Chapter 11- Carl's POV
My heart stops. I almost choke on my own tongue.
"You mean, to make the cure you need that… that thing on top of the growth of the disease. How would taking it away kill her?" Sam says.
"Well uh," he holds up the X-ray again, "If we take this away, the disease will spread through her brain. Which will kill her immediately, without turning her."
"Yes, but why?"
"Okay, when the day of the apocalypse started everyone's brains had a small growth of the disease on them by that time. As you can see, Maddy's is a little bigger than a regular person." He says as he holds up another sheet, comparing the size.
"This means that when hers started to grow, something –something grew over it and stopped it from growing over her whole brain. If the cure hadn't grown over it the disease growth would have spread over her entire brain, killing her instantly."
I look over at Maddy, she had tears in her eyes. I wanted to comfort her but I didn't know how. How could someone make a decision like that?
"Sorry Dr, but I'm not letting her do this." I say, as my voice breaks from trying not to cry.
"That's not your decision to make," he says and he looks over at Maddy. "This will save the entire human race! You will not only be the cure but you will be remembered for curing everyone!"
"Why-why can't you just cut out everyone's disease growth?" she asks as she wipes away her tears.
"I have thought of that but when I tried I realised that the growth disease had attached itself to something inside our brain that is important. That is something we need to keep on living, so to take away the disease we'd have to take away the other important thing. It just doesn't work, I'm sorry."
She blinks as more tears stream down her face, seeing her like this made me burst into tears. I cradle my face in my hands as the tears splashed out.
Maddy's POV
I watched as Carl cried for me. I appreciated that he tried to stop me from doing this but my decision was already made, and I knew that he already knew I would accept to this.
"Ok, when is the surgery?" I ask and Carls face turns to mine immediately.
"No, no, no. You are not going through with this! I can't let you!" he shouts
"Carl, I have to. By killing off one life I'm saving hundreds, thousands."
"NO, YOU ARE NOT TO GIVE UP YOUR LIFE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE PRACTICALLY DEAD ALREADY!" he screams, leaping to his feet. I see the anger in his eyes, the tears and the sadness. I wanted to hug him and tell him that it will be OK. I wanted to say that I wouldn't go through with this but that would just be a lie. I have to go through with this, it what every, courageous human being would do.
"I never knew that you could be greatly brave even when you're scared to death." I say, "When's the surgery?"
Carl slams his fist against the wall and I flinch, but keep my eyes on Dr Mayford, pleading him to say something.
"The surgery can start whenever, but try to make it ASAP…" he says, sadly.
"OK, I'll say my goodbyes tonight."
"NO!"
I jump out of my seat and face Carl. "Carl grow up. Before, everyone had to fight to survive but now they finally have a cure! Less people will die! No one will be afraid, humans can re populate!"
"But you'll be gone…"
"Yes, but I will always be with you Carl." I say as I feel the tears splash onto my cheeks again.
I watch as he cries too and I walk over to him and pull him into a hug. He hugs back for a while before he jerks free and runs from the room, shouting in anger.
I sigh a sad sigh and turn to face everyone else. They were crying, silently. I smile at them, through all my pain and sadness and they smile back.
"You are so brave and I admire you for that, and always will." Jet says, and gives me a hug. I hug him back tightly and say,
"Thank you."
"You're such a little shit, I hate you. Please don't do this Mads," Sam says through tears, "I've already lost too many people I love."
"And you won't lose any more if I do this. Remember what we said before we came here? We'd do anything for the cure, even die."
"I know but it's not fair that you have to die… You're the one with the cure… You-
"Sam, please. Don't make it harder for me than it already is. I think I might die if my heart breaks again."
He hugs me hard and shakes his head as he walks away.
"I love you so much Mads. Good luck…" Georgia says as she cries.
She hugs me tighter than the others and kisses my cheek, "You're such a brave girl."
