Chapter 17

Clementine stared at herself in the mirror, her eyes tracing the numbers etched onto her skin, and other scars she'd accumulated when the man beat her around. Each one was a face that she cut to pieces, for others, a terrible man's sick pleasures.

She never told anyone what happened to her in that office, didn't want, or have to. They knew what she had done to him, and she hated the pitiful, scared looks they gave her.

Her eyes then stared at the large hand burned into her chest, the screaming sixth and the maniacal Phoenix staring at her through it. Tracing the outline of the scar with her hand, she grit her teeth as the flesh was still tender. It'd only been two weeks since, and she still felt the pain of her skin searing from his burning hand.

The scar would never leave her according to Carrie. By the time she had gotten back for any meaningful care, the heat had already killed any chances of the wound healing normally. She grabbed an alcohol wipe and cleaned the wound.

She hissed as the wipe brushed on the brand. It had closed thankfully, but the cool feeling of the alcohol evaporating made her wince.

Throwing the wipe away once she finished, Clementine's focus diverted to the hat on her head, eyes focusing on the splotches of bloody that had made themselves home. Even now, she still couldn't find it in herself to get rid of the damned thing. All it just did was remind herself of her failures, her stupidity, and her inability to do anything.

Somehow, no one ever found out about what happened in Knoxville. Al, for some reason never told anyone about the incident when he found his way back, and Mia had stopped speaking weeks ago. But in return, she never discovered how they found their way to the prison. Phoenix had mentioned that he would make sure they'd find it, but the how was lost on her. Not that she even cared, the man was gone, couldn't hurt anyone else again, anyone except her.

He still tormented her thoughts, dreams, and she saw his face everywhere. Each time she saw that damned face, the rage in her started to boil, and every... single... day, she had to find a way to calm that rage.

She washed her face and dried herself off with a towel. Putting her shirt back on, she exited the bathroom and headed towards the roof.

Bill had decided to stop teaching her anything entirely. He said he had nothing left to teach her, but she didn't believe it. She was a lost cause now, she knew that much. Her newfound temper had already strained her relationship with the others as well. Their pitiful looks only served to anger her further, she didn't want or deserve it.

Sitting down on a chair looking over the road, she started counting the trees to pass the time.

'One, two, three, four...' She went on and on, and by the time she got to the thousands her shift was already over.

"Stiff, Carrie wants ya to checkin with her, 'fore you head to the greenhouse." Al had appeared next to her.

She rose from the chair, and began to leave.

"Hey Stiff." Al called, stopping her in her tracks.

"For what it's worth, I don't blame ya for what happened in Knoxville."

She continued on her way as the man said his piece.

She sat down in the infirmary as Carrie checked her scars for any signs of reopening. She felt the woman prod at one of the stitches in her left arm, nodding to herself as she did. Carrie grabbed a tiny pair of scissors and tweezers, and began undoing the stitches. The feeling of the stitches being pulled out from under her skin was never pleasant, it didn't hurt at all, but the feeling was like something was crawling underneath.

The doctor began checking her other stitches, and removing them as well. Clementine sat there for almost ten minutes as the woman gently removed each stitch. Rubbing some alcohol on the healing scars to clean them.

Clementine jumped up to get back to work, once Carrie finished cleaning her scars, but Carrie just forced her back down.

"One sec." Clementine watched as Carrie grabbed something from her desk.

"Here." She handed her something.

'Candy?' Clementine tilted her head at the caramel colored blob in the doctor's hands.

"Kat made it. Take it"

Clementine accepted the candy, but she had no intentions of eating it. She attempted to place it in her pocket, but that seemed to anger Carrie as she stopped her.

"Eat." The woman's raspy voice was stern.

With a dejected sigh, Clementine plopped the caramel blob in her mouth. It was good, rich in flavor, and buttery. But it felt wasted on her.

Carrie finally let her leave once she swallowed the candy.

Approaching the greenhouse, she got to work on trimming the plants growing, and removing the fruit or vegetables. Time passing by quickly as she worked.

Clementine stepped towards the tomato vines, she only had about five minutes left on her shift. There only seemed to be around five, fully ripe tomatoes. She ripped the ripe ones from the vines, but she squeezed the last one too hard as she detached it.

Blood started to ooze from it, she shook her head and it turned to juice.

'I'm going crazy.' She plopped the oozing tomato in its basket, and she got to work shearing off the dead branches of the vine.

