I apologize for the long-ass wait, many circumstances caused this delay and I'm sorry for that.

So here you go, a long chapter for your reading pleasure!

LY


oOo

Diana couldn't feel the tips of her fingers. Really, she couldn't, they were so numb, and her fingers were cramping up. She'd been at it for about one and a half hour and was still only halfway done. Prepping the hair had taken half that time, honestly.

Alice yelped when Diana tugged on the girl's roots with too much force.

Diana looked at her in the mirror and muttered an apology while admiring her hard work.

Alice had come to her while she'd been in her room, writing stuff in the margins of her book, and had asked her to braid her hair. Now, she was still sat on a stool in front of the bathroom counter, the right half of her hair braided into tight rows, while Diana focused on her task, tongue poking out to touch the corner of her lip.

"How much longer is this gonna freaking take?" Alice breathed out, wincing at the pain. "Ugh, you're worse than Frau Spreyermann."

Diana gasped, stopping to raise a hand to her chest. "How dare you?"

"Yeah, I said it."

They had lived in a small place in Switzerland, and Frau Spreyermann had been the only hairdresser in the vicinity that claimed to be able to work with black hair. Worst mistake ever.

She'd almost chemically burnt Alice's scalp somehow and braided her hair so tightly that she had headaches for over a week. Mom had to undo the braids and had to take her to the hospital at one point because her scalp was so sensitive that the skin tore. She still had the scar from the stitches, hidden away by her kinky curls.

Alice was still convinced it had been a hate crime.

Her dad and older sister had taken over styling her hair ever since. Sam had had many older sisters, who had made use of his nimble fingers when he was young to make him help them do their hair, and he had passed his knowledge down to his children.

A weight barreled against her chest at the memories. Diana ignored the ache and the sting rising up her sinuses and prickling the backs of her eyes.

She cleared her throat and said, "Just wait a lil bit, alright?"

With about a third to go, Diana stopped to stretch her fingers and rest her hands.

Both Carol and Jacqui had come by to use the restroom by then. The former had smiled warmly at them and told them she'd baked some sort of cookies with the ingredients available in the cafeteria; she'd had to replace a lot of them with vegan equivalents, but her daughter had approved. That was a sweet something to look forward to. If she was grieving her husband's death, it went unnoticed. If anything, it was likely something to be celebrated, however morbid and utterly wrong it sounded.

Jacqui had been crying. Diana took a wild guess what it was about; Jim came first to mind, but she also remembered Stanley, who Jacqui had been very close to back at the Quarry. Diana remembered him by the stab wound on his thigh that he'd suffered while running away from a couple of survivalist neighbors who had gone insane right at the beginning of the rise of the undead. He'd told Diana all about it once while she inspected the wound, which wasn't infected but hadn't completely healed as well.

He hadn't made it that night. Diana had to look at his shotgun-blown-up face and cross his name off her medical records and forced herself not to feel.

Jacqui had come out of one of the stalls puffy-eyed, and everyone kept to themselves. It had perhaps been selfish not to ask her if she needed anything, but her avoidant gaze told them she wanted to be left alone. Alice wasn't one to press on such subjects and Diana took a page out of her book.

Diana finished up and let Alice stand to admire the do. The small braids waved over her scalp and the tips reached down to her shoulder blades. It was something simple, but practical, and Diana had no bundles to work with.

She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, watching Alice watch herself in the mirror, her head rotating to examine all sides.

In the end, her lips tugged down and she shrugged. "You've done better."

Diana breathed in disbelief and shook her head, not surprised at the nonchalant remark and not taking it seriously anyhow. Alice's hands were on the braids and Diana joined her, feeling the texture under her fingertips.

She observed her little sister. She wasn't alright. Of course she wasn't. She hid it well and Diana could be very oblivious, but she didn't have to see it to know it.

She glanced at her feet and took the plunge. "Hey uh… do you- do you wanna talk?"

Alice's eyes didn't shift towards her, but her hands stilled on the ends of the braids and she held herself against the sink. Diana saw her knuckles protrude against her skin at the tight grip and resisted the urge to reach out.

Alice scoffed with a bitter smile and threw a fleeting glance in her sister's direction, not meeting her eyes. "It's like you don't even know me," she breathed out, sounding more tired than she possibly wanted to let on.

"I'm just- I want you and Felix to know that I'm here for you. If there's anything…"

Alice nodded curtly, eyes downcast. "I know. Thanks but no thanks. Ask Felix."

"I will."

A short silence fell between them, filled only by the tap-tap of Diana's sneakered toes on the tiles. It felt uncomfortable and filled with tension, unusual to them.

Diana picked at the invisible dirt underneath her recently clipped fingernails while Alice examined a light spattering of darkened acne on her cheeks and chin.

Then she stopped, her hands abruptly smacking against the sink with a clear sound, startling Diana. Her hazel eyes were almost as orange as a flame, looking as if set ablaze. "I'mma tell you something to get you off my back-"

"I wasn't on your ba-" Diana murmured.

"Would you let me…? Okay? Jeez," Alice sighed in annoyance and raised a brow. "Here about to do something real selfless to make you feel better and you're still riding my-"

"Okay, I get it," her sister interrupted, then gestured with her hand, "Please, do go on."

"Horse," Alice finished, "I was gonna say riding my horse, but go off, I guess."

Diana rolled her eyes a little and muttered, "You were not gonna say horse."

