The End of a New Beginning // Daryl Dixon

Part 6

Meredith

"LOOK, I DON'T mean to slam you with questions, doc." Dale speaks up.

"But you will anyways." Jenner says.

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea says. Jenner turns and faces us. He nods his head and looks down. "I understand you're wanting answers. You said it yourself, Rick." He says. "Tell ya what, we finish eating, we'll talk." He says.

"Deal." Everyone finished eating. We all gathered our cups of coffee or orange juice, or if you're like me, an entire plate of food- and entered the big room. Jenner walks over to a computer as we all gathered around the computers and machines.

"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner speaks up. We all turn our heads to a large screen before us. The screen then displays a box with data loading up. "A few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner informs us. I guess if the world were to ever return back to the normal, we were able to say we got to see what truly happened, what caused all of this.

The screen stops on five boxed. Four touching together, and one large one. The four boxes displays different angles of the brain, one displaying the neurons. And the large box displays a person, with the screen being translucent, we were able to see the brain.

"Is that a brain?" Carl asks.

"An extraordinary one." Jenner smiles. His smiles fades and her turns away. "Not that it matters in the end." He says. "Take us in for E.I.V.." Jenner demands. The screen zooms further into the brain, revealing a bunch flashing nerves, or neurons.

"What are those lights?" Shane asks.

"A persons life- experiences, memories." Jenner explains. "It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you-the thing that makes you unique. And human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asks. I turn my head and look at him.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." I explain to him. Daryl nods. "They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Are you a doctor?" Jenner asks me.

"I was a general surgeon." I nodded. "I, uh, I did a little residency in nuerology for about a year, almost two." I explain.

"What made you quit?" Jenner asks. I swallowed hard and look down.

"Back it up." Rick speaks up. "Death. That's what this is, a vigil?" He asks.

"Yes." Jenner answers so confidently. "Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died?" Andrea asks. "Who?"

"Test subject 19." Jenner answers. "Someone who was bitten and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process." He explains. "VI, scan forward to the first event." The screen zooms out of the brain and reveals test subject 19's entire head, with the ripples of the brain. Only, the difference in this, the brainstem was nothing but darkness.

"What is that?" Glenn asks.

"Care to explain?" Jenner asks me. I furrow my brows at him. He waits a moment for me to answer. After me remaining silent for a long time, he turns back to the large screen.

"It invades the brain like meningitis." He explains. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." Within a few seconds, the entire brain turns black. "Then death. Scan to the second event." The screen loads up again until it had come to a stop. "The resurrection time varied. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute...seven seconds." The brain step lightly begins to light up again, sending out shocks of light throughout the entire brain.