DEAD SOULS | twd x spn

06 | kill the brain

THERE WERE WALKERS lining the perimeter of the Sanctuary, some of them impaled on poles, others chained to the fence, all of them groaning and violently snapping their teeth.

"So, what are they exactly?" Lottie questioned, unable to tear her eyes away from the corpses. "Zombies? Were they turned? Or was it some kind of...magic?"

"It's a disease─a virus," Negan answered immediately. "We've all got it. So, when you die, you come back. As one of them─a walker."

"Isn't there anyone trying to stop it? To cure it?"

Negan chuckled. "Damn, you really aren't from around here. When this all started, there were people you know, scientists and shit. But they didn't find shit. No cure, no way of...treatin' it. We're on our own, have been for years now."

"But, this world...it's dead. Un-inhabitable. Wouldn't you just...end it?"

Negan turned to her, frowning slightly. "Would you? Where you come from─with all the monsters and demons or whatever─would you end it? Or would you keep fighting?"

Lottie thought about all the chaos back home─how Lucifer and Michael were threatening the end of the world. She thought about everything they had lost. They'd lost so much, and yet they kept on going. Still, after everything.

Somehow, she wondered if this world─overrun by walkers─was actually safer. Here, it didn't seem like Heaven or Hell existed. There were no demons, and better yet, no angels. Was it possible that this was the better option? The better universe?

"Can you kill them?" She asked. "The walkers."

Negan nodded. "Mhm, yeah. You gotta go for the head─kill the brain."

"You mentioned a place earlier," Lottie said then, recalling their first meeting in the woods. "Alexandria? Does that mean there are others?"

"Oh yeah," Negan responded, an audible sigh leaving his lips. "Rick and his band of pricks."

"I take it you don't like them then."

"Well no shit I don't like them. Rick and a bunch of his people went and killed a bunch of my people. It's alright though, I saw that they were punished. And they won't be causing us any more trouble from here on out."

It was then that Lottie noticed the tone in which Negan was speaking─like a sergeant, a brutal leader. It reminded her of John in a way.

It reminded her of the times when they were kids, and he would stand before Dean and instruct him to shoot first, ask questions later. It reminded her of the time he damn near kicked her out of the motel room because she'd accidentally put Sammy in harm's way. She hadn't meant to, of course. She'd been watching him all night, careful not to take her eyes off him, but John didn't care about that. He cared that she'd messed up. He cared that it could've cost them everything. She never slipped up like that again after that, always on high alert, paying attention to every detail. The perfect soldier.

"You got kids?" She asked Negan then, curious to know if there might be any similarities between him and her father.

He shook his head. "No."

"You ever had kids?"

Again, he shook his head. "Nope."

"Do you have anyone at all?"

"All right, enough chit-chat," he spoke abruptly, guiding her back inside the building, his hand secure at her back. "I gotta show you to your room."

"My room?"

He turned to her, his brows knitted together in confusion. "What? You don't think we don't treat our guests with the utmost respect?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, I guess I just didn't expect to be sleeping in an actual bed tonight."

"Well, prepare to be surprised."