I've noticed that the mornings are getting chillier. The prison block's concrete floors are too cold to touch without socks on your feet. We're now well into November, and all my clothes seem to be made for the summer. I really wish that Patrick would have had a more diverse wardrobe than polo shirts and thin flannels.

I lie wrapped up in my bunk, eyes wide open, my head spinning. All the events of yesterday dance around inside my head, bouncing off my skull and ricocheting into my brain where they sit and stew.

Karen's sick and locked away inside a literal tomb. I performed music in front of living people— some of which I don't even know. Beth kissed me— be it only on the cheek —but it's still making me feel strange. All this and somehow none of it is the reason my head's spinning in pieces.

Carl is on my mind, filling it with sensations and colours which are bright and beautiful and absolutely terrifying.

I decide to sit up, wrapping the thin sheets around me as I violently shiver. I decide I should bring Karen some extra blankets, but I also comprehend that it's probably too early and she'll be asleep.

Maybe I should grab breakfast first.

The concrete floor is ice against my bare feet when I lower myself to it quietly. I deal with it, though, because no matter how cold it may get... I refuse to sleep in socks.

Since no one else was his size, Patrick's clothes have all been given to me. A little big on me, but I don't complain. I feel strange wearing a dead boy's clothes, but when I think about it, that's what I've been doing since the start of the apocalypse. Just back then, I didn't know their names.

I quickly pull on socks before anything else. Bracing for the chill, I pull off the PJs Carl leant me and slip on a pair of jeans I find lying on the floor. I search miserably through my pile of clothes for a top, trembling from the feeling of frigid air on my bare skin, goosebumps everywhere.

I finally find a shirt that smells clean, so I change into it as quickly as possible. Swearing when I realise I have it on back to front.

"You going to see Karen?" The groggy voice comes from under Carl's covers, and I turn to see him peeking at me from under them. His eyes are squinting out the morning glare that has illuminated his bunk.

"Nah, too early," I tell him, pulling my arms out of their sleaves and spinning the shirt around the right way without taking it off. "I'll go see her after I've eaten."

I find myself whispering after what Beth told me yesterday.

"Mmm-hmm," Carl groans sleepily.

"Wait a minute... how long have you been awake?" I ask, suddenly feeling shy and hugging myself.

Carl doesn't answer. Instead, he rolls over and mutters something about bringing him breakfast in bed. Then he's cursing at me after a balled-up sock hits him in the back of the head.

I go about my morning routine as usual. I say good morning to the other larks before I brush my teeth three times over, still not used to the feeling of satisfaction that it brings me. I take a shower, but only one— since I always seem to get told off whenever I try to take two in a row.

I grab a stale bread roll as I pass through the indoor cafeteria of C block, taking bites from it as I head out the sliding door and into the cold air. I take a deep breath of the morning atmosphere, filling my lungs with its icy freshness. I decide that I like the mornings— I like the evenings, too, and everything in-between. But the mornings have a smell to them that makes me feel relaxed.

I stand at the top of the gravel path that leads all the way down to the gates from the hill the prison sits on.

Judging off the sun's position in the sky, I know that I have about another hour until fence duty. That means I could go to see Karen after my bread roll.

The very same bread roll that suddenly flies from my mouth as a powerful force strikes my back.

Chunks of stale dough fall to the ground as I spin to confront the attack.

"Morning, Rhys!"

Sasha Williams is standing there, laughing at my readiness to attack her with what little bread remains in my hand.

"Heya, Sasha," I grumble, brushing crumbs from my shirt. "You on the fence, too?"

"Nope, just enjoying the quiet."

I guess we all appreciate the morning in our own ways. I like the smell. Sasha likes that no one else is awake.

"Where's your brother?" I ask, the silence getting on my nerves.

"Flower picking."

I can't tell if Sasha is being serious, so I just shut my mouth and try to enjoy that quiet she mentioned.

"RICK! DARYL!"

I drop the last of my poor breakfast onto the floor, horrifying screams from the fence breaking Sasha's appreciation for the morning in two.

We look at each other. My feet won't move. Shock sticks my shoes in place, holding my feet to the gravel against my will. Then Sasha pushes me forward, propelling me into uncertainty.

"That's Maggie," Sasha tells me as we run. "Come on!"