I thank her and feel more tears slide down my face. I always wanted to die courageously, bravely, respectfully. I always wanted to die to save someone but I never knew I would be so young.
"The surgery will be ready in 3 hours… sorry to give you a time limit." Dr Mayford says and I nod.
"Its OK."
I walk out of the room and search for Carl, desperately. I need him, he needs me. We have three hours with each other before I die, I need him.
"Carl?!" I call out and my voice echoes down the hallway.
"Carl please? I need you…" I say and drop to the floor. I hear footsteps, a hand grab mine and a strange boy leading me away.
He takes me into a room and closes the door, his brown locks messed up, his eyes red and puffy and his trembling lip.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"I will never forgive you for this," he says, holding back more tears.
"Carl, I need you, please just… don't be mad at me for the time I have left."
"How long?"
"Three hours…" I say.
"Why? We could have lived a survival life together. You do realise I won't be able to live without you."
"Yes you can. You will, OK? Don't give up your life because I won't be around! At least you get to live on! I have to die!" I shout, anger rushing over me and the words just keep tumbling out. "At least you'll live on…"
"Oh Maddy, I-
"Carl, I love you."
His eyes widen and he asks, "What?"
"I love you. I always have and I always will," and I step closer and connect out lips. The taste of sad tears mixed in with saltiness danced over my tongue.
We pull back and I look at him, "Please, just let me do this. Don't be angry… Please forgive me… I'm so sorry…"
He stares at me for a while before nodding his head slowly. "Ok, I'll let you do this."
I think I've never cried as much as I have until now. The tears just kept coming, dripping down my face.
He reaches his hand out to me, grabbing mine and he looks up at my sad eyes with his scared ones. He pulls me closer, into a hug and we snuggle close to each other.
"I love you, I love you, I really, really do." He whispers, chanting it like it was a spell that could stop me from dying.
Oh, I wish it could stop it, I almost begged it to stop it but… uh.
2 and half hours later I say my goodbyes again. Bringing back the tears and sadness I felt, I gave one final kiss and hug to Carl and walked down the hallway, following Dr Mayford. I realised this was the last, final walk until my death, my last breaths, my last own thoughts. Oh hell, I was scared.
I got onto the operating bed thing, he stuck a needle into my arm and I felt everything suddenly feel… unreal. I couldn't keep my eyes open, and finally I let them close… I was ready.
I wake up and I immediately feel pain to my head, the drugs are only just wearing off and I see Carl sit beside my bed. Carl.
"Hey," I choke out.
"I just wanted to see you… again. In your last minutes. We have to leave ASAP, with the doctor." He says, scratching his head a little and I can see him trying not to cry. "I'll miss you."
I manage to smile and say, "I'll miss you too Carl," before everything died away. My vision left, but my hearing was still turned on for a minute… I heard Carl sobbing and then it stopped.
Carl's POV
"I'll miss you too Carl," Maddy says before the light leaves her eyes, she has a sad smile plastered on her face. Her dead face.
I start sobbing loudly and I crouch before her body. I just wanted her to stay alive a while longer, we could grow old together, fighting for survival every day. We didn't have to start a family, hell, I would never consider it. I know she wouldn't either, she once told me ages ago that she never wanted kids anyway.
But we still could have lived a life together, a messed up life but still a life. And when we finally couldn't go on any longer, when our bodies were too old and brittle, we could leave together. A happy, brave death, together.
But she had another destiny, to save the darn world. No one out there even knows her name except our group, and they didn't even know her that well. Not as well as I did.
"Carl, we have to go…" Sam says at the door and I stand up instantly. Kiss Maddy's cheek and then grab my back pack and head out, wiping my tears away.
"How are-
"No. Not now." I say sternly as we jog down the hallway. He shuts up and we reach the end, walking out of the lab door and into the building registration office and out into the sunshine of the early morning.
I see the others and they stare at me. Ugh, why couldn't they just let me grieve in peace? I didn't need their sympathy, I didn't need their pity. Maddy chose to do this with free will, she may have not fully wanted to but she is too brave to let that stop her.
