twdg oneshots (very original)

What She Was Fighting For

This was my entry into r/TWDGFanfic's July Writing Contest (theme: war)

I finished in 3rd place.

Enjoy

An explosion rocked the battlefield. Screams of agony rang throughout the night. Clementine's legs wobbled as she started to break from her cover, running forward as bullets whizzed by her head.

"No, Clem, don't do this, please!"

She dove towards the nearest cover, avoiding a shower of bullets that were seconds away from raining down upon her. She looked down at her hands, they were caked in dirt and blood.

"Why? Why are you leaving us, Clem?"

She peaked her head over the cover, firing at the closest enemy with her rifle. His head erupted like a bloody fountain as the bullet pierced his forehead.

"Please, Clem! Don't leave us!"

Sweat dripped from her brow as she quickly reloaded, smacking a fully loaded clip into the chamber. She looked to her left, seeing a fellow imprisoned soldier's head gush with blood as he was shot in the head.

"Why are you doing this?!"

An enemy tried flanking her from behind, but she was ready. She elbowed him in the gut, then landed an uppercut to his jaw. As he fell down, she quickly unsheathed her knife, quickly slitting his throat. Blood squirted from his neck onto her grimy face.

"That is true Clementine, why are you doing this?"

She pressed her back against the concrete block that was her cover, popping open the lid of her canteen before taking a swig.

"I'm doing this to protect my family."

It had been two months since the attack by the Delta on her school. Two months since she struck a deal with Lilly to be one of her soldiers in exchange for not capturing anyone else. Two months since she'd seen what she'd seen the Ericson kids, seen AJ.

She still remembers it clearly, the moment scarred into her life forever. The looks of all the Ericson kids pleading with her not to go, horrified expressions plastered on their faces. And then there was AJ. Oh, AJ. He did not take her decision well. Louis had to hold the child back as his screeches rang across the courtyard.

"No!"

"Clem, no!"

"Please don't!"

"Please don't leave me!"

Each plea stung her heart a little deeper. Tears stung her cheeks as she looked back, her heart slowly cracking at the decision she made. But she had to. She had to keep the others safe. Even if it meant sacrificing herself.

"I love you, AJ." she said to him, before seeing nothing but darkness as the butt of Lilly's rifle connected with the back of Clementine's head.

More recently, things were a lot bleaker. When she wasn't fighting an enemy she wasn't allowed to know the name of, she spent her time locked up in a cell. A cold, desolate cell. If she didn't have a family back home that she needed to protect, she surely would have broken by now and succumbed to the Delta's persuasion. But she didn't. Those people inside the gates of Ericson's Boarding School were the light at the end of her long, dark tunnel. Especially two boys inside those gates.

AJ, her little goofball. The thought of keeping him safe was enough to keep fighting, to keep digging deeper. He was her only source of happiness for a long time. She would do anything to keep him safe. They were all each other had. And she wasn't going to lose him now. She wasn't going to see him become a mindless soldier.

And then there was Louis. That freckle-faced, dreadlocks wearing boy. The boy that could light up a room with just his smile. He never ceased to make her happy. She only knew him for a few weeks, and they had already grown so close. The pure joy on his face when he made her laugh was like a drug. He was a ray of sunshine in her dark, gloomy world. She would cherish that moment they had in the music room for the rest of her days. The carving, the confession, and that kiss. Oh boy, that kiss. Of all the jokes, all the smiles, it was that kiss that felt the best.

She knew she had to keep fighting for them. If she abandoned the Delta, her family would be toast. That's how she got through all those cold nights in a cell on the Delta's ship. That's how she slaughtered dozens of unnamed enemies in the battles she fought. It wasn't for the Delta. It was for her family.

Clem returned her water to her pack only to find a huge man swinging an axe down at her. She wasn't able to dodge it as the axe was brought down on her left leg, dismembering it in one fell swoop.

The pain was almost blinding as she screamed at the top of her lungs, blood gushing from her wound. It took every ounce of her strength to not pass out. Just as the man raised the axe above his head to finish her off, he staggered back. Blood seeped from two gunshot wounds from his chest as the man slumped over, dead.

She turned around to see a fellow imprisoned Delta soldier. She only had time to look at her savior for a split second before they were shot through the neck.

The unbearable pain from her leg retook her attention. Her leg was still bleeding profusely. She ripped off a strip from her shirt and wrapped it around her stump. She yelled "I NEED A MEDIC!" at the top of her lungs, hoping to catch they're only medic's attention.

"The medic is fucking dead!" another enslaved soldier yelled back. She pointed to a pool of blood and a disfigured body. "That's our fucking medic now!'

No. No no no. She couldn't die like this. She slowly crawled over to the medic's corpse, hoping to find any medical supplies still salvageable. She found nothing. All the antiseptic, bandages, sutures, all destroyed. She slowly backed herself up against the nearest cover, still bleeding from her wound.

The reality of the situation slowly creeped up on her. I am going to die here. She was never going to see her family again. She was never going to see her little goofball again. No more nights in the music room with Louis. This was it for her. A whirlwind of emotions ran coursed through her body like a painful river, reflecting on the memories she'd never make.

She wanted to see them one last time.

Clementine rifled through her backpack until she found what she was looking for. Her hands shook violently as she grasped it. It was a photo of herself, AJ, and Louis, all making goofy faces.

"Hey, Clem! Check out what I found!"

She still remembered the day Louis found an old Polaroid camera in the headmaster's office. That giddy smile on his face. All three of them, posing for goofy photos without a care in the world. How quickly her world changed after that.

The Ninja Family. She smiled softly at the photo, a single tear rolling down her cheek and splashing onto the picture. She kissed the photo and returned it into her bag, a new fire lighting itself inside of her. If she was going to die, she wasn't going to die without a fight. She was going to die protecting them. That was what she was fighting for.

Fully motivated, she rose from her cover. Gripping her rifle tightly until her knuckles turned white, she fired at every single sonuvabitch she saw. Round after round being fired as saw heads burst one by one.

She didn't stop firing until a bullet split her forehead in two.