After Death

Chapter 18 (Funeral for Bastards and Orphans)

Chapter 18: Funeral for Bastards and Orphans

Ethan Warren

Estimated, August 2025

About 39 months after outbreak

California, Home

Season 4

---------------------------------------------

We dressed in our same old bloody clothes, ripped jeans, and broken shoes. We smoked cigarettes and drank expired beer in the hot, burning sun. We dug 87 graved and made the same amount of crosses out of warped plywood and dusty nails. We filled the holes in the ground with bodies, dirt, and alcohol as our minds became empty. We stayed in that graveyard until the afternoon sun came up and the dead pushed us back inside the walls. No one spoke to each other, the two groups intersected, no one dared to look up from their bloodstained hands.

It was quiet for weeks after the war. I could tell that most of my people were in shock that we were still standing. I was too, but we probably wouldn't be if it wasn't for The Ringmaster's sacrifice. I tried to talk to Thomas' wife and child, to give them my condolences but they wanted noting to do with me. I couldn't blame them though, I wanted nothing to do with me either.

We didn't bother rebuilding and repairing the damage that had been done. No one was really ready to leave their house yet unless it was necessary. I wasn't either, I hated seeing the blood that dried on the pavement, I prayed for a rainfall to wash it away. I wanted to be able to sleep but it was impossible, I couldn't do anything but I wanted to do everything. I wanted to bring the hope back, I wanted this place to not feel like the ghost town that it was becoming. I wanted there to be life here, like there used to be.

I tried to work with Timothy's men but they weren't in the right head space either. But they made it clear that I was not in charge of them, thought they promised to be as reasonable as possible. They had every right to be their own democracy, even if we agreed on something there would always be too much bad blood to work together. I didn't mind their choice. To be honest I'd probably be in the same boat if I was in their shoes and technology I was, I didn't want to work together either.

We had a long way to get even remotely close to allies, at this point we were barely even fine with settling for toleration. We didn't want to kill each other, the last thing we needed was another war, we just didn't want to ever admit that what the other group did was acceptable. We're fine with living with each other because we both know there's no where else to go, this was going to be the place that would grow and we all desperately needed to witness that. It's also not like one group completely ignores the other, some have even become close friends, it was all just so new to us, we couldn't tell if it was wrong to share a cup of coffee yet but it wasn't.

In the end, we're all just victims of Thomas' and Timothy's past, we picked a side but it didn't even matter who won. We both lost so much more than we could afford.