Detective Grimes I
Lori's voice drifted in and out, like a camera refocusing over and over. The words came in bits and pieces, breaking off randomly, some louder and some no more than whispers.
"Rick…"
"…Oh, Rick, please – please, Rick, wake…"
"Wake up, Rick…"
"…son is here…"
"…he's…"
"…Rick – I need you to listen t' me, if you're in there – somewhere…"
"…oh, honey, I'm so, so sorry..."
"Sweetie, please, wake up…"
There was no sense of time for Rick. Everything felt weightless and fleeting. He struggled to grasp consciousness or reality, but it always slipped through his fingers. He seemed to float through an abyss, his wife's voice guiding him in and out.
"…Shane… Shane… oh, God, Shane…"
"…funeral…"
"…Carl didn't want – Rick, you have to…"
She sounded choked up and teary more often than not. He wanted to talk back, he wanted to open his eyes and find her. But every time he tried, the words remained on the tip of his tongue and wouldn't move any farther. Sometimes he thought he could hear his son, even if just for a second.
" – Dad… wake up…"
Carl didn't sound like Carl, though. He sounded pained. Rick fought to reach out to his son – his flesh and blood, his boy. But he still couldn't seem to grasp anything. It was all like a brief dream, beginning and ending before Rick could even understand what was going on.
All he could remember was working on a case with his partner and best friend, Shane. They'd known it would be dangerous, and they were prepared for that, but something happened. He'd been standing in the house, Shane right beside him, and he could feel the metal of his gun against the skin on his lower back. His heart had been racing because he knew this was a huge case and it would be an enormous bust for everyone involved. He'd been staring into the menacing eyes of Hershel Greene, trying to figure out what the old man was thinking, silently wondering how dangerous this family really was. But then everything went black. There was a loud sound, like a gun, or a bone breaking.
Everything felt like it had taken place all at once within a split-second to Rick. And now he was stuck - hanging in that split-second for the foreseeable future, a jumble of words waiting on his tongue to be spilled out…
to be continued…