"Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again."
― Gautama Buddha
Eight long months had passed since the farm incident, the winter had come and gone and unfortunately it had affected us. We almost died from the cold, we barely could find food and a warm enough shelter, Andrea and I got really, really sick, but I got better once the winter came to an end, but Andrea was still in a critical state.
Lately Michonne and I had gone together to a town nearby to get medicine for Andrea or she goes alone and I stay to take care of Andrea. Today I was going with her.
Michonne and I went to town, into a pharmacy. As soon as the door was opened a bell rang. I cursed in my mind but kept going. Michonne and I went behind some shelves, the walkers inside followed us. Michonne kicked the first one to the ground, I jumped on it and stabbed him in the forehead, killing it. Two more came and Michonne easily decapitated them with her katana. We quickly grabbed the medicine and walked out of there, the streets were full of walkers so we had to be carefully and quick.
We had been staying in a 'Deer Cooler' place. It was spooky. There were hooks where people hanged the deer back in the day, I felt like the place was hunted and I really didn't like the place but it was the safest we had found here.
When we walked inside we noticed Andrea wasn't there, Michonne grabbed her katana and I had my knife at the ready. We quickly went to the end of the place and to our relief we saw Andrea there. She was curled up on the floor.
"What are you doing out here?"Michonne asked her.
"I needed some light," Andrea weakly muttered.
Michonne knelt next to her and carefully helped her sit up while I took the medicine from my pocket and then also knelt next to her.
"Take this," I told her and put the pills in Andrea's mouth and then brought a bottle of water to her lips, she was too weak we had to do that for her.
"How is it out there?" Andrea asked as Michonne took the bottle from me and ran it on Andrea's forehead to cool her down.
"Same," I said.
"It's quiet," Michonne added.
"You're lying," Andrea muttered.
"We should go in a few days," Michonne told her, refusing to elaborate or say how things had worsened.
"You two should go."
"No," I exclaimed quickly. "I can't leave you, we won't leave you."
"I'll hold you back. Just go! I can take care of myself. I saved both your ass all winter, didn't I?" Andrea said with a very small smile but then it was gone as she coughed really loudly, Michonne tried to give her some water but Andrea just pushed it away angrily. "I won't have you dying for me. Good soldier won't leave your post."
"We'll go in a few days," Michonne exclaimed in a final yet soft tone.
"If we stay... I'll die here."
"No one is going to die, do you understand?" I told her, looking her right in the eye. She didn't nod or say anything she just looked away.
"Just go."
Michonne and I got everything packed, we were leaving but not without Andrea. We put some bags on the walkers which were like our bodyguards. After eight months I had completely gotten used to having them around, they didn't freak me out anymore or annoy me, well, at least most of the time, sometimes their moans just drove you crazy, though.
I realized that now that they didn't have their arms or their mouth anymore they didn't try to attack or eat us, like if they had gotten docile or something. What amazed me though, is that they probably hadn't eaten since the start of all of this, about nine or ten months ago and they were still alive, kind of. Don't they die from starvation? They looked thinner than when Michonne saved Andrea and me in the woods all those months ago, though.
When Michonne and I had everything ready, I got Andrea while Michonne opened a shutter. I had an arm around Andrea to help her walk. She didn't let me die or abandon me in the woods so I wasn't really going to abandon her now either.
None of us had a clue of where we were going, we just knew we had to get away from that place. We were seeing more and more walkers around the place we had settled in for the last few weeks and we didn't want to get corned, we needed to be on the move.
During that first night out in the open I started to remember that horrible night when the farm got overrun.
I still remember how much Andrea and I ran until we could barely move. After Michonne saved us she told us to not make spontaneous and fast movement, she assured us we weren't going to get attacked, all we needed to do was stay close to her. I had my doubts and always had my knife in my hand just in case but as we walked next to a group of ten walkers, I realized they didn't even pay attention to us. Once we were out of the woods Michonne told us that her chained walkers kept other walkers from being able to smell her. She just needed to walk at a normal pace and not talk and she was off their radar, she was a really clever woman I would had never thought of using walkers to keep other walkers away.