"Anyway!" Alice's eyes dared her sister to say another word. "Okay, so you better clean your nasty waxy ears and listen very carefully, alright? 'Cause I'm only gonna be saying this once." She looked away with a groove between her brows.

Diana was morbidly curious. Alice usually had no trouble speaking her mind, blunt directness was her forte. She only hesitated where her emotions were concerned. Which meant this could be something very promising.

"Stop looking at me like that." Alice shoved her palm in Diana's face, pushing her away while the other just huffed in surprise. "I gotta prepare myself mentally for this, okay? It's gonna take a lot outta me."

"You should've gone into theater instead of Sprachen," Diana commented and crossed her arms, tilting her head at Alice.

The girl glared at her from the corner of her eye and inhaled deeply. "Okay, first you gotta look away, 'cause there's no way in Hell I'm gonna say this with you looking at me with those eyes."

"They're the only ones I have," Diana responded, halfway into mock offense. She complied by turning her back to Alice, her eyes on the toe of her sneaker as it ran along the lines between the floor tiles.

"I-," Alice started and groaned in annoyance at herself. "Even though I really don't wanna say this, I think it's something you need to hear. I am not gonna repeat myself!"

"Got it."

"I…love you…" she dragged the words out as if they were foreign to her tongue and she was speaking them for the first time.

To Diana, it might as well have been so. Her chest clenched with a good kind of pain and her eyes immediately watered. She made to turn around but was stopped by Alice's harsh warning.

"DON'T! Don't turn around, don't say anything, just let me finish and then we'll go our separate ways and pretend this never happened."

Impossible, Diana thought, too moved for words, her heart fluttering happily in her chest. It felt strange to feel so content in the midst of all the sadness. Like she was committing a crime.

From another perspective, her joy at such an obvious sentiment would seem bizarre, they were sisters, after all. With the relationship they had, it was clear that they loved each other to some extent.

Except coming from Alice, those three words were nothing short of a miracle.

"I… yeah that, and I… need you. I hate to admit it and reeeally hate showing it," her voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper, "but I- I don't know what my life would be without you."

"Alice-"

"Let me finish, okay? You're a fucking llorona and I hate dealing with that but I think you need to hear this now. 'Cause despite all your annoying flaws, Felix and I need you." An almost gentle whisper added, "You're all we have." A beat of silence passed, in which Diana sniffled. Then she continued, encouraged by her sister's silence.

"I really don't know what I would do if you weren't in my life, so please," her voice cracked and she cleared it, "don't you dare- don't you dare die, because if you die, God knows what I will do to you in the afterlife! I'm serious. So yeah, just, okay?"

Her voice grew louder, accusatory, "I'm gonna leave, now. You're not gonna hug me, you're just gonna let me leave. And you're not gonna say anything about this to anyone, I don't want people thinking I'm a crybaby like you, with heartfelt emotions and shit like that, okay? Nod if you get it."

Diana nodded, biting down on her trembling lip.

"Good, so bye." Alice slapped Diana's back hard, right between her shoulder blades, and then the sound of her shoes slapping against the floor grew fainter, a door slammed shut in the distance.

She covered her face with her hands, her lips stretching into an overjoyed grin, her heart light and heavy at the same time.

That was the most she'd gotten out of her sister since about five years. She knew the feeling was there, and while Diana herself had no qualms with verbalizing it, Alice constantly denied it, even going as far as to object to it every time (although she would admit it was a joke as to not hurt her sister's feelings for real).

It didn't feel correct of her, to offer her sister comfort and her empathetic ear only to have herself be comforted instead, Alice assuming her role. But she had been right, she'd really needed to hear that.

oOo

Diana's deeply wedged paranoia and some sort of newly gained survivalist instinct led her to vaguely wander through the corridors and poke through any doors accessible to them on their floor. Just checking, she told herself, just checking that Dr. Jenner wasn't some kind of twisted man led to insanity by his isolation who was experimenting on people who came to the CDC looking for sanctuary.

It was a plausible fear.

Glenn had joined her when she peeked into a common room of sorts, in which he was the only one present, looking half bored to death with a celebrity gossip magazine spread over his face.

He'd asked her the standard question of whether she was doing okay and she gave the standard answer of 'no, but thanks for asking'. It felt somewhat pretentious of her to be so dismissive about it, especially with Glenn, but she didn't want to be confronted with her grief in every conversation she had. To her luck, he didn't take it personally. He looked at her knowingly, no bit of pity in him, and squeezed her hand.

"You really think he could be experimenting on survivors?" Glenn asked after hearing her rant about her ludicrous suspicions.

"I don't really think he is… I just wanna make sure he's not, you know? Better safe than sorry." Diana shrugged and tried to open a door with a card reader and a code input. It didn't budge. She pointed at the door with wide emphatic eyes.

Glenn shrugged nonchalantly back. "It's just a locked door. Those happen in places like these."

"Yeah, but-" She tried it once again. "I wanna know what's inside," she almost whined and pounded on the door once.

"It's probably one of those sterilized rooms where they do science-y stuff, with beakers and little gas stoves."

"I need your help with something," Diana told him after a beat of silence, leaning her back against the door.

Glenn raised his brow. "I'm not gonna knock the door down if that's what you're onto. It's government property, Jenner would kill me. And sadly I don't think I'd have the muscle strength to do it."

