Collision

Chapter Twenty Seven

~ Chapter Twenty Seven ~

Ellie's P.O.V.

When morning came, I had nothing but tears in my eyes. The whole night I had been deciding whether or not to stop them. I had seen all they had done, but I had accomplished nothing by pretending to be asleep the whole time.

Deciding when to wake up had been the hardest part. If I woke up first, would I be the one to inspect everyone and make sure that all was perfectly fine? Would I have to react at the dead body and pretend that I never knew what happened? Subtly brushing another tear away, I remained on the ground, hoping that someone would wake soon.

Accidentally, I managed to fall asleep by attempting to stay awake. This did not last long, as I was awoken by a muffled scream.

Struggling to rise up from the ground, I grabbed my knife from my bag out of instinct and looked to the source of the scream.

It belonged to one of the ladies. She was tackling her shaking knees to try and stand up, but all she managed to do was fall back down, letting out more wailing noises. I ran to her, attempting to calm her down, but all she did was push me away. With tears already in my eyes, I looked at the dead body, fresh blood still pooling around her skull, and looked away quickly.

Why would they do such a thing like that? To survive, a part of me replied. They were both right and wrong. Although many things had to have happened for all of us to stay alive, gruesome actions on both parts, it was always wrong to take someone's life. That woman had done nothing wrong to them, and now here she was, dead on the ground with a knife stuck to her forehead. You would've done the same if you had a kid to take care of, I thought admittedly.

Although, what comforted me was the state of peace her emotions were. Her skin was white, lips without colour, but it seemed as if she was still smiling somehow.

I shook my head and turned back to the woman, who was now sitting on the ground, hugging her arms around her knees and biting her nails.

Michonne was the next to wake up out of everyone, then was Carl, Daryl, and so on. I noticed Carol and Rick's face as they woke up as well. It was odd, they seemed to be solemn but content at the same time.

"Back away from the body!" Ordered Joel, walking towards the woman's head and grabbing hold of the knife. "Okay, it's alright, the brain's been damaged, she's not going to wake up."

"Firstly, we have walkers to deal with, then we have a psycho who thinks killing is entertainment, and now we got a murderer? Add to that, the murderer could just as well be one of us. Great." Daryl snorted, rolling his eyes and loading his crossbow.

"We don't know that it's one of us," Rick soothed, raising his hand to try and keep Daryl calm.

"Like hell she could've done that to herself. That woman seemed like she was nothing close to having suicidal thoughts."

I turned my eyes to the floor, hiding my shame. Should I say something? No, then no one would believe me since Rick and Carol would presumably deny their part. I shrugged the thought off and played my ignorance.

"He's right, Julie was always the positive one in our group, she would have never done something like that. Especially now that we might've just found our escape route out of here," added Melanie - one of the four women who came with Carol - already rummaging through the dead woman's  clothes. "Besides, I don't see anything in here that would cause her to lose hope over the night. She's got granola bars, a full bottle of water, and a couple boxes of matches."

In the corner of the room, the lady, who was still crouched low and hugging herself tight, had started to increase the loudness of her voice, thus making her whispers more audible to everyone. "I didn't do it. I swear I didn't. I would never do it, never."