In The Bird Song | TWD

Chapter 40 - Everything all at once

Michonne pov –

I am sitting in the armchair across from the couch where Harlow is resting with my knees pulled to my chest. I have been sitting here for hours waiting for her to wake up, far too scared to leave her alone for fear of what she could do to herself. The image of my daughter writhing and screaming on Deanna's floor whilst I am helpless to do anything replays over and over in my head filling me with sickening dread.

I will forever be grateful to Deanna for clearing away all the visible maggots from the baby's corpse because her doing so at least spared Harlow from the particular horror of having to watch the insects feast on her loved one's flesh. Around the time Harlow started clawing at her eyes I decided to get her away from that room with the basket casket and bring her home but nothing I said or did seemed to register with her so in the end I had to lift her back to the house.

I made sure to take the back route along the wall edge behind the houses so that nobody saw Harlow in such a state but I could do nothing about the screams that echoed through the small community. Once we made it back home and she still wasn't any better I didn't know what to do other than to simply hold her on the couch until exhaustion won over and she finally fell asleep.

So much has changed in one day. I have my daughter back but she's in pain and I don't even know the true extent of the phycological damage her time alone has left her with so here I am, left waiting and wondering slowly driving myself insane. All she told me was that she was trapped in some place nearly the entire time she has been gone and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with so little information.

I feel like I'm back in high school taking an exam that I ought to know the answers to but my mind keeps coming up blank, I feel like I should just instinctually know how to help her but instead I feel like I'm lost at sea with no paddles to row back to shore. Harlow is so frail that her appearance almost frightens me like I'm looking at the corpse of my child rather than a living breathing human being. The girl in my memories was a healthy weight with colour in her face and beginning to develop curves like a normal healthy teenager.

However the girl in front of me is nothing like that. She looks so much younger now except for her eyes which seem to have aged a decade since I last saw her. the Harlow I once knew was fast and energetic to the point her movements could almost be described erratic. However this Harlow's movements are weary and calculated like she expects to be attacked if she make even a single misstep.

The only time she moved like a girl her own age was when she tried to attack Deanna but even that energy blead out of her the moment the confrontation was over. Who did this to her and why? What has she seen that has caused her stare to become haunted?

I feel as though I am looking at a puzzle that is missing half its pieces, the baby, the kid, the dirt, the malnourishment, the refusal to shower, her eyes, the torn clothes, the strained smile, the trembling hands, it should all mean something or at least hint at what she has been through but each piece of the jigsaw leaves more questions than answers.

But even after everything I know my child is not broken just like an unsolved puzzle is not broken, as her mother I just need to figure out how I'm going to put her back together.

***

Harlow pov

My eyes flutter open and I find myself curled up on a couch sporting a massive headache. I blearily blink the sleep from my eyes as my brain goes over the events of the day, I must have twitched or something because I hear Michonne's voice asking "Harlow you awake?

I turn my body around and force my aching arms to push me up into a sitting position so I can look at Michonne's face without straining my neck. "Tell me this isn't real." I beg not wanting to believe the images replaying back in my head. "I'm sorry baby" Michonne shakes her head and I drop my eyes to the floor suddenly unwilling to look at her.