"No, no, forget the door, it's in the past now." She waved her hand in dismissal and beckoned her friend closer. He obeyed, leaning in with a hint of conspiracy. "I'm gonna rob this place," Diana whispered.

"You what?!" Glenn all but shouted in her face, looking up and down the corridor, luckily finding it empty. "Are you crazy? Dee, I know things haven't been looking up for you, but that's insane!"

Diana shushed him and calmed his fidgeting with her steady hands. This wasn't something she had predesigned, it literally had just come to her. A light bulb moment.

"Listen, my medkit is looking low on supplies, I need shit that only they have here. Not only meds but Verband material, for wounds and stuff."

Glenn bit his lip and frowned. "But why? We're here, we're alright. I'm sure their supplies would be available to you, should you ask. Do you not feel safe here?" He took her hand and Diana slipped out of it. A first that didn't go unnoticed by him. "Should I be worried?"

She shook her head and cast her eyes down to her fidgeting hands. "No… No, it's… you know me, Glenn. That freaking clock counting down, it kinda freaks me out." She glanced up at him. "I am optimistic about this place, for real. But I ask myself, how much of it is just wishful thinking? And then that clock…"

Glenn said nothing, his dark eyes off in the distance, teeth worrying his bottom lip. He was thinking about it, good. Diana could always count on him to take her seriously and not brush off her concerns. "It is kinda strange…" he admitted, his deep gaze resting on hers.

Diana nodded emphatically with shrugged shoulders and palms facing up, body language screaming, 'Amirite?!'

"I still think you shouldn't burglarize the place," he added deadpan, "Ask Jenner what the countdown is about, or not, and if he can give you access to their medical supplies and relevant rooms."

"No."

"Wh- Y- what? What do you mean 'no'?"

"I'm not gonna do that." Diana shook her head. "If he truly is hiding something - which I can't rule out yet - he will know I am onto him if I start asking questions, which will put me under his radar, which will put the kids under his radar, and I don't want that."

"I think your definition of optimism might be a lil bit out of date, good woman," Glenn finished with a single chuckle, more to try to lighten the situation rather than actual humor.

Diana leaned in, trying her best not to sound irrational or preposterous, "Glenn, I am trusting this man with my kids' lives, with your life. We all are. I need to know there's not a single fucking thing in this building that will put that at risk. If there is…" she couldn't finish the threat, feeling her blood beginning to boil at the idea.

Glenn's hands were on her upper arms, his eyes and small smile were full of understanding. "I get it. I do, Dee. I feel the same about you and our group, especially you," he added, with the corner of his lip rising and a casual lift of his shoulder. "But why the looting? How does that play in the investigation?"

"I think it's because of my newly-born survivalist trait mixed with some sort of weird kleptomaniac desire to attain goods."

"That sounds alright to me."

oOo

Diana entered her room after having dropped off Glenn at his. Their mission had been a half-success.

It turned out that their floor was mainly living quarters and common rooms, so they'd left towards the level of the computer room and spread out from there. There had been many locked doors and frustration and sneaking around and having to lie to the occasional survivor that roamed the facilities in search of something unknown to them.

They had come upon an unlocked room - unlocked as in the card reader had been malfunctioning somehow and had just accepted them inside without any codes or credentials. That had been pretty neat. Inside, there had been a hospital room looking space, with an accordingly empty bed and black monitoring screens with cables and cuffs connecting to it. Cabinets and drawers occupied the entire length of the wall on the left.

That's where they'd found the materials Diana had been looking for. Sterile and non-sterile medical tools, all types of bandages and burn care and wound management stuff she could find, ointments and creams, and so much more. Anything any well-prepared medic would want to have in their first aid kit.

She'd even found a replacement stethoscope, the newer one much fancier and sturdier.

Opposite that wall, there had been a locked steel door, and Glenn had suspected that that's where they kept some of their medicine reserves. Unlucky for them, it had been impossible to unlock it and unthinkable to knock it down.

So yeah, half successful.

Diana startled at seeing her brother and sister in her room, lounging on her cot and on the floor, looking up at her silent entrance.

Alice narrowed her eyes at her and Diana narrowed them back. "Whatchu got there?"

"Supplies," was the older sister's simple answer.

"Alright-y then," Alice replied, uninterested, and returned to the guitar in her hold – where had she gotten it from? – playing some notes and then tuning the strings.

"Supplies for what?" Felix asked, eyeing his sister like she was a lunatic for just accepting the fact.

Diana dropped the paper sack next to her kit and knelt before them. She shrugged and began arranging the material inside, adding her pillage to her own things. It felt wrong to think of it that way, but it was, in a way, true. "You know, just in case."

Felix caught her gaze and frowned. "Just in case of what?"

Diana shrugged nonchalantly. "In case..."

"-that this doesn't work out? I've thought the same. Smart," Alice interrupted, pointing a finger at her sister before they turned to the guitar strings again.

"You think that could happen?" Felix asked, closing the anatomy book he was flipping through. His concern was evident in his frown. "I- wha- why? We're good here, right? I don't wanna leave, I don't wanna have to go out there again. It's not fair, we're safe now."