Snip, snip, snip she went, the branches turned to bleeding fingers as she trimmed. Her breath hitched, a distant laugh echoed in the greenhouse, she rubbed her eyes with her free hand. The branches were branches again, she threw them into the compost bin and left. She didn't want to stay in there any longer than she needed.

Entering the hardware store, dread filled her, it was supper time now, and she had to deal with the stares again. She hated the stares so, so much.

She trudged towards the cafeteria. Kenny cooked fish and rice for the day. She grabbed a plate and sat down by herself, attempting to finish the plate before anyone else could sit down. She scarfed the plate of food down, returning the plate within a minute or so of grabbing it, Kenny was disappointed by that. But she couldn't bring herself to care as she returned to her bed.

She'd returned to sleeping in her storage closet again, the only place she was sure that there'd be no one watching over her and pitying her. The room just how she had left it, laying down on the bed, she stared at the ceiling. The silence was comforting to her as she drifted off.

"Hello Clementine."

She jumped at the sound of that awful voice. She was back in the cage. Phoenix was sitting in front of her, the skin from his upper body draped around his legs like some skirt. His internal organs were protruding from his body in many places. She could see his lungs shrinking and expanding as he breathed, his heart beating slowly. She gave the horrific flayed man a murderous glare.

"Oh come on now, I know you enjoyed doing this." He gestured towards his flayed appearance.

"I know you would've done more before that prick Carver showed up. I never even got the chance to gift you for the last one either." The man's meaty face twitched into some form of smile.

"I got an idea, how about we get to doing that right now." The man grabbed her through the cage, his grip was impossible to fight off, as she tried yanking herself back in desperation. He grabbed a serrated knife from thin air, a sadistic look in his eyes.

He began slicing a deep 'VI' into her left forearm, she grunted as she gave up on fighting him off. Thankfully, the pain was nowhere near as bad as the first few times he had given her "gifts."

Phoenix admired his handiwork once he finished, "Well look at that girl, you've gone and done the job for me."

'Huh?' She looked down in confusion and she was suddenly standing in the bathroom, almost an entire two minute walk from her room, bloody knife in her hand, and blood dripping from her wrist.

'How'd I get here?' She felt lost, the pain in her wrist was nonexistent as she dumbly looked around.

The door slid open, Becca entering the bathroom with a tired sag.

"Oh hey Cle-" Becca shot up as she noticed the bloody knife in her hand, blood oozing from her wrist, and the crimson fluid dripping onto the floor.

"What'd you do?!" Becca was angry at her, but Clementine blankly stared back, still in a confused daze.

"I... I'll just go and get Carrie." Becca left the bathroom.

Clementine looked at her wrist, the marking Phoenix gave her in the dream was there now. It was hard to see from the blood, but she could make it out now. The screaming man reflected through the red.

She only hummed in response as she looked at the new reminder.

'They're going to be mad.' She thought as the door reopened, a tired Carrie entering the bathroom with a first aid kit.

Carrie had disappointment all over her as she slowly pulled the bloody knife from her hand, and grabbed a tourniquet, placing it directly above the wound. Clementine barely reacted as her forearm began to numb. The blood had finally stopped oozing, and Carrie got to work on cleaning it.

Becca reentered the bathroom soon after, she entered a stall with a pissed off look.

Clementine looked back towards Carrie, the woman had started stitching the new wound. She didn't say anything, but Clementine could already tell what she was thinking. Probably wondering why she did what she did, but she had no recollection of it, she woke up here, with her arm already cut up.

Clementine knew that they would never believe her, so she just decided to let them assume what had happened.

Becca exited the bathroom stall, washing her hands and then standing behind Carrie with scolding look.

Carrie finished stitching Clementine's arm, and began washing her hands from the blood. She then started wrapping the wound with a tight bandage, undoing the tourniquet once she finished.

"Why?" Becca interrogated her, receiving a shrug in response.

"I can't believe this. Did you ever stop to think about what the people who care about you would think?!" Becca shouted in disbelief, and worry.

Clementine just stared back at her friend blankly, in her mind she had done nothing wrong, because she wasn't aware of having even cut herself.

Becca waited for Clementine to so much as move a muscle, but when no response came, she just stomped out of the bathroom.

Clementine's focus was now back on the doctor packing up, the woman took her hand and led her to the infirmary like a lost child. She didn't feel like answering any questions so she just laid down to sleep.