All those months ago after we finally got out of the woods we found a small cottage close to the woods and we stayed there for a week. Andrea and I were really dehydrated, my throat was hurting because of wearing a wet shirt for more than two days because of the sweat but that was all I had plus I had other priorities, like running for my life.
Michonne found some food for us, some water, we drank a lot of it, and in that cottage we found new, dry, and not smelly clothes we could use. They weren't my style, they were actually clothes for men but I had no choice but wear that.
My body ached for two whole weeks, I could barely go up the stairs, I could barely move, even go to the bathroom was painful. Every muscle in my body just ached from all the miles I ran. But Andrea and I recovered and after that week we got on the move once again, we decided to join Michonne and I'm glad we did, she's a great person and she helped us, we would have died if it wasn't for her.
Andrea and I had our eyes opened for any member of our group but after about four or five weeks we were starting to lose hope to ever see them again. I hold nothing against them, I understand all of them needed to leave to survive, I get it and I'm glad they got out alive, I just wish I could see them again someday.
I knew Shane died, Jimmy died, Patricia died, and who knows who else died but I knew Rick, Carl and Hershel got out of there, I saw them leave.
But who knows if after all these months they are still alive or not, anything could have happened and if I ever get to see them again would be a miracle.
"Hey, what's on your mind?" Andrea asked, I still had my arm around her, helping her to walk.
"Just memories," I said with a small smile. "I was remembering... them, you know?"
"We might bump into them one day," Andrea told me.
"Maybe," I said even when I really didn't believe it.
"You'll see your mum again, you'll see!"
I said nothing after that, I just sadly smiled at Andrea. I really hated that we weren't on the best of terms when I last saw her and I wish I could have done something differently, maybe demand her to stop blaming me and telling her I needed her instead of pushing her even farther away.
"Andrea, I'm glad you're with me," I said. "I know we have been through hell and worse but I'm grateful we are together."
"Me too," she said to me with a smile. "We never were that close before but I couldn't imagine being left behind with someone better than you as a partner."
The next day we were walking on a road when we heard a loud crash quite away from us, about an hour later we saw black smoke coming from the woods, not that far from us.
"We have to go," Andrea told us.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Michonne said.
"What if someone needs our help?"
"That crash made a lot of noise, Andrea, walkers follow noises, what if a big herd comes and ambushes us?" I exclaimed, trying to get her to change her mind.
"Someone could be alive!"
"If there's no one we leave the place as soon as we can," Michonne told her, giving in. She had been softer since we got sick.
We started heading to where the smoke was coming from, into the woods. I crossed my arms in front of my chest; I wasn't happy with this. Andrea couldn't run, she was too weak, if something happened we would have to fight.
"Don't be so upset," Michonne whispered to me."We won't find anyone and we'll hurry out of there, I promise."
"I'm just scared for her, she can barely walk." Michonne just shrugged at me.
As we got closer to the place we saw that the thing that crashed was a helicopter, which was really weird. I hadn't seen or heard a single helicopter in almost a year. Suddenly Andrea collapsed to the floor and threw up. I just took a really deep sigh as I saw her so helplessly.
"Don't push yourself," Michonne told her. "You'd better sit."
Once she was done throwing up, Michonne and I helped her up and took her behind a bush, then Michonne chained the walkers to a tree close to Andrea with the help of a padlock.
"We'll check it out," Michonne said to Andrea as she handed her a gun.
"Stay here," I told her and rubbed her back before walking to the crashed helicopter.
Cautiously we approached the scene, the first thing I saw almost made me puke. There was a dead man lying on the floor, his upper body was separated from his legs, blood and guts were all over the place.
Living in such a hostile world makes you a bit numb and you get used to see dead whenever you go, literally, but there were still pretty bad things to see that still shock you, like this man.