Diana couldn't stand to look at him, to see the fear she heard in his voice. It hurt her to think of it. He was right, though. It really wasn't fair. She hoped Dr. Jenner wasn't a torturing and murdering psychopath and that the clock was counting down to something benevolent. "I know. I'm probably just being silly."

oOo

The next hour found the three of them still in Diana's room. Most of it spent in mournful silence, each to their own activity. Until Felix complained that his hair kept falling in his eyes and Diana offered to cut it for him. He commented on how mom would've been glad to finally see it happen.

So his locs were cropped and his curls trimmed close to his scalp.

Conversation flourished between them from then on. They spoke of nonsensical things, things that kept the mood light and unburdened.

Alice sang a little, played a little guitar – she was still learning to do so – she dedicated some songs to mom and dad, finally addressing the elephant in the room. Nothing else came from them regarding that subject. Felix wept silently, tired tears down his cheeks, and Diana held and kissed his hand.

Alice's words came to mind. Diana leaned into her brother's shoulder and told him she loved him, which choked a sob out of him and made him turn to embrace her. Into his ear she said it again and that she was never going to leave them.

"Who's the girl, Diana?" Alice asked after some time after they'd separated, breaking the reverent silence, her short fingers struggling to form a chord.

Diana frowned in confusion, her head perched on Felix's shoulder, his on top of hers. She straightened herself, forcing him to do the same, and asked, "Huh? What girl?"

"From your book-thingy, the one you write in. There was a lot about her on there, like a lot. Like obsessive, really." She huffed and put the guitar down. She crossed her legs on the cot and rested her chin on her palm, inquisitive eyes on her sister.

Diana was caught off guard by the sudden change of subject, although she didn't put it past Alice. Then her mind caught up on who she was talking about and she remembered all the other embarrassing things she'd written in that book.

With a reprehensive pointer finger outstretched, she scolded her sister's behavior, "For real? That's private stuff, Alice! How dare you? How'd you feel if I went looking in your sketchbook without your permission?" Alice's nostrils flared at that, and Diana added, "Yeah, see, keep your fingers away from my stuff and I'll keep mine. We got a deal?"

Alice played with the end of a braid and turned her nose in distrust. But in the end, conceded with a nod. "Deal. But you're still gonna tell us about her."

Felix elbowed his sister and raised an eyebrow. "I'm lost." He looked at Alice and then Diana. "What girl? What's this about?"

"You know how this binch is always on that rainbow book? Writing and shit? I thought that was weird, so I snooped around and found out she's been writing in it like a diary. Not a smart move, really." Alice raised a low-key smug corner of her lip.

"So she wrote about a girl? How's that something special? We both know she can be gay as fuck," Felix commented.

"She's… She's someone I dream about sometimes."

Felix nodded slowly. "Okay, so she ain't real?"

Alice jumped in, "That's the thing. She doesn't know."

"If it's a dream, it's not real. It can look and feel like it is, but it's all a figment of your imagination. C'mon, you know that," Felix said like he was schooling a small child who didn't know what a dream was. Diana felt ridiculed.

"Okay, but listen. Consider this: I remember everything exactly as it was when I wake up."

Felix shrugged. "And? That's just because it's really realistic."

"Felix, you're not listening. Every night I dream of the same person, never the same thing. Always from her point of view, and when I wake up I remember everything she saw and heard and smelled as if her eyes and ears and nose were my own. Like they're my own memories. It's a little creepy."

"She wrote about it in such detail, you should've read it," Alice commented, leaning forward.

"But don't."

"You're actually decent, congrats."

"Okay, but that still doesn't invite you to read my private diary."

Felix interrupted with raised hands to stop visual contact between his sisters and said, "Okay, yeah I get that it's weird, but what's the big deal?"

"Wait for it…" Alice whispered, hyping it up like it was the finale to a good movie.

"She knows my name, Felix," Diana said, cracking her knuckles with nervous energy. "She told me she was real, over and over, as if she knew I would overhear it."

"If she's a product of your mi-"

"You really don't get it, Felix. I think she's real," Diana admitted, the cat finally out of the bag, "I think she's real and out there and I'm seeing through her eyes. And if she knows my name, I think she might be dreaming of me, too!"

"That's…"

"Tight as fuck." "Fucking awesome." Both younger siblings said at the same time.

Felix added, "I mean, it's really strange, yeah totally, but also, c'mon, so fucking cool."

Diana glanced down at her fidgeting hands in her lap. "So you guys don't think I might be going insane or something?"

"Well, under different circumstances, fuck yeah," Alice said with raised brows, "but have you seen the kinda shit we've been tripping into? You, especially? I think it's probably just part of the package deal and you still gotta figure it out."

"Then the thing with the nap's probably part of it, right?" Diana asked rhetorically.

"Wait, what thing with the nap? I didn't read anything about that." Alice got a pointed look at that but insisted. "What is it?"

Diana retold them what had happened that one afternoon after the picnic with Daryl. How she'd fallen asleep and woken up to a myriad of forest critters who had been as if summoned to her side, who had ended up falling prey to Daryl's crossbow in the end, but nevertheless.

Alice was the first to comment by saying, "That sounds too much like Disney princess BS to me."

"Yeah, can you get little bluebirds to sit on your finger and sing for you? Can you command mice to clean and sew you a dress?"

Diana crossed her arms and shrugged loosely. "Oh okay, so the dreams are okay to you but this isn't?"

Felix shook his head slowly, lips pursed. "There's gotta be a limit somewhere, bro."

oOo

Their bubble was popped when Glenn appeared at her door – not very surprised to see her siblings in there with her – announcing that Dr. Jenner had called everybody to the computer room, having something to show them.

