What Lies Ahead • the walking dead ¹

13 • Listen when the quiet speaks

For the most part, breakfast was quiet. Only the clanging of forks on plates and Glenn's occasional moans and groans.
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." The boy groaned. His face flushed with rosy red hues.
"Yeah. We're all gonna be pulling an Alexa from now on." Shane joked as he stepped inside the small cafeteria.

Alexa rolled her eyes at the comment. Thinking back to last night when she did indeed have a drink. Surprisingly though, she wasn't hungover like the rest of the group, who were passing around a bottle of ibuprofen.
"What the hell happened to you?" T-dog surveyed, causing everyone to look up from their meals. "Your neck?"

"Must have done it in my sleep," Shane stated, raising a cup of coffee over his neck to hide the three new gashes.
"Never seen you do that before," Rick responded. Eying his friend curiously from across the table.
"Me neither," Shane spoke. An unseen tension filled the air between the two as Shane glared at Lori. "Not like me at all..."

Now it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. But the rest of the group was too intoxicated to notice, except Alexa, who easily figured something had happened between Shane and Lori. Something Rick didn't know about.

"Morning." Said the less than cheerful voice of doctor Jenner.
The group grumbled their good mornings as T-dog came around, sporting a pan of powdered eggs.
"Doctor," Dale started as soon as he saw the man. "I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-"
"But you will anyway." Jenner cut in.

Alexa smirked as she knew Dale would be the first to start asking questions, and even though she did her snooping last night she still had a few unanswered questions.
"We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea started, her eyes burning holes into the back of the doctor's lab coat.

Jenner turned, a cup of coffee in hand as he sighed. "I suppose you want answers." He grumbled. "Follow me." The group eagerly stood, all of them wanting their questions answered as they quickly followed on Jenner's heels into the computer-filled room. Alexa and Chase still slowly trailing behind.

Jenner trudged up to his desk, slamming his coffee down as he clicked on the monitor.
"Give me playback of TS nineteen." He called to the room.
"Playback of TS nineteen," Vi repeated.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this," Jenner said to the group as they all filed into the big room.

An XR image of a human brain flickered to life on the screen. Along with a bunch of scientific numbers Alexa didn't understand. So this is TS nineteen. Alexa thought as she remembered the second transmission she had watched the previous night.

"Take us in for an E.I.V.." Jenner called to the room again.
"Enhanced internal view." Vi echoed.
The XR brain moved in closer, the brain's synapses coming into perspective on the screen. The group looked at the glowing lights almost entranced, but Alexa knew they had no idea what they were looking at.

"Vi, scan forward to the first event," Jenner continued. The synapses dissolved as the image zoomed back out. Showing the side of the brain once again. Only this time a large dark blob appeared near the brain stem.
"What is that?" Glenn asked curiously, pointing at the black spot in the brain.

"It invades the brain like meningitis," Jenner explained. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs." The brain went fully black now as the group continued to watch. "Then death," Jenner said quietly. More to himself than the rest of the room.

The room was still silent as the people watched the screen.
"Scan to the second event," Jenner said. Alexa watched as the black brain stem suddenly started to glow a faint color of red. Almost like the brain was restarting itself. "The you part doesn't come back, just a shell driven by mindless instinct," Jenner explained.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea questioned suddenly, watching as the screen shut down. Everyone turned to Jenner for an answer.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
"Or the wrath of God," Jacqui suggested.
"There is that." Jenner sighed.

The room was still and utterly silent as everyone took in the man's words. Andrea and Carol looked on the verge of tears. The kids looked bewildered. The men concerned. And Alexa looked unfazed as she noticed something on the wall.

She stepped forward, away from her brother as she watched the clock slowly tick down.
"Half hour..." She whispered to herself as the time on the clock showed:

00:00:30:00

"Half hour till what?" Alexa spoke loudly, getting everyone's attention. She turned to face the doctor. "A half-hour... until what?" She repeated when the man didn't answer. "What happens in half an hour, Jenner?"

"The basement generators-... they run out of fuel."
"And then what?" Rick asked.
Jenner didn't answer. He stayed frozen in silence as Alexa started to grow impatient.
"What do you mean the basement generators run out of fuel?" The girl asked, stepping forward to get in Jenner's face.
"Felicity wide decontamination." He said quietly.

Alexa stepped back, looking around at the confusion and fear etched on everyone's faces. They all looked lost. Disorientated. The girl looked at Rick. He was supposed to be the leader. He was supposed to tell them what to do, and where to go. He was supposed to guide the group, not run it into the ground.

"What are you all standing around for?" she asked. Her voice shaky. The group looked up from their feet and to the girl. "Get your shit, we have to go." She said desperately. The group looked at her bewildered, they hardly knew this girl, and now she wanted them to pack up all their things and leave. It was preposterous.

Suddenly Alarms started blaring as Vi's voice came over the room.
"Twenty-five minutes to decontamination."
The group panicked, everyone looking around confused and scared as they all looked at Rick for answers. Who didn't seem to have any.

"Everybody!" Shane shouted over the alarm. "Y'all heard Alexa, get your stuff, and let's go! Now, let's go!" The group seemed to follow Shane's orders as they started sprinting to their rooms.
"Alexa!" Chase cried, trying to get his sister's attention.
"What, what Chase?!"
"I'm scared."
"I know. Go get our stuff, we're all going to be okay."

The girl tried to assure her brother. The little boy nodded before he started to sprint back to their dorm.
"He locked us in!" Glenn suddenly shouted, getting everybody's attention. The group immediately ran back in a panic. Daryl ran up to the doctor, a bottle of booze in his hand and a look that told Alexa he was ready to rip off Jenner's head.

The group was yelling so much that Alexa couldn't keep her head. Daryl was being held back by T-dog and Shane. The women and children were screaming and crying. And Rick still stood by the door, lost. Without thinking Alexa reached down to her pistol, pulling the weapon from its sheath she fired it off into the ceiling, making everyone fall silent and snapping Rick out of his trance.

"Stop! Everyone none of you are helping. Lori, Jacqui, Glenn, Carol, Dale, Sophia, and Carl, go pack up. Shane, Rick, Daryl, Andrea, T-dog, and I will stay here and try and get that door open. Go!"

She yelled, seeing that nobody was moving.
"Do what she says." Rick finally spoke. Everyone dispersed at his words, leaving Alexa to groan as she watched Rick stomp over to the doctor. "Jenner open that door now," Rick demanded.
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well open the damn things!" Daryl yelled.
"That's not something I control. The computers do."
"What the hell does that mean?" T-dog asked.
"I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." Jenner continued, ignoring T-dog's comment.

"It's better this way."
"What is?" Rick asked, cutting off the doctor.
"Felicity wide decontamination! Don't you see, Rick?!" Alexa said.
"No. What do you mean?" Rick asked, looking between the two doctors.
"We're all gonna explode!"