I had witnessed so many deaths and seen so many dead people in the last months. Amy, Jim, Dale, Patricia, Shane, Jacqui, Sophia. The worst of them was probably Dale, you could see his organs, it was disgusting and hard to watch, almost as hard to see this dead man now, but I recovered quickly and kept looking around.
While Michonne was looking inside the helicopter, I walked around it. There could be walkers around but I didn't expect to see what I saw. Cars.
"We are not alone," I said to Michonne.
Quickly but silently we ran back to Andrea, getting on each side of her behind the bush. We could risk being seen and try to leave but with Andrea like this we wouldn't get so far so the smartest option was to hide.
"Someone's coming," I muttered.
"Any survivors?" she asked.
"Two dead, not sure about the other," Michonne informed her.
The cars got closer and parked right next to the helicopter. There were about six men and all of them had big weapons.
A walker made its way to them and one of the men, that seemed to be the leader, ordered them to save 'those rounds', so one man got his bow ready and shot an arrow at it. I felt a pang on my heart, I felt like that arrow went through my heart instead of the walker's head, that reminded me so much of Daryl.
The man was really skilled, it was scary how accurate he was with that bow, shot it right in the middle of its forehead. More walkers approached them and the other men killed them with bats.
Andrea started to cough, she tried so hard to make it stop so we wouldn't be heard and caught. Michonne rubbed her back to soothe her.
"Got a breather!" one of them yelled.
As I was seeing how these men were trying to get the survivor out of the helicopter, Michonne was watching behind us way too intensively. I glanced back and saw a walker coming from there, my eyes got wide in fear. If we killed it we could get caught and if we didn't, it could try to get bite from us.
"No," Andrea said to Michonne as she was getting her katana ready.
Michonne stayed immobile, just like Andrea and me but at the first sight of being attacked we would react but that didn't happen, the walker just walked past us, paying no attention to us. I suppose spending so much time with the dead, makes you smell like them.
That walker was killed by the bowman, who shot it right in the eye. He was quite far from it and still got a perfect shot.
"He's saving them," Andrea whispered. "We should show ourselves."
"Not yet," Michonne said quickly. I agreed with her, we couldn't trust anyone anymore. This world was about the surviving of the fittest, nobody helps you without getting something in exchange.
Suddenly our walkers got very uneasy. They started moving, the chains were making noise and they were snarling a lot and quite loudly. I cursed in my head as I saw a man pointing his gun in our direction and the other men had also heard them.
Suddenly, Michonne stood up with her katana out and without hesitation she cut their heads off. The bodies and heads fell to the ground and the noise stopped. Slowly, Michonne crawled back to us.
It seemed like an eternity until one of them shouted "Let's roll out,", and stopped looking in our direction. I sighed in relief. But my relief didn't last for more than a few seconds. I saw Michonne's face and I knew she had noticed something, she had her katana ready to strike.
"Uh-uh-uh," I heard a voice behind me saying as Michonne attempted to raise her katana but we were busted. "Easy does it, girl. Mine is a lot whole bigger than yours."
I felt how my breath got caught in my throat, what if they were going to kill us? What if they were going to torture us first and then kill us? I was thinking all kind of terrible scenarios when the man talked again and something clicked, I think I recognized that voice but I didn't dare to move, he could shoot me.
"Now put down your weapons. That's it, nice and easy," the man said as Michonne slowly lowered her katana, she looked defeated. "And you two let me see your hands." Andrea and I slowly raised our hands. "Now spin around. That's it. Nice little twirl around."
As slow as I could manage I turned to my right while Andrea was turning to her left, our eyes met for a couple of seconds before we faced the man, who had a gun pointing at me. I gasped when I saw his face.
"Oh, holy shit," he exclaimed. "The blondies! Damn, you're looking good," he said sarcastically to Andrea, as he finished talking, a walker was almost on top of him, with a quick swing of his right arm he killed the walker with a knife.
