She was standing in the courtyard, feeling free of the burdens of a dead world and relieved from the excruciating pain that held her last breath.
Lori watched as a somber Carl, her baby boy, and Maggie, her own arms covered with blood, made their way to the yard. Maggie held her newborn daughter, Rick's daughter, a baby she herself would never get the chance to embrace. Not in this lifetime, at least.
She felt weightless, at peace, and in the distance she saw the shadows she recognized as her parents and sisters. There was no more pain, and a blissful warmth enveloped her.
Until she heard him wail.
"Oh, no! No, no, no, no!"
He fell to the ground and curled into the fetal position, his body shaking with deep sobs. She knelt down, trying to rub his back, just as he did to her when he came home early from patrol and told her about her parents. He held her through the night, his body absorbing the grief from a suddenly parentless woman.
"Rick, I'm here baby…"
The peaceful light she tried to follow would have to wait.