As sad as it is, she made the right decision, and all I am is proud of her. And I will make sure she will be remembered, definitely.
"Alright, let's get a move on. We have to find our original group, although I'm not sure if they're still going to be in the same place or not… but we can try. They might have decided to wait for us to come back." I say, thinking of a plan. I take out the map and show it to Dr Mayford, he nods and we decide to follow an easy trail.
Hopefully Dr Mayford will be OK with travelling at night, not getting much sleep and not much food either.
Or hot showers.
By the time it was night, I started to realise that Maddy really was gone. Sometimes I forgot but other times it hit me like a nightmare, but too bad it was real.
I just missed her so much.
I sighed and rolled over in my sleeping bag, sniffing the tears away.
6 months later
We enter through the gates of yet, another survival group. They have a secured a big town, guards and everything. The first one we went to, they were kind of small but this one was massive.
We delivered the cure to the first town and it was successful, they had one infected person and it cured him straight away, Luckily we went when we did.
This town had no infected but everyone was lining up. All we asked for in return was a good supply of food/water/supplies/weapons and to stay in their camp. It took a couple of months to get everyone cured, especially when there are heaps of people. I saw families, happy and smiling.
Maddy and I could live in something like this.
Could have.
We step out of the car and I follow behind Rick as we meet their town leader. She looked around the age of thirty and she had quite muscly arms. Good survivor.
"I'm very glad to finally meet you. We knew that someday we would get a cure," she says, nicely. But it pisses me off instantly.
"It was Maddy." I say.
"Sorry?" she asks.
"Maddy was the girl who had the cure, she gave her life for you people. Be grateful." I say and she looks at me sadly.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't-
"Whatever. I told you to be grateful, not to be sympathetic."
She nods and starts talking with my Dad again so I walk off, sitting by the benches with Sam, Georgia and Jet.
It never felt the same and even they agreed.
"These people look so happy," Georgia mumbles and I nod.
"Yuck." Which makes her laugh. I chuckle too and so does Jet and Sam.
We wait around for an hour, talking to random people about the story on how we found the cure, some cried. Some apologised and some just stared at me sadly, which made me extremely uncomfortable.
I haven't cried about her for a while now, all I feel is emptiness when I hear her name. When she fills my dreams, when she is mentioned.
Sometimes I feel as though it was stupid to love her but other times I feel that I should have loved her longer than when I did. We could have had more time together…
Later that night we all file out of the rec hall after we finish dinner. It tasted a little bland but everything does now days.
Suddenly I see people shouting, running over to a commotion near the gates. Out of instinct I run over, Sam following.
We reach the group and people are shouting, pushing and then suddenly a gun goes off.
I push past people and see two guards pushed over, sitting on their asses beside a girl who held the gun in the air.
She had fired the shot.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and stared straight at the crowd.
Someone knocked me over and I landed on my arm, it hurt only for a moment but I couldn't get back up. People were everywhere, surrounding me.
"Who are you!? What do you want?" someone shouts, raising their fist in the air.
"My name is Madison. I am the cure to you all, where is Carl Grimes?" the girl shouts and for the second time in my life, my heart stops.
I stand up slowly and people back away, revealing me to her. To Maddy. To the girl I loved, to the girl I thought was dead.
Hey everyone.. I hope you liked it, and to be honest, it's OK if you cried because I cried while writing it D; Haha. Yes, there will be more chapters to come but for now it will be a little break so I can write a couple of chapters before posting so they're not rushed. Although this chapter seemed a bit rushed but I just wanted to get through it as quick as possible. Thanks to everyone who read it, and left comments/reviews! And thanks to everyone who favored and followed my story and/or me! ily all xx Btw, feel free to PM me whenever you want to just chat or whatever. Also, let me know if any of you have written fanfics/stories that you want me to check out! I'd love too!
Bye for now xx