TW: graphic and disturbing depiction of corpses, maggots, and mental illness. This is a heavy chapter and if you're not up to reading it I will leave a summary of the chapter events at the end.
Michonne pov
"Annette, you need to help her! she's not well Michonne, she hasn't stopped crying and I don't know how to make it better. I don't care what It costs,
Harlow pulls away from me and begs desperately, at first, I think she is talking about the girl she came with but when I glance at the child in question she doesn't appear to be in any dire need of medical attention.
Then Harlow removes the blanket covered bundle from her chest and starts bouncing it up and down. My heart breaks at the sight of Harlow desperately trying to sooth the apparent baby she's carrying but behind the pain a sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.
It's the same feeling you get when you see something particularly grotesque or disturbing. It's the same feeling that rotted my insides at terminus when I watched my daughter get dragged away from me by that disgusting bastard. It's the feeling that only means one thing, Something is not right.
There is dried blood on the blanket I realise and with a sudden urgency I conclude the child must have been injured a good while ago in order for the blood to have dried. And then Harlow's pleas echo in my head 'I will work for the medicine as long as I need to just, please help her. I can't lose her!'
Why would Harlow even offer to work for medicine, why would that even cross her mind? Where has my baby been all this time? The logical detached section of my brain is telling me that she couldn't have come from anywhere good considering the state she's in but I don't think I'm ready to accept that yet.
The loudest part of me is trying to convince my brain that she might have been with a decent group at the very least, maybe even a community like this one. Its possible is it not that she was safe for most of the time we have been apart but her group got overrun recently and she was the only one to escape along with the two kids. Yes, that would make sense I tell myself but my heart doesn't believe it.
My stomach roles as a far darker possibility crosses my head. 'If she survived terminus it stands to reason that man could have as well.' Suddenly I want nothing more than to kill something just to release the rage boiling inside of me at the thought my little girl could really have been at the mercy of that bastard all this time?
My eyes refocus on Harlow and I'm brought back out of my thoughts to the task at hand. The baby needs help and Harlow needs reassurance so I can't allow my thoughts to run away with me.
"Of course, we will help her and you don't need to do anything in return these are good people I promise. Will you let me look at the baby?" I hold out my arms for the child so I can assess the damage done to the infant.
I see a brief look of hesitation cross Harlow's face and I would be lying if I said it didn't sting a little. But then her features smooth out and she shakily hands me the bundle watching attentively as I cradle the baby in my arms.
I gently shift the blanket away from the infant's face and what I see turns my stomach inside out like I've just went downhill on a roller coaster. Its body has collapsed in on itself and its skin is black and rotting. Parts of the thing's skeleton is completely exposed and the familiar smell of decay hits me in hot nauseating waves. The inside of the blanket is coated in bodily fluids and the corpses flesh is soft and mushy in places. Where there should be eyes there is nothing but sunken holes and a colony of squirming maggots are feasting on the blackened remains
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In The Bird Song | TWD
FanfictionHarlow rose was a child who lost everything at the hands of the monsters around her long before the world fell. She was a girl cast aside and locked away for pleading guilty to a crime she felt no shame about committing. "Never be ashamed" her siste...