They abandoned what they were doing and left with him. There were some others also joining the rest of the group as they arrived.

Jenner looked at them, likely noticing the complete numbers, and commanded Vi to power up the main screen.

A loading screen showed up shortly up front and then several images of anatomical planes of a brain appeared, mainly in shades of blue, bathing the room in a cold atmosphere.

Dr. Jenner told them that few people ever got the see what they were seeing, and that got Diana to burn with pure curiosity.

Carl, who was standing with Lori beside Alice, asked Jenner if what they were seeing was a brain, and he affirmed that it was an extraordinary one, not that it had mattered in the end.

He gave Vi another command and the image on the screen changed, zooming in on the brain until the nerve cells were visible and they could observe the synapses flashing back and forward along the cells, carrying information.

Diana had never seen anything quite like that; they had incredible instruments at their disposal.

Shane asked what the lights were and Diana almost had to bite her tongue to keep from answering.

Jenner explained to them the purpose of the synapses and then announced that what they were witnessing was a vigil, or rather, the playback of one, of Test Subject 19, someone who had been bitten and infected, and who had volunteered to have the scientists record the process.

What a morbid thing, Diana thought, but she would've done the same. If her death could've in any way or form contribute to the furthering of science, toward finding an answer, then she wouldn't have minded.

Dr. Jenner looked upon the screen with great melancholy, and Diana wondered if he'd known the subject personally, if it had been one of his friends or colleagues whom he had to watch die an awful death. Then he said, "Vi, scan forward to the first event," which the computerized female voice repeated, and the screen changed once more.

The MRI video showed them the same brain as before, but now the infection had started affecting it, darkening the regions around the brain stem and spreading outwards. The activity of the synapses was still there, but lessened and completely different from before.

"What is that?" Glenn asked in wonder.

Jenner pointed at it and explained, "It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs."

As he spoke, the person in the MRI video starting convulsing as their last moments approached, the darkness of the infection reaching out further and further until the entire brain was dark, the person's life erased like it had never been there; dead. No more lights flickering, no more memories, no more emotions, just plain lifeless.

Diana thought she should be feeling sad, but she couldn't muster it up; she knew what it all meant, but to her, it was just a silhouette on a screen.

Dr. Jenner paused, looking down. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be… gone."

When Sophia mentioned Jim, Diana was reminded of how glad she had been that Sam and Irene hadn't had to suffer through his fate, and now that sentiment came back doubled. It served as some comfort to know that they had not been erased from this existence in this pitiful manner. They had died human.

There was a moment of silence in the room and Diana thought of them, wondering if they were looking over them like in that drawing from Alice that she'd found. Believing in an afterlife was a terrific coping strategy.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, looking to her right at her kids. Felix met her gaze with a sad, wet smile that was more of a grimace. His hand found hers.

Alice was staring straight ahead, arms crossed. Carl looked up at her, and almost as if sensing his eyes on her, she glanced down. The boy reached out and tugged on her arm until they uncrossed and slipped a small hand in hers. Alice simply accepted it.

"They lost people two days ago," Lori said from Carl's other side, watching her son comfort Alice like only a child could.

Jenner glanced at them and then Andrea, and said, "I lost somebody, too. I know how devastating it is."

Diana pursed her lips in acknowledgment when he looked at her, and then he turned around and ordered Vi to scan to the second event. He explained to them how the resurrection times could vary wildly, with reports of it happening in as little as three minutes and the longest reported being eight hours.

"In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute… seven seconds,"

On the screen, something started sparking back to life in the darkened brain, completely unlike before when the entire brain was brimming with synapses. Now, only the brain stem was active.

Lori asked if the disease restarted the brain and Jenner replied, "Only enough to get them up and moving."

That raised some questions in Diana, regarding the physiology of this new brain.

"I've got a question," Diana announced, raising her hand like she was back in school. "I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the substantia nigra is located there, right? The brain stem?"

"Yes, in the midbrain, that's correct." Jenner nodded, interested.

Diana stepped forward. "And- and that area produces uh- dopamine. And dopamine, in the brain, works in favor of motor control as well as uh-" Diana racked her brain, she knew this stuff… "As well as happiness, or better yet, reward-motivated behavior, which might also play a role postmortem somehow."

"Among other things, yes."

"So if the brain stem is active, that means it still could be being produced, right?"

"In theory."

"To Parkinson patients, we give Levodopa-based medication or agonists because their substantia nigra is defective and doesn't produce or-or barely produces any dopamine. My question is, is there something that works reverse? Like instead of an agonist, an antagonist? Would that work? I mean, I'm just going by what I've learned till now, so I don't know if that'd be possible, you know? But you, you can tell."

"That would have me prescribing antipsychotics to turned test subjects," Jenner concluded from that.

"Oh," Diana murmured, and retraced her steps, feeling idiotic for spewing out apparent nonsense so confidently. Her cheeks felt warm and her stomach clenched with embarrassment and anxiety.

"No, it's all very- it was all very well said, I can tell you understand what this entails," Jenner defended, gesturing towards her encouragingly. "It was a very sound train of thought, I admire that. But it's a little more complicated than that. There are variables involved that don't revolve only around the dopamine production, although that is an identifiable factor. So please, no need to feel ashamed of that assumption, it was really very well said."