Carl must have already gone to work with his father because we see them both racing from the gardens towards the shouts.

We sprint down the hill, past the garden where Rick and Carl were working and towards the commotion that we can now see clear as the morning air. An enormous cluster of Deadheads presses its weight against a section of the chainlink fence, their teeth snapping at the warm bodies behind it. The rattling fence slowly starts to cave under their weight, creaking and groaning in response.

Sasha and I skid around the inner fence, grabbing weapons hanging from it as we pass. Maggie, Glenn, Daryl, and Tyreese are already working their armaments through stubborn skulls. Rick and Carl start to help, and Sasha and I join in.

But there are so many.

A sea of rotten faces baring their yellow teeth as they attack our home.

Maggie falls after getting her crowbar stuck in a particularly unyielding eye socket. Glenn helps her to her feet. I open my mouth to ask if she's okay, but Sasha's calling out before I can.

"Are you seeing this?"

We all stop, taking the opportunity to catch our breaths as we look at the ground by Sasha's feet. She's pointing to a pile of dead rats and mice. All just lying there, missing their top halves in a gruesome pool of offal.

Sasha grimaces. "Is someone feeding these things?"

Before any of us get a chance to respond, I feel a rotten finger graze along my shoulder, causing me to leap back with a yelp. Everyone watches as the fence continues to bend and groan as the dead keep piling against it.

"The Deadheads are almost in!"

"Did it scratch you!?" Rick bellows at me over the growls.

Carl's eyes go wide as I crane my neck to scan my shoulder where I'd felt the contact.

I sigh in relief, shaking my head at Rick. "No..."

Rick looks to Daryl.

"Get the truck. I know what to do."

Glenn and Maggie get the gates while the rest of us distract the dead. Rick and Daryl drive a truck through the open gates, a box of piglets strapped to the flatbed.

I stand back at the top of the gravel path with Carl by my side as we watch. I catch Carl looking away as his father begins to cut legs on the piglets, so they can only scream as the dead consume them. Slowly all the deadheads peel from the fence to feast on the fresh meat.

The fences hold. Sasha and Tyreese get to work on putting wooden supports against it in the weaker sections.

I don't really notice that Carl was holding onto my sleeve, not until he lets go. He lets go as his father walks up the hill towards us, his shirt stained through with pig blood.

Rick doesn't make eye contact.

"You boys go ahead and take the day off."

Rick looks completely lost for a moment. Then he turns with his dazed expression and walks toward C.

I can see Carl shaking slightly.

"Wanna go for a walk?" I ask him, pulling at his arm.

"Yeah."

The two of us make our way through the long dried grass on the far side of the prison field, out of sight of any occupied guard towers. We sit in the overgrown prairie, disappearing into it, hidden from the world. Carl's pulling at a piece of it, uprooting the dried plant.

"I'm sorry, man," I whisper.

Not knowing what else to say, I sit opposite him and wait for him to talk.

"It's all good." He smiles weakly. "They weren't pets. Jus' wish we got to eat them. Not the walkers."

I nod slowly.

Carl smirks a little at me. "Or should I call them Deadheads?"

"There a problem with calling them that?"

I return his smirk, and he seems to appreciate it.

"Not necessarily. Jus' never heard that one before you showed up."

"Well, it describes them perfectly," I tell him.

He looks at me, puzzled in his blue orbs.

"They're dead," I say, pressing my hand over his heart and feeling its electric rhythm crackling under his chest.

Carl's eyes stay on mine, this conflict of blue and green in a field of dusty browns and oranges.

"And you aim for the head," I whisper, moving my hand up, the electric bolts following as I push a single finger between his eyes, lingering on the bridge of his nose.

He gulps.

I drop my arm to my side.

"Sorry about the pigs," I say. "They weren't just food either."

"I just wish my dad wasn't such an asshole."

Carl's outburst against his father is so unexpected that I almost forget to speak.

"He had to do it, Carl."

"I know that," Carl says, shaking his head, frustrated at me for not getting it. "He made me like this— almost a year of being on the road, killing walkers and eating rotten food, telling me I need to be a man. Then he wants me to be a farmer and play with lego while we pretend that everything's normal when it's not. I just... I don't know who I am."

"I do," I tell him. My words come before my thoughts as I shuffle to sit beside him instead of in front of him.