But it was weird, he had some kind of medical artefact on his arm and the knife was taped to it; his right hand was missing. He was kneeling down when all that happened. He stood up slowly and he never stopped pointing the gun at me, which he held with his left hand.
"Now, how's about a big hug for your old pal Merle?" Merle exclaimed with a smile on his face and he raised his eyebrows at us as he said his name. I admit I had a better co-existence with Merle back in camp than anyone else, except Daryl of course, but I would never call him a friend or an ally.
I just stared at him in shock, I still couldn't believe he was alive, that he got out of Atlanta and that he was right in front of me now. But my thoughts were interrupted by Andrea, who passed out right next to me.
"Andrea!" I exclaimed and crawled to her side, shaking her but she didn't open her eyes.
Moments later two other men came, one tied Michonne's hand and put a fold over her eyes and guided her to a car, another did the same to the unconscious form of Andrea, he carried her to one of the cars and Merle did it to me.
"Sorry, sweetheart," he said to me as he tied my hands. "But it has to be done."
I really wasn't sure if Andrea or Michonne were in the car with me, all I knew was that Merle was. He was telling some story about his old life as another man drove. Merle also kept repeating how he couldn't believe we had run into each other again.
About half an hour later we were taken to a room, once they untied us and took the folds off, we realized we were in some kind of infirmary, there were two men by the door so we couldn't leave. The nurse checked Andrea first, who was the worst, she injected Andrea something and took her temperature, while we just sat close to her.
"Why are we being held here?" Andrea asked the nurse. "We wanna leave."
"You are not well enough," the woman told Andrea. "And it's dark. You should stay the night."
"Where are we?"
"That's not for me to say," the nurse said to Andrea as we heard footsteps going in our direction. "He'll talk to you."
"Who?" Michonne asked.
At that moment Merle walked in. He looked from me, to Andrea, to the nurse. He looked quite intimidating to be honest.
"Go check on your patient, Doc," he said-ordered the woman, referring to the man that survived the helicopter crash.
Merle walked deeper into the room, never taking his eyes off of us. The woman said nothing, she just left her things on the table and left the room without saying a single world.
"Bet you was wondering if I was real," he told us, he grabbed a chair and carried it to the middle of the room. "Probably hoping I wasn't. Well, here I am." He chuckled. "I guess this old world gets a little smaller toward the end, huh? Ain't so many of us left to share the air, right?" He finally sat on it, resting his arms on the back of the chair. "You know, when they found me, I was near bled out. Starving, thinking to myself a bullet might make a good last meal. Take myself a nice long nap after. Wait for Daryl on the other side. You seen my brother?"
Andrea looked from Merle to me, silently telling me to be the one to answer. "Not in a very long time."
"Makes three of us."
"He went back for you," I informed him. "Him and Rick, even I was going to go. You were already gone."
"Well," he said chuckling. "Not all of me."
He then removed that medical thing from his arm and showed us his amputated arm. It looked quite nasty, who knows what kind of desperation he felt to be able to cut his own hand. Andrea just looked away from him while I looked sadly at him, he just laughed.
"Yeah, Rick. He's that prick that cuffed me to the rooftop," he said as he put the medical thing back on, covering the end of his arm.
"He tried. Daryl saw that," Andrea told him.
"He's always been the sweet one, my baby brother."
"He wanted to keep looking, and things happened, people died," Andrea informed him. "A lot of them. Jim, Dale, Jacqui... Sophia..."
"Amy," I said quietly.
"Your sisters?" he asked. "You both lost your little sisters?"
"Yes," we said at the same time.
"They were good kids," he said. "I'm sorry to hear it."
"Ed died as well," I told him.
"Your father, huh? What can I say? He was a son of a bitch that probably deserved what he got," he told me, his voice was a little louder and it sounded angry. I could tell he remembered the time my father slapped me in front of him and Merle saved me from getting beaten.
