The Truth Is

Chapter 16 - Cells and Criminals

I wake up in my bed. I hate these cells. They make me feel like I'm a criminal. Never in my life did I commit a crime. Then the end of the world thing happened and I had to kill people. I had to. You have to kill in order to survive no matter how it makes you feel. You just have to.

Does that make me a criminal? I hope not. I would never hurt someone if they weren't going after my family or myself. I grab the blankets and pillow that was on my bed and start to head out of the cell.

"What are you doing?" Daryl asks. "I'm sleeping in the guard tower from now on. I don't like it in the cells."

"Neither did I in the last prison. But now, I've decided I will sleep in one." He says. "Yea well I'm not you. I'm not sleeping in one." I confirm myself.

"Okay okay. Have fun in the guard tower. I'll go inform everyone else on your new sleeping arrangement."

"You do that." We both laugh.

I set my blankets and pillow down in the guard tower. I'll still go in a cell but I'm not sleeping in one. So all I really need is my blanket and pillow.

"So you're sleeping up here now?" Carl comes up. "Yea." I say back.

"Well, do you want me to sleep up here with you for tonight?" He asks. "If you want too."

"Okay. Let me go get some blankets and a pillow then." He goes down the guard tower to get them.

I stand up and look over the railing. The sun is shining and warms my skin. There's not one cloud in the sky. It's a beautiful day. If only the walkers weren't here to ruin the beautiful picture. Not only do the walkers make the world look horrid and monstrous, they also make it smell.

Carl comes back up to the guard tower. "I got them." He says holding up his sleeping gear. He drops them and walks over to me. "Everything okay?" He asks.

"Yea. I'm just looking at the sky. It's the only beautiful thing left in the world."

"No it's not."

"Huh?"

"You're beautiful."

I let out a burst of laughter. "Ha. Very funny."

"I'm serious."

"Yea okay. Do you want to do some exploring around the prison?" I ask him to change the subject.

"Okay. Lets go" I grab my knife and my gun and put them in the holster. Then we head down the guard tower and into the prison.

"Where are you two going?" Daryl asks.

"Exploring. We won't be too long." I say. Daryl just nods his head.

We start walking. We both have no clue where we are going but we keep walking. "Wait." I say, stopping. I pick up a rock and draw an arrow on the wall, pointing to the direction we came from. "Just in case if we get lost." I say and then we keep walking, making arrows every now and again.

We walk into a room full of books. This was a library. "Criminals read?" I ask. "Wow. I thought they just fought with each other. Or they just show that in movies."

"Who knows." Carl said. "Do you like to read?" He asks me.

"No." I reply. "You?"

"Depends on the book."

We keep walking. I stop to draw another arrow. We stop when we see a door with the word 'cafeteria' on it. Me and Carl look at each other amazed and I open the door a little bit, looking back at Carl. I feel a hand grab me. A dead hand. Carl stabs it and tries to close the door.

The door flings open from all the walkers piling up on it. Carl and I run. "LEFT!" I scream and we both take the left. We keep running until we reach the library. We close the door and Carl breaks a shelf and slides the wood through the handles locking us in the library and the dead outside of it.

"Carl? I don't think that was a cafeteria. I think it was a trap."

"Who would do that?" Carl asked.

"I don't know, but we need to find a way out of here, and fast."

We both look around. "There! A back door!" Carl says and we go through it. We follow a long hallway that leads us back to the main hallway. I see one of our arrows.

"Our arrow. Come on!" I see the group and run to them, panting.

"What happened?!" Multiple people ask me.

"Me and Carl were exploring and we found a door with 'cafeteria' written on it so we went to go in and there were a ton of walkers in there so we ran back."

"What were you thinking?! You could of led some of them back here!" Maggie says.

"No. We went into a library and locked them out then we went through a back door."

"Good. How many walkers were there?" Rick asks.

"Um. I don't know, about fifty maybe."

"Fifty?!" Multiple people said in sync.

"Where's Carl?" Rick asks.

"He's right he-" I point behind me but then realize he's not there. "Oh my god. He was right behind me!"

I run back. "Brooke! Stop!" Glenn yells but I keep running. "I have to find him!" I look back still running. I collide into something and fall to the ground.

Carl picks me up off the floor. "I'm okay. I stopped because I found a map of the prison so I grabbed it."

"Are you insane!! You could've gotten killed!" I scream.

"But I didn't." He says back. "You could've." Rick runs over to me. "Did you find hi- oh my god. Thank god." He hugs Carl.

"Dad I'm okay. I went back to get this." He gives his dad the map. Rick opens the map and studies it. His eyes widen.

"What? What is it?" I ask.

He hands me the map. "Oh my god." Is all I can say. Carl looks over my shoulder and gasps.

The map reads: Bet you thought there was food in there didn't you? Thought wrong. Don't always believe what you read. I would get out of here while you still can. This is our home.

"We're not alone." Rick says.