Alamort | Troy Otto

2.8

[2.8]

Growing up, Thena's summer holidays were always filled with field trips. One summer, her father took her to Miami. The next, they went to New Orleans. When Carl grew up, Rick and Lori managed to book them a holiday to Yellowstone. That summer, Ricks was supposed to take Thena to Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. The trip had been booked for months. Rick and Lori had had a few struggles, both financially and in their relationship, and Rick decided it would be best if they didn't go big that summer.

It was a small state park, but it was a perfect spot for hiking and camping, and the park held some of the best waterfalls in Tennessee. It was also only three hours away by car from Atlanta, and the park had no entrance fee. Thena had always loved it when it was just her and Rick, and even liked it when Carl and Lori were present. Those childhood field trips had always brought warmth to her body and mind when she thought of them.

Always until then. Sometimes, as they walked alongside the forests and the roads, the thought of her family came back to Thena's mind. Only bitterness followed. She didn't know why, but just the thought of her father made goosebumps rise on her skin. She blamed him ; for what, she didn't really know. She just knew that something in her mind resisted when she started remembering all their happy moments together.

It was like a little voice, telling her that it wasn't worth it, that he wasn't worth it. If she were strong, she would have resisted. She would have pushed the voice away and dreamed of her childhood. But she wasn't. She let the voice invade her thoughts. She let herself throw away all the memories of him as if he had betrayed her. She did thought he betrayed her in a way. Because he didn't stay. Because he didn't try to look for her. She knew she was selfish, but at one point in her journey, she stopped caring.

Unbeknown to her, Troy could see it. He could see how she sometimes stared into nothingness as she walked, or how she suddenly flinched out of nowhere, hurt and scared by her own thoughts and memories. He started walking closer to her, close enough to catch her if exhaustion took over her body, making her collapse.

They had been walking for days, to the point where Thena lost count of them. Troy, on the other hand, didn't. At night, they would sleep in abandoned houses, all in the same room. Thena and Anita would take the bed, even though the woman always insisted that Troy would take her place. Each time he refused, settling right next to the bed and waiting for the two to fall asleep. He would then take his notebook out and write as much as he could. He wrote about their day, how many walkers they killed, what towns they reached, how Thena felt.

According to his notebook, it was on the seventh day that Thena proposed a detour. They had already passed Chattanooga and were ready to decide whether to continue towards Nashville or turn right towards Washington DC. At first, Troy expected the woman to be keen on going to the capital. He expected her to argue his idea of passing through Nashville, at least for a few days just to see the state of the city.

She didn't argue. Instead, she proposed to see the waterfalls.

"Fall Creek Falls State Park has some of the best and only waterfalls in the Tennessee," she explained, her mind seeming only half present, "its in the middle of nature, so there shouldn't be many dead around. I also know there's a few cabins all around the park that were meant to be rented by hikers or visitors. We could find one to spend the night."

At first, Troy didn't want to agree. However, he saw the way Anita's face lit as she looked up to Thena. Even if his dislike for the child was starting to disappear with each passing day, he still knew she was capable of stabbing him with Thena's butterfly knife while he slept if he didn't do as she or Thena wanted. When he turned away from the child, his gaze could only meet Thena's unusually sad face. He couldn't refuse after that.