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GREY KINGSTON
relief, the emotion you'd think someone would feel when they hear children laughing and birds chirping. after months and months of running from the dead, losing people you love, losing yourself to the world as we know it, a camp where it's safe enough for children to laugh should be relieving.
but it almost isn't, for me at least. i've told myself for so long there's not much left in this world i can trust, and when i'm shown the possibility of that statement being false, i want to run, hide, because it's exhausting learning to trust someone or something and then one day, have it all ripped away from you—again and again.
alexandria, that's the name of the community aaron came from.
his off-putting determination to get us back to his camp isn't as vile as we thought—not at all actually. he said he has a feeling we're going to be great assets in alexandria, but our guards are up and no where close to being let down, especially not after the place terminus turned out to be.
we're all slowly and hesitantly following aaron to the gate, but our attention is quickly drawn to a sound coming from the woods beside us.
out of instinct, all of our weapons are raised and pointed to our left. out comes a possum from behind a garbage can and i feel my heart rate settle down.
one of daryl's arrows impales it and it lets out a squeak right before it dies.
aaron pulls the gate open, the metal rattling as he does so. on the other side, a second man stands within the community, he has dark curls and startled eyes. he's looking at us like we're a threat, but i suppose we are to them.
"brought dinner." daryl says as he scoops the possum up by it's tail.
"it's okay." aaron nods to his friend. "come in, guys."
our group cautiously walks through the gates. it's a modern neighborhood, it matches the photos aaron showed us. the houses are large with perfect looking structure, nothing falling apart or aging on the outside. it makes me wonder how long before the fall were these houses built, i'm guessing pretty damn close to the last day of the normal world.
the grass is green and there's bushes and flowers neatly kept. aaron and his friend look neatly kept as well. they're showered, wearing clean clothes, and have brushed hair.
we're all dirty. dirt under our nails and stained in our clothes, sun-tanned faces, and stomach's growling from the lack of food over the past couple days.
"if you're staying, you hand over the weapons." aaron's friend says.
"we don't know if we're staying." rick replies, his voice gruff as he balances judith on his hip.
