Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG

Chapter 50: Whispers In The Dark

They snatch the bag off your head and shove you onto your knees. You look around, it's some sort of encampment but you've never seen one so big, there's gotta be over one hundred of them. It's a shame they took your weapons from you as, despite their numbers, you could've tried making a break for it; none of them seem to have guns.

A bald woman steps forward, looking down at you. "Well what do we have here?" she asks menacingly as she turns to the huge giant of a man that captured you.

"A curious one, Alpha" the man says, giving her your skull balaclava.

She studies it, flipping it over in her hands and looking back at you, a new emotion on her face. She looks, happy, weirdly.

"You are a special one aren't you" she says, a huge grin on her face, "I think this one is already well on the way to become one of us, a Whisperer". She pockets your mask and turns to the huge man, "Beta, send this one of with Lydia and Charlie, I want them to show him how to herd guardians".

The colossal man, who you can now safely assume is called Beta, nods and drags you up from your knees and onto your feet, shoving you towards a group of people who seem to be sharpening sticks.

"Charlie, Lydia" he bellows. Charlie makes his way over with a girl in tow. She looks about your age, dark hair and brown eyes. She wears a tattered blue shirt and smiles upon seeing you. "Show this one how to herd" he growls at them. They nod and begin to guide you out of the camp.

"So-- what's your name?" Lydia asks.

"Does it matter?" you reply bluntly.

"Hey! I told you mine when you had me at gunpoint in that alley" Charlie says, "Least you could do is tell us your name".

You narrow your eyes at him, "Ghost, call me Ghost".

He raises an eyebrow, "I like it. You've already met me, that's Lydia" he says motioning to the girl.

"Yeah I assumed" you respond, "I'm not an idiot".

"No, but you sound like a dick" Lydia says coldly, "We don't want to do this as much as you so can we cut the bullshit and get on with it?".

You let out a sigh and shut up. If they take you any further away from the camp you could probably attack them and make a break for it.

"We have eyes and ears all throughout this forest so don't even think about running" Lydia says, as if reading your mind.

You don't believe her but, then again, you do want to survive so maybe it's best to play it safe for now.

They lead you to a small gathering of infected, and put their masks on, motioning you to stand away and watch. You cooperate and observe them as they herd the group of infected around using whistling sounds and whispers. It's actually quite impressive and, what's more, the infected aren't even interested in attacking them, probably due to the masks.

They guide the infected back to where they were originally, and make their way back to you, taking their masks off.

"And that's how you do it" Lydia says to you smugly.

You keep silent on the walk back to camp. You don't want to talk and there's no need to as you've already decided you want out of this place. Tonight all you'll have to do is sneak out, find your mask, gun, and machete; and run far away.

But of course it won't just be that easy.

On your return, you, Lydia, and Charlie are sent to make a mask for you, This involved carefully skinning an infected's face off and stretching it on a tanning rack made of sticks. Putting it on for the first time absolutely sucked as you can still smell the rotting flesh, which Charlie promised would go in time.

With the sun setting on the horizon, it was time to sleep, and Lydia led you to a tent, of which you have to share with a few other boys, as well as Charlie.

You awake to a quiet noise from outside the tent, almost like someone is sneaking around, quite poorly though as you can hear the crunch of their feet over the leaves that litter the ground. You get up and quietly leave the tent, following the noise as it leads you through the woods, for quite awhile. You want to speed up, find out who it is. But you know from your time with the Rangers that it's best to stalk your prey from afar. You'll see them in good time.

You go on further, until there's a clearing, and you watch from a distance as a figure emerges into the clearing.

"Charlie!" a girl's voice hisses from the shadows.

A second figure becomes visible and you realise that it's Lydia.

So Lydia and Charlie sneak off together at night?

Could be useful information, possibly for blackmail purposes.

You try to get closer but you stupidly stand on some dry leaves, creating a crunching sound that draws their attention to you.

"Who's there?" Lydia asks, drawing a knife from her belt and brandishing it in your direction, the blade glinting in the moonlight.

Charlie, also draws a knife, but you notice he looks a lot more panicked than her.

You know you're going to have to reveal yourself, you don't have much choice as there's no way you can sneak away.

Slowly, and with your hands raise slightly in front of yourself, you step out of the bushes. "Hey guys" you say in a friendly tone. If they make a move to do anything you've already decided you're gonna fight to the death. 2v1 doesn't give great odds but then again you have nothing to lose; and everything to gain.

"What were you talking about?" you ask, as they both look at you in disbelief.

"Y.. you're not supposed to be here!" Charlie exclaims, his voice quivering slightly as he talks.

You notice that he's gradually lowered his knife, whether deliberate or an accident, it doesn't matter, you'll be able to attack him before he can react; you're sure of that.

"It's obvious you want to escape" Lydia says, putting her knife away, "We want to as well so why don't we work together?"

"Why don't we escape now?" you ask.

Both of them look at you like you're stupid, "Because the entire surrounding area is completely picked clean of any and all supplies so we can't just run off and hope to live for very long" Lydia says in reply.

"Which is why," Charlie chimes in, "We could do with your help"

You sneak back to your tent, elated with the news you've received. Charlie and Lydia know the routes and times the camp guards go by, and are willing to let you escape with them, and all you have to do is steal back your weapons, and steal some provisions for the three of you.

Which can't be too difficult.

Right?