Clementine hadn't averted her eyes back too the hulking silhouette of the church as she the sharp shards of snow slashed at her face as she trudged her way through (the now) fully raging blizzard, she couldn't hear or see anything within 5 feet, ducking her head so that her cap endured the full gales of deathly winds that threatened to blow her back to the church.
She couldn't die.
She fought on through the winds, using one of her exposed hands to shield her face as the snow piled onto the creases and folds in her jacket and cracks in her fingers, gritting her teeth she mentally urged herself to keep moving, to keep fighting in a world that seemed hell bent of blowing her back, a world so hell bent on breaking and destroying her, yet she would continue to fight against it as Lee had instructed her.
"You gotta be strong sweet pea" She vividly remembered Lee telling her.
She clung onto that memory like a security blanket, fuelling her burning ambition to go on, a fire in her...
"So bright, bright enough to shine in all this darkness..."
She wondered why she was thinking of Carver's words now, he was demented psychopath.
"Were more alike than you think"
Stealing from Arvo, leaving Sarah to die, was that really any different from Carver killing Reggie? Or abducting her group and making them prisoners? These chilling thoughts causing her to quiver more than cold ever could.
"No shepherd to guide you, lambs to the slaughter"
These two phrases were bobbing in Clementine's head refusing to, of all things she should have been thinking about, of Kenny, Lee or even the baby the only thing that kept cropping up in her mind were Carver's gravelly phrases spat at her and her group in malice. Yet every time the "Lambs to the slaughter" kept replaying in her head it came with still images of Sarah's gruesome end and her heartbroken screams for her father. Nick trapped on the fence, his eyes lifeless and his skin cold. Bonnie, Mike and Luke, slaughtered like pigs, and finally Kenny... ripped to pieces.
"Lambs to the slaughter"
It seemed like a empty threat at the time, but everything Carver had said had come true, those weaker than her had all been slaughtered like hunks of disposable meat and here she was, having caused the deaths of half these people yet she was still here.
Alive and running on an autopilot of adrenaline.
Clementine's determination to live on was only based on the frantic events that occurred during the night, in a strange way it was enthralling for her, she was the lone survivor battling through the blizzard while fleeing from walkers. No matter how much her body ached and screamed in protest for her to stop and rest she knew she had too keep on moving because stopping and resting at night, in the middle of nowhere with nothing to sleep on other than blankets of snow was a move to guarantee her a slow and painful death from hypothermia.
Yet as the gamboge sun rose shyly peeked over the crystal white horizon Clementine realised it barely made any difference, the blizzard may have died down through the night but her clothes were soaked through and through. Bonnie's jacket for Clementine had not kept her warm as Bonnie had promised it would.
"Dang it" she muttered through chattering teeth, as she tried to warm two ice blocks that were meant to resemble hands by rubbing them against her jacket, yet this barely made any difference as all the feeling from her hands and her feet had throbbed out of existence leaving her concerned as Luke had explained her days prior the effects of hypothermia.
Luke...
She tried hard not to think about him, or his smiling kindly face, it would only distract her, never the less her body screamed for rest as the bags over her eyes had grown to heavy to lift, each limb was aching dully as her heart hammered painfully on her ribcage, finally she stumbled up to the base of a small tree and simply leaned onto and collapsed slowly to the floor as she tried to catch her breath.
"It's so damn cold" she muttered as puffs of vapour rose between her eyes, she watched them slowly fade into the still morning air, like all of her friends, they were present one second and next second they were gone and fading into the heavens above her...
"No, I can't think about them now" she found herself stating, yet the more she tried to push the grief down into her gut the heavier it got. Jane was right.
"Their all going to die Clementine, don't let them drag you down with them"
She wouldn't allow it, as she focused her bright hazel eyes on the area around her, the town she had fled from the previous night was no where in sight on the horizon instead she found herself surrounded by the half black and white trunks protruding from the layers of snow that were building up. Sighing she checked her supplies, the nail file Jane had given her, the screwdriver, her photo of Lee and her small pistol which she loaded (with shaky hands) with the three bullets she found from the walker corpse.
And finally Sarah's glasses.
She was alarmed when she gazed back at them it was almost as if she could see the kindly girl's glowing bronze orbs behind these rose tinted lenses as they widened in fear or excitement. Clementine didn't know how to react, she simply found herself chucking them to the floor with so much force that they spilt in the middle leaving them broken in the snow.
Without another look back, she stood up shakily and proceeded through the morning.