"We had to leave Atlanta," Andrea said, not wanting to talk about Amy anymore and she knew I didn't want to talk about Sophia or my father either. "We wound up on a farm and Daryl stepped up. He became a valued member of the group."
"Now he's dead," Merle muttered. "That's something the three of us have in common, we all lost our little siblings."
"We don't know that for sure," I said quickly, too quickly. Merle just looked at me with an eyebrow raised but I spoke before he said anything. "We got run off by a herd."
"How long ago?"
"About eight months," I told him. "We were separated from the rest of them. Got left behind," I whispered the last part, looking sadly at the ground. "I know what it feels like," I told him, referring to the time Merle got left on the rooftop.
"I doubt that."
"What do you want from us?" Andrea asked.
"Damn," he exclaimed, standing up. "There she sits, four walls around her, roof over her head, medicine in her veins, and she wants to know what I want from her. I plucked you two and your mute here out of the dirt, Blondies! Saved your asses. How about a thank you?"
"You had a gun on us," Michone told him, her tone was everything but welcome.
"Ooh, she speaks!" he exclaimed with a chuckle. "Who ain't had a gun on 'em in the past year, huh?Show of hands, y'all. Anybody? Hmm? Shumpert, Crowley. Y'all had a gun on y'all? Hell I think I'd piss my pants if some stranger come walking up with his mitts in his pockets. That'd be the son of a bitch you'd really want to be scared of..."
"Thank you," Andrea said before he could continue.
Merle nodded slowly at her. Michonne was throwing daggers at him with her dark eyes. Merle said nothing else, he just walked towards the door. A man wearing a black shirt walked in and whispered something to Merle, who nodded.
"How you feeling?" he asked us but mostly to Andrea.
"We want our weapons!" Michonne exclaimed quickly.
"Sure, on your way out the front gates."
"Show us the way," Andrea told him. "You've kept us locked up in this room."
"You see any bars on the windows? You're being cared for," the man said like if he was actually taking care of us but I didn't like the situation, not one bit.
"Under guard," Andrea told him.
"To protect our people. We don't know you," the man said.
"We know enough about you to want out of this place," Andrea told him. "We watched you drive a knife into the skulls of two dead men. What the hell was that all about?"
"They turned," he simply stated.
"They weren't bitten," Michonne said, speaking my thoughts.
"Doesn't matter. However we die, we all turn. I put them out of their misery," he told us, I felt my lips part a bit in shock as I looked in disbelief at the man. "It's not easy news to swallow at first, but there it is. You're not prisoners here, you're guests. But if you wanna leave..."
I didn't hear much after that. We turn no matter what. Could that be true? So if you die from hunger or a disease or a shotgun, you just turn. I felt my stomach turning inside of me and I felt sick. I closed my eyes tightly and then it clicked.
What happened all those months ago, our last moments in the farm, when Carl and I saw Shane as a walker and Rick wouldn't say if he was bit, it was because he wasn't. Rick killed Shane and he turned, it all made sense now.
Then the man with the black shirt walked out of the room, I didn't even listen to what he had said but based on Michonne's expression, it couldn't be that good.
We all followed the man out of the room we were in, Merle and the two guards were close to us. The man opened a door and we saw streets lightened by torches. It was a town but it was so quiet and lonely. There weren't walkers here but it was just as scary.
"Welcome to Woodbury!" he said. "Come with me."
As we walked through the quiet streets, we reached the end of it. The people here had built some kind of a wooden scaffold, surrounded by big tyres. There were men walking on there, all of them had rifles and big weapons. Next to the scaffold there was a gate, which was locked. Merle ran up the scaffold and ordered some of the men to go.
"Are you military?" Andrea asked.
"Hardly," the man with the black shirt said. "Couple of vets, but by and large we're self-trained."
"That's heavy artillery they're packing," Andrea commented.
"Some men arrive with guns, but most of the weapons are scavenged over time.
