-Block. Wash their hands, and get the others. Patrick didn't have to be told twice, he immediately turned and briskly walked back to the staircase up to D-Block.

"Uh, I'll go after him."

They're all eating within the next hour and a half.

"This is amazing" Michael choked out through a mouth full of venison.

It was some of the best barbeque that he'd ever had, which is kind of weird because he was eating in a prison yard with a bunch of strangers. Carol put some kind of spices on it that they had hanging in small containers in the pavilion, and whatever the fuck they were, they made the meat really good. Carl and Patrick seemed to think the same, given their empty plates.

"So, what'd you think of the issues I gave you?" Carl asked, playing with his fork.

"I dig the Angstrom Levy stuff a lot. I totally forgot that Mark meets Spider-Man for a scene."

Carl laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty cool, I've read basically every issue I have a few times now. There's nothing else to do here other than help dad farm, and who wants to do that, y'know."

"Totally."

Rick came over and put a hand on Carl's shoulder. "How you three doin'?"

"We're doing great, Mr. Grimes," Patrick began. "The venison is awesome." He said, smiling.

"Yeah, well you've got Daryl to thank for that one. Said that he was tracking that deer all day."

Michael looked over to Daryl. He and Carol were talking by the grill, leftover deer meat sizzling. The former laughed heartily and the latter clearly stifled a chuckle.

"It was definitely worth it." Rick said. "Alright, you kids be good." Rick said, rustling Michael's hair, then promptly walking away.

Michael found himself in bed that night with a big dopey grin. He flipped through the Ultimate Spider-Man issue, it was the one where Black Cat throws up on Peter's junk. Shit. He forgot to ask Carl about the comic book idea. Whatever, it was stupid anyways. Once his cell got too dark for him to read it anymore, Michael tossed the comic onto the bedside table with the rest of them and he turned to his side, taking a deep breath and before he knew it, the sun blasted through the barred windows and into his cell.