"Find supplies, head north to Wellington, stay calm" That was Christa's motto after they had first heard about Wellington via several scribbled notes of graffiti and seeing as she was alone once again she had to stick by that code. She had meet her old friend, she had met some good people but ultimately they all died leaving her alone once again, she wasn't expecting two more random strangers to save her from the wilderness in a forest and take her back to group of good-hearted people in a warm cabin, with supplies and protection.
She tried her very hardest to remain calm, but it was if the environment was designed to go on forever in the same pattern as tree, after tree after tree cropped in front of her. No walkers, no buildings, not even the hum of animals or the presence of animals to comfort her in the slightest, at least if there was a walker around she could kill it and take whatever supplies it had, but out here after a couple of hours of aimless drifting with the faces of the dead dragging her down, lower and lower into a depression she had fought so hard not the succumb too.
"What's the point? We'll just march off to some new place and someone else will die"
Nick's suicidal tendencies were alien to her at the time, besides he still had his best friend Luke and the rest of the cabin group to comfort him, then again the more she thought about it when she lost Lee if Christa and Omid hand't found her could she have kept on going? If Lee hadn't told her too keep going maybe that wouldn't been the case. Nick never got a chance to say goodbye to Pete, instead he simply watched his uncle (he may as well as been his father) get devoured by the walkers right in front of him.
In a similar manner to the ways Kenny, Luke, Bonnie and Mike had been slaughtered in front of her.
All these statements she found herself disagreeing with weeks ago, yet she now knew she didn't oppose them. She simply didn't understand them, now she understood what could motive people to say these things. How desperate Carver was to keep a community together that he'd kill the weakest link to avoid being in the situation Clementine was in now. Strong people left alone with the weights of the weaker dead pulling them down. She understood Nick's depression more clearly and Jane's wise words of advice, everything rang true...
She fought for so long against the overwhelming depression, but now with her head dizzy from dehydration and hunger, her limbs failing due to hypothermia, fatigue threatening to send her into a slumber on a death bed of ice. No towns or shelters in sight, not knowing if she was even ploughing north to Wellington.
She finally snapped.
"SHIT!" She screamed rawly as the tears that she had been holding back for so long burst out in a torrent from her black rimmed eyelids. She sank to the ground as she buried her face in her none working hands, as she wept like the 8 year old girl she was before all this, the hardened survivor dissolving in a heap. All she could think about was the dead and she needed a shoulder to cry on. A voice of motivation that wasn't her own, but Kenny was gone. The new hope that was the baby had died due to the lack food no doubt (or the temperature).
Clementine looked up to little to late.
The walker must have heard her loud sobbing and her bellowed curse as a rotting murky black walker with the shredded remains of a police uniform towered over her. Clementine noticed the remains of a broken chain on it's ankle yet she didn't react fast enough and lacked the strength she had gained from food or previous motivation, the walker crashed down onto her, before she could even comprehend how it happened.
The walker lifted it's rotting hand and dug down into Clementine's stomach, she could only watch in horror as her own intestines were pulled from her body, gasping in pain as she felt layers of warm blood rise in her throat, she lifted the nail file Jane had given her as she watched the walker munch away at her guts as he pulled them further out of her body.
SPLAT!
She brought her hand and the file easily pierced the walkers skull, it jaw went lack as it slumped motionless on top of her, to weak to pull the file from it's skull she simply rolled the heavy body off her which zapped the last of energy as she finally assessed the situation.
The lone walker had done it. He had killed her. She was bleeding out and it had bitten her innards so she was going to be coming back as one of them.
She could no longer cry the pain was too great, she only had time to reach for the gun in her pocket, and place it towards her head, her hands may have been numb but she knew they could fulfil the simple task of pulling the trigger.
"I'm not gonna stick around and watch that happen to you too"
Why was Jane always right, it was annoying.
Yet as she placed the photo of Lee in front of her she felt a strange peace come over her form, she didn't have to worry about survival any more. She didn't have to worry about being tough and although it hurt that she had failed to stay alive she knew she had tried her hardest.
Now she wanted to go sleep.
She smiled as she thought about all the people she would be united with once again, yet there was always one who would stick out for her. One who stood above the rest.
"Take me back" she begged of any sort of higher force listening, but mostly to Lee's photo.
She wanted him to be the last thing he ever saw in this misery filled world she took a deep breath and closed her eyes Lee's image imprinted into her mind, her hand shook as she remembered how she had to shoot him.
"Eventually it will be our turn"
And it was her turn at last, as the final tears leaked from her eyes she gave on a brave smile as she uttered her last words.
"I'm sorry Lee"
With the last of willpower, she felt her finger pull the trigger.
Everything went black.
The final thing she felt was the pain throbbing from her stomach.