"Oh uh, okay, thanks…" She felt at a loss for words at the compliment, glowing slightly inside, and was glad she had spoken up after all, or else the doubt would've burned in her mind forever.

"So this dopamine," Lori started, "that's not the only thing keeping them moving?"

"As I said, there are other factors involved, some of which- or many of which, still remain unknown."

"So they're moving, but not alive at all?" Rick asked, noting that the brain looked nothing like before, that most of it was dark.

Jenner turned to Rick and affirmed, "Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part… That doesn't come back. The 'you' part." He looked up at the screen, at the turned test subject moving about in the video. "It's just a shell, driven by mindless instinct. Reward-motivated behavior postmortem, as your medic said."

Then, the muzzle of a gun appeared at the edge of the screen, and the test subject was shot in the head, creating a straight path through its brain stem, permanently erasing it from existence, bringing it the peace it deserved for its services.

Jenner asked Vi to power down the main screen and the workstations and moved towards the back of the room, everyone's eyes following him, dejected and demoralized. The wave of demands and accusations on their part crashed into him, and he, almost too calmly, informed them that he had no idea what the disease was. He had no idea whether other people were working on it because he'd been in the dark for almost a month – communication cut off from the rest of the world.

That confirmed at least something… It was indeed global.

Then another realization: so their journey had been for nothing?

Well not entirely nothing; they'd found shelter, which was a valuable and coveted thing. But the main reason for their being there had been to find answers.

Diana had already come to terms with the notion that it was irreversible, but she'd let herself hope otherwise, just in case. Only to have that small hope shattered.

Maybe it would've been better to have remained ignorant, to just go about each day thinking that things would be better someday.

Diana felt herself craving the bliss of ignorance despite her personal motto: knowledge is power.

Maybe she ought to drown her sorrows in whiskey once more, just to forget how shitty the world was for one day.

Almost as if reading her thoughts, Daryl threw his hands up and announced, "Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." The coincidental glance her way as he leaned against one of the computer desks made her belly roil and her burned face like a furnace.

Yeah, maybe she should learn not to drown her sorrows in liquor.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... that clock... It's counting down," Dale pointed out, walking towards it, the red numbers marking an hour exactly. "What happens at zero?"

Thank you, Dale!

"The…basement generators, they run out of fuel," Jenner said, weaving almost aimlessly through the room.

Rick tilted his head. "And then?"

But Jenner just kept his mouth shut and left, leaving them in suspenseful silence.

"What do we do, now?" Diana asked to no one in particular, knowing exactly what she was going to do, and it was Rick who answered.

"We'll go check that basement. Everyone, just go back to what you were doing, we'll figure something out," he said, trying to sound reassuring. The uncertainty in his voice was almost palpable.

oOo

Everyone left after that, in different states of incredulity and distress.

Diana told the kids to get their stuff together and put it in her room and to wait there for her. She went in only shortly to get the emptied paper sack from before and her bow. It purred in her hand like a pet, reinvigorating her.

She ran to the room where she'd gotten her supplies and stalked to the locked door inside. She dropped the sack and took up the bow, aiming at where the inner mechanisms of the lock would be. The arrow pierced through the steel, surprisingly. Another two and a full-bodied push, and the door swung open. Diana caught herself on the frame.

She flipped the light switch.

Bingo.

The small square storage room had all three walls lined with locked glass cabinets and roll-up shutters. She didn't dare break the glass in case something inside the cabinet would be damaged with the impact, but she did use the same trick on all locks as before.

Since drugs in Switzerland were branded differently, it took Diana longer to collect essentials, having to read every label unless she recognized the ending and therefore knew what it was for.

She filled the sack until it was almost too heavy to lift without the bottom ripping. She was quite sure she had everything she needed, but she still regretted not having enough space in her medkit to take everything with her. Such a waste.

Diana shouldered her bow and hurried back to her room, glad to see that her siblings had done what she'd asked of them.

"Where the hell were you?" Alice asked first thing, stalking in her direction, taking in the bow and the heavy sack. She took it from her sister and opened it. Her mouth formed an 'o' and she nodded at her.

Diana nodded in turn and accepted the drugs back. Felix peeked inside as she walked past him and he, too, seemed pleased with what he saw. She opened her medkit and carefully stored any fragile bottles inside. The packs less likely to break were stored inside the backpack where she kept her medkit for better portability. The backpack looked engorged like the belly of a nine-month pregnant woman.

She should've invested in a larger one.

Not long after, the lights went out, leaving them standing in near darkness.

Diana opened the door and walked out of the room, kids on her trail. They saw everyone else do the same, just as Jenner marched down the corridor, swooping in and grabbing a bottle of liquor from Daryl's hand.

Alice pushed on her shoulder and they had no other choice but to follow the procession.

Jenner was saying that the energy use was being prioritized, and at Dale's question of whether air and lights were not a priority, he shrugged and declared that it wasn't up to him.

The warm lighting above them turned off, leaving only the faint emergency lights on, emerging them in partial darkness.

"Zone Five is shutting itself down," Jenner said, reaching the end of the corridor.

Daryl followed directly after him. "Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" He sauntered past Dale. "Hey, man, I'm talkin' to you. What d'you mean, it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

Diana's rapid heartbeat, induced by oncoming panic, sped up when she saw Rick, Glenn and the others on the level underneath them, and if they were there, it meant they had been unable to find anything in the basement to help their cause.