Clementine stared at the calendar in the infirmary, her birthday was in a few days. She always rued the day arriving, so she made sure never to tell anyone about it. Her gaze moved towards Carrie, the woman's face laden with concern as she documented her recent findings.

Clementine had started sleepwalking at night, which explained her sudden appearance in the bathroom. She hadn't done anything harmful to herself over the past two days, even though there were sharp objects everywhere.

'Just a one time ordeal.' She guessed as she massaged her wrist. It had finally started to scab over, which had caused it to start feeling itchy. She wasn't dumb enough to act on the urge to scratch her wrist though.

"You can leave. Stay with Kenny." Carrie finally ordered as the woman had stopped writing. The doctor also repeated her orders through the radio.

Clementine begrudgingly accepted the order as she quickly exited the infirmary. She searched around for the work schedule of the day, but Bonnie stopped her.

"Hey city mouse..." Bonnie seemed to be struggling to find words to say.

"Umm, Bill actually told me to let you know, that you need to take it easy for a few days."

Clementine scoffed, but Bonnie gave her a stern look. She groaned, the redhead was clearly not going to let her have her way.

"Come on, let's get you to Kenny's place." Bonnie dragged the girl towards a small break room, the redhead leaving soon after.

Clementine entered the room, ignoring the greeting from Sarita as she plopped down face first onto the spare mattress. She laid there for a few minutes, before deciding to look around the break room.

'Table, crib, beds, pregnant lady, and a bunch of books.' She decided to grab a random book, her hands fell upon a book titled 'Dune.'

"That's a good one. Although I wouldn't recommend you read it at your age." Sarita recommended, Clementine decided to start reading the book anyways.

Most of the words, and terminology fell short on her, she barely understood what most of the words even meant, but the plot was interesting, if confusing to her. This Harkonnen guys reminded her of Phoenix a bit, their deaths made her feel a twinge of joy.

Kenny had walked in the room at some point, as she saw the man's silhouette behind the book. She pretended to be engrossed in the book so she wouldn't have to interact with him. She wasn't ready yet.

"Clem." Kenny spoke up, but she didn't look towards him.

"I know you're ignorin' me sweetheart."

Clementine pressed herself further into the book, she'd delay this as much as she could.

"Kid, you've gotta stop this shit." Kenny walked up to her bed and pulled the book away. She gave him a glare for doing so.

"Look I get it. I was in the same position you're in after... well you know." Her heart stopped at those words, but then she started to get mad.

"I know you're upset about what happened, shit it should never 'ave happened to ya."

Sounds of flesh cutting entered her ears before disappearing, she didn't soften her angry gaze at the man.

Kenny sighed, "How 'bout this... in about forty days or something, Bill wants me to head up on to Ohio. He wants us to make contact with them Wellington fellas."

Her eyes unfurled a tiny bit, wondering what he was getting at.

"If you can manage to not do anything that'll get you or anyone else hurt. I'll take you with me. What d'ya think?"

Clementine's glare disappeared and was replaced with one of anticipatory glee. She nodded quickly, which was met with a hand on her shoulder that quickly turned into a hug. One that she slowly returned as she felt her excitement ramp up, a feeling other than anger had entered her after weeks.

Blood on her hands, the taste of metal and acid in her mouth. The sounds of flesh tearing, guts falling to floor with loud squelches, bones separating with a loud crunch, screams and shriveling, pleading cries ringing in her ears. Laughter of a psychotic skinless man, and the feeling of cold metal on her skin.

"-entine!" She heard a distraught voice yelling.

The sounds of viscera were gone, her body clean, and the office was empty of anything that was just there.

"Clementine!" Someone shook her violently, waking her up.

Her eyes groggily opened, she was in what used to be the pen. She looked around in a confused daze, Kenny was standing in front of her with a perturbed expression.

"You've gotta stop doin' that." He embraced her quickly as she finally realized what had happened. She saw that the sun was starting to rise now, and she realized what day it was now.

October, twenty seventh, just six days before everyone in Savannah died. A day that was once filled with happiness, but now just a reminder of that day.

A deep and terrible sadness entered her, like threads coiling tightly around her heart. She was twelve now, but she wouldn't be celebrating today, no one would, and they never will.

She removed herself from the embrace and got ready for the day's physical training. The only time that the mocking laughter of Phoenix, and the agonizing screams of those she skinned never bothered her.