Carl looks over at me, the two of us sitting only inches apart.

I smile. "You're you. Apart from Karen, you're the only reason I want to be here."

Carl leans against me in our hiding spot in the open field, his head on my shoulder, his hair smelling like Christmas trees.

"Same here, man."

Time passes. Neither of us is sure how much. The moment feels perennial— kept secret amongst the blades of grass. At one point, we watch Tyreese picking flowers and humming to himself. He looks around when he hears our stifled giggles, unable to see us in our hideout. As more time passes, it's just us. Together.

But nothing keeps forever. Just as all good things do, the moment shatters like a glass of water against the asphalt. The moment spills from the broken shards, escaping into the earth, soaked up by the dirt and leaving only broken glass to cut us.

Shouting—

No.

Screaming fills my ears, finding its way through the grass. I jolt up, and Carl is flung forward off my shoulder. He stares at me, confused, until he hears what I hear.

"Is that Tyreese?" He begins.

But I'm already on my feet, racing towards the prison.

The courtyard is empty. Tyreese's shouts are gone from earshot.

Carol appears from the tombs, a hand over her mouth as she b-lines for C block.

"Carol!"

Tears are welling in her eyes. "Oh, sweetie... I'm so sorry."

"What— what's happening?" I insist. I realise where she came from, putting two and two together. I Dodge around her as she tries to explain.

I sprint towards Karen's cell.

Turning corners and pushing past nameless faces, I reach the cell.

'I don't want to grow up,'

The door is open.

'How do you move in a world of fog,'

The crooked side table is knocked to the ground.

'That's always changing things?'

Bloodstains cover the floor and bed.

'Makes me wish that I could be a dog,'

I follow the trail as it leads out of the cell and to a closed door.

'Well, when I see the price that you pay,'

I shove it open.

'I don't want to grow up,'

Light spills into the dark hallway.

'I don't ever want to be that way,'

I stagger back from the smell at first, forcing my way past it and into the small courtyard. My eyes adjust to the light. Only... I wish they hadn't. Two charred corpses lie before me. Their flesh is seared into the concrete floor, the blistering sun bringing out the stench. I don't want to believe it, but I can't mistake it. The furthest husk has a pair of discoloured red cowgirl boots fused with melted flesh.

Karen.

Twisted and contorted on the scorched earth. Her once kind smile is gone. Her lips are peeled back from her teeth, showing that smile to be an inhuman snarl. Her clothes are melted into her scalded skin, giving off a terrible stench. Red blisters have spread across her face, sealing her eyes shut. Clumps of burned hair litter her blackened bald head.

She's unrecognisable.

My head goes dizzy. I fumble to my knees, emptying the contents of my stomach onto the floor as tears start to stream down my face. I reach out, trying to hold a fleshless hand, smoke still spilling off her peeled skin. I nearly touch it, but arms wrap around my middle, pulling me back into the dark corridor.

I kick and scream, clawing at the hands holding me from her. I throw punches over my shoulder, some finding their mark, but the arms hold me tight. The hallway gets darker. Another hit connects, and I slip free, only to tumble forward into a hard wall, my head cracking against it. Everything goes black.

The cell is cold, and my eyes flicker open. I'm not in my bed, only the one below it. Carl's bunk.

I can taste blood, the feeling of smoke sticking to the inside of my throat.

"You've got a hell of a right hook, man."

I sit up to the voice, glancing around the cell. Daryl sits on a small chair in the corner, holding a damp cloth to an angry purple bruise on his left cheek.

I fall to the floor as I try to stand up. Daryl watches my efforts from the chair. He doesn't try to help. Maybe he knows I need to do it myself. Maybe he's thinking I'll try to hit him again.

"Who did this?" I ask through gritted teeth, cradling my wrist, which has been wrapped in a clean white bandage.

"Careful with that," Daryl avoids my question. "Hershel says you'll be able to move your fingers properly in a few days."

"Who!?" I shout at him from the floor. My cry is raspy from the smoke.

I pull myself up without straining my wrist.

Daryl looks me in the eyes. A look I haven't ever seen from him is there. A realness. Empathy, maybe?

"We don't know yet."

I get up, heading for the door.

"When we do..." Daryl stops me without moving. "I'll put an arrow in their skull."

I consider this, then leave Daryl alone in the cell.