She had a bad feeling, her gut twisted in knots, the bow buzzed numbingly against her flesh, matching her nervous energy. "I don't feel good about this."

"Neither do I," said Alice, "I get the feeling we're gonna be very glad you went on a looting spree."

Confusion reigned until Vi announced the thirty-minute mark, making their attention drift to the countdown clock with the matching time window. Dr. Jenner turned to his computer, typed something in and an enormous metal partition blocked the exit, locking them inside.

Chaos followed as accusations were made and the beginning of violence threatened to break out. Daryl made a go at Jenner as Shane and T-Dog held him back.

Diana's first instinct was to get her siblings away from it all. She ushered them to the side, Felix grabbing shakily onto her arm. His breath was on the verge of hyperventilation; his eyes were wide on hers. "It's alright," she comforted, hand on his cheek, "Te tengo. I won't let anything happen to the two of you. Juro-te."

He had always been terrified of death. Knowingly facing his own mortality must be petrifying to him.

Diana startled and felt Felix flinch as well when Jenner jumped from his seat. His voice was booming as he yelling at Rick, reminding them of the place they were in, of the kinds of diseases from which they protected the public, all of which could devastate the country if they ever got out.

His words evoked a strained silence from everyone present, and then he sat down, calmer, and explained, "In the event of a catastrophic power failure and a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

Rick paced in front of his chair. "HITs?"

Jenner asked Vi to define it for them, and the female computerized voice explained in more words that the air would be set on fire, killing everyone and everything inside the building.

Diana's breath hitched in her throat, her heart clenched in her chest. Her hand squeezed Felix's grip and her other reached for Alice, who, for once, didn't pull away.

"No pain," concluded Jenner somberly, "An end to sorrow. Grief. Regret. Everything."

No, no, no, no. This could not be it. He could not be doing this to them!

The panic and desperation were replaced with indignant fury.

"Usually I'd say that sounds nice," Alice remarked, "but I've got a vendetta, so that would be like, counter-productive or some shit."

Diana marched towards Jenner, the bow thrumming with shared contempt.

Towering above his seated form, she resisted the primal urge to punch him, and instead thrust her pointer finger accusatorily in his face, her anger making her grow bolder. "You- you have no right to keep us in here!"

"No, but it's what's best for everyone."

"And you're the judge of that? How can you tell us what's best when you don't know us!"

"You'd rather go back outside, thrown to the wolves, than let it all end here, with dignity?"

"We belong with the wolves, jackass," Alice remarked from the side.

"What dignity is there in a death chosen for us?" She threw her arms out.

Jenner looked around them, and then his eyes were back to her darker ones. "They said you lost people."

Diana pursed her lips, staring down at him. "We did."

"Do you really want to go to go back to that? To go through what they did?" Diana's blood ran hot and cold at his words. "What about your brother and sister? Isn't it cruel to-"

"What you're doing right now is cruel, who are you to decide who lives or dies? Who are you to dictate our fate?!"

How dare he assume such things in their stead?! Did he think himself to be a god, hanging their lives over their heads as he saw fit? And using the circumstances of her parents' death to attempt to lure her to his side? That was twisted.

Her hands clenched into fists, the sounds of Carl and Sophia crying resounded in her ears, contrasting with the hisses of metal on metal and the strained grunts of the people trying to break down the door.

Those kids deserved the chance to live to fight another day. As did her brother and sister, and everyone else in that room. Jenner thought he was doing them a favor, but he was simply playing Devil.

Diana's teeth ground against each other as she tried to contain her anger. How dare he? How dare he?! If he wanted to die, he had no need to drag the lives of others into his suicidal spiel. It was completely heinous!

She stared down at him as he attempted to convince Andrea that he was right, using her sister Amy as leverage. He tried the same strategy on Rick, asking him if a short, brutal life and an agonizing death was what he wanted for his wife and son.

Diana needed an outlet for the squirming under her skin. The palms of her hands were already hurting from her fingernails embedding into their flesh.

She took her bow by a limb and, with a yell, smashed it onto the computer next to Jenner, making the man jump as sparks flew from the device and it spat out its broken glass teeth.

"You don't get to decide for us!" she repeated emphatically, letting her weapon hang at her side.

Shane approached them, panting, saying they couldn't make a dent in the door.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said, almost proud of that fact while rolling away from Diana in his chair.

"Yeah, well, they won't withstand me," Diana hissed out, and stalked away, ignoring Rick's further attempts to change Jenner's mind.

"What is she doing?" Jenner asked.

"You gonna do something stupid?" Alice asked her as Diana trailed past her and Felix.

"Wouldn't it be kinder?" Jenner said to Carol's protest, "More compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"

"Vai-te foder!" Diana yelled from over by the locked entrance, and it echoed. She drew an arrow and shot at the panel. It dissipated as soon as it hit, leaving no scratch on the surface. "And fuck your twisted sense of righteousness!" She shot another one and another and stopped, startled, when gunshots resonated behind her.

She turned around to see Shane shoot up the computers while Rick tried to contain him. She called Felix and Alice to her side, afraid they'd get caught in the crossfire, and they complied, standing on the ramp with her.

Shane was subdued by Rick, and so Diana turned back to her task.

She shot and shot and shot, and then Daryl joined her, swinging his ax at one side of the partition while she kept busy with the other.