"And the other side of town? The rest of the streets? They're all guarded like this?" Andrea asked, the man said nothing so she took it as a yes. "It can't be."
"It can and it is," he told her.
"Got us a creeper, Governor," Merle exclaimed from up the scaffold. He took the rifle from one of the men there.
"Governor? They call you that?" Andrea asked.
"Some nicknames stick whether you want them to or not."
"Buzz is a nickname. Governor is a title. There's a difference," Andrea said as we got closer to the gate to be able to see the other side of it.
Merle shouted it right in the head and the walker fell to the ground. But there were two more coming towards here. "He brought his buddies," Merle said before shooting them too. "Clear."
"We'll get them in the morning," the Governor said, making us look at him. "Can't leave them to rot. Creates an odour. Makes people uneasy."
"What people?" Andrea asked, I wanted to know too but for some reason I hadn't said a single word to this man and I wasn't planning to do it, I couldn't trust him. "There's nobody here. It's a ghost town."
"This way," he said simply, we had no choice but to go after him.
Andrea was going a little ahead of us while I walked right next to Michonne. We were so close that our hands rubbed against each other, like if we got any farther from each other we would be exposed to these people. We were looking all around us, this really seemed like a ghost town and it made me get goosebumps all over my body. I got a bad feeling from this place, from this Governor, from all of this.
The Governor walked into a building then, we followed him inside. Everything was so quiet. He walked through a hall and opened the door of a room.
"You'll be more comfortable here, not the Four Seasons, but there's a hot shower," he said as he turned on the light and we walked inside. "Water's limited, so keep it short. We've got food, water, fresh clothes. Hope this works."
There was one queen-size bed and another small bed on one corner, there was also a couch and table with food and water. Someone had even left clean clothes on the bed for us, what caught my attention the most was the light and the little shower in one corner. I hadn't shower with hot water since the CDC and I hadn't taken a shower in between eight and ten days.
"I know you'd feel better with your sword, more secure, but you're safe here," the Governor said to Michonne, who didn't say a word, she only glared at the man.
"We appreciate it," Andrea said quickly. "What about the pilot? Will he make it?"
"Well, Dr. Stevens is doing all she can. Now, I know you got a lot more questions, but I got work to do. My man will be outside the door if you need anything else." Right, to watch our every move. "I'll see you tomorrow." And with that he left, leaving the door opened, which Michonne closed quickly.
"I'll shower first!" I said quickly, already taking off my shirt. I smelled really bad.
"Fine," Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
Andrea and Michonne both turned around as I removed every piece of clothing and stepped inside the tiny shower.
"This is heaven!" I exclaimed as I felt the hot water touching my dirty skin, both turned around then.
"Don't waste it!" Michonne told me.
"Whatever, mum," I muttered and rolled my eyes but then a feeling of sadness overwhelmed me as I remembered my real mother. I bit my lip as I looked down at the floor.
Was she still alive? Was she still with Rick and the others? Did she still think of me? Or had she gotten over me completely?
I shook my head trying to keep those thoughts away. Instead I concentrated on the hot water. Like Michonne said, I didn't waste it. As soon as I was done, I stopped the water and asked Michonne for a towel, she threw it at me. I wrapped it around my body quickly and stepped out.
I grabbed a blue shirt and a pair of sweatpants to sleep in, I was going to sit on the big bed when Andrea stopped me.
"Uh-uh, the big girls will sleep here," she told me, I just made a face. "The bright side is that you'll have a bed for yourself!"
As soon as I headed to the bed, I felt like my legs weighed a ton and felt really sleepy. I hadn't realized how tired I really was. I got under the covers and instantly fell asleep.
QOTD: Do you like Merle? What do you think of him?
So, I built the prison in the Sims 2, I created pretty much everyone, (even Cecilia) lol, and in my game Daryl has a crush on her but she doesn't have one on him :P, awww, everyone is still alive but I'll start killing them, starting with Cecilia's father, Ed.