Her fingertips felt raw and the muscles on her arms, shoulders, and back were burning, but she wasn't going to stop. She would keep trying until the air lit on fire and they were blown to smithereens.

Felix and Alice were young, they had so much ahead of them, shitty world or not. And even if it turned out like Jenner said, even if their lives did turn out to be short and painful, at least they'd had the opportunity to live it.

She didn't tire, because she couldn't.

She noticed the light bending on the metal, and upon closer inspection, small indentations that her arrows had left behind. A flicker of hope, and then, by Jenner's command, the panel rolled down, releasing them.

Daryl and she shared a look of relief, their hands grasping the other's forearm. Then he looked behind them and yelled at the others to hurry out of there.

"Kids, with me, vamos!" Diana ordered, and both were by her side in a blink.

Glenn crashed into them, prompting her forward, making her lose her grip on Daryl, and he yelled at the others, "Let's go! Hey, we've got four minutes left! Come on!"

Diana didn't think twice and didn't look back. She crashed into her room, and she and the kids gathered their things.

With a backpack on her back, the medkit backpack at her front like the aforementioned pregnant belly, and her messenger bag swinging against her hip, Diana's body protested against the strain. She ignored it and hurried Felix with a hand on his upper arm. A look over her shoulder confirmed Alice's presence behind her, grabbing onto Diana's backpack, not wanting to get left behind with her shorter legs.

They ran up the dimly lit staircase, following after Daryl and T-Dog, spilling out onto the massive lobby.

Diana thought her lungs were going to collapse, her vision started to darken and she began to hear everything in the distance. Her shaking hand reached into her messenger bag for one of the inhalers she'd looted. She was unsuccessful. Two steady hands tore hers away and emerged with the inhaler. Diana grabbed it and took two puffs with deep breaths.

She stayed leaning against the handrail with her concerned siblings at her side, coaching her breathing, shaky hand in a viselike grip on Felix's shirt as he rubbed her upper arm in a calming manner. She released him when she noticed it and thanked both him and Alice, who had found the inhaler.

Her ears rang and tuned in to the pandemonium of yells and commands. Daryl and Shane were trying to break through the glass with their axes. T-Dog going at it with a chair.

The glass doors and windows showcased the outside world; their freedom, their hope. Funny how a perspective can change depending on the circumstances.

Alice whispered, "Wanna do something stupid?"

Diana looked down at her, understanding, and jogged forward.

She yelled at T-Dog to get out of the way and took aim at the window.

What good was she, what good was this bow, if they did nothing to help in the most critical moments? She was not going to remain passive in this narrative.

The arrow hit and a small spiderweb crack formed on the glass.

Two more, and the crack grew outward, spreading toward the metal frame. A fourth arrow at the exact epicenter brought down the window in shards and chunks. No one wasted any time in evacuating the building.

Diana made sure her siblings were with her before she ran outside, out through the broken window and into the summer heat and the rotten stink of the walkers decorating the front lawn like a hyper-realistic Halloween nightmare.

They cleared a path through the walkers and to their vehicles.

Glenn ushered the kids and Diana into the RV before following them in.

Diana threw her bags off her and pressed Rick to start the RV, but then Lori pointed out Dale and Andrea emerging from the building. They waited with bated breath.

When they were close enough to be out of the blast radius, Rick honked the horn and Lori yelled out the window for them to get down.

Rick yelled at them to get back and get down and then threw himself on top of his family. Glenn grabbed onto Diana and shielded her and in turn, she held onto her siblings.

Then there was a resounding roar as the CDC erupted in a fiery explosion, sending a blast of heat and wind, causing the RV to rock with the force.

A few seconds passed and then, "Get off of me, you Fettsack," Alice grunted, and pushed Diana off her with an angry shove, forcing everyone up with her.

"You okay?" Diana asked her and Felix, and while the latter nodded, still stunned, the former ignored her to stare out at the destruction, the high orange flames reflected in her hazel eyes.

Glenn hurried Dale and Andrea inside, and once they were safe and secure, with everyone accounted for, Rick started the RV, turned them around and drove away.

Exhausted, Diana grabbed her discarded bags and moved to the back of the RV, sitting on the bed a dying Jim had lied upon not long ago and watched the column of black smoke rise from the flames out the back window.

Glenn and Felix sat down beside her, the latter dropping his head on her lap, while Alice sat next to Glenn, who offered her his shoulder to rest her head on.

Diana's hand roamed to Felix's short curls, soothingly scraping her fingernails against his scalp until his breathing became deep and even and he was fast asleep. Good, he needed it. Alice's fingers were interlaced with Glenn's, her heavy lashes blinking at the empty space ahead.

Diana shared a fond but sad smile with Glenn, which he returned, and clasped his free hand in hers.

They'd cut it very close.

She'd been in situations of danger before, both willingly and not, but she had never been as scared and livid as in that room.

She knew why; if she'd been alone in there with Jenner, she would probably have cried her eyes out and tried to beg her way out, only to accept her fate after. But there had been other people in the equation, people she cared about, people she would die and very probably kill for, people that she wanted to see alive and well for as long as possible.

And now, no matter what kind of disproportionately huge amounts of life-span-shortening bullshit the world and its corruption threw at them, they'd be allowed to try their hand at life.


I'd appreciate if you could drop a comment and tell me your thoughts :)