At the end of the world- A walking dead fanfic, Book 1

24- Taken

Kyllian woke up early the next morning. He hadn't managed to sleep much. Dale's final moments haunted him and every little sound made him jump. It laid heavy on his stomach, made him sick, and he skipped breakfast. The first thing he needed to do was dig another grave.

He'd seen too many graves already. Even here on the farm they had three graves already. One for Otis and two empty ones for Sophia and Levi. Carol had needed a place to mourn as much as the Russell family had. Later today a fourth grave would join the tiny graveyard.

He headed to the shed to grab a shovel. With everything going on he'd forgotten Randall was still inside.

"What happened last night? It sounded like everyone was screaming, and then crying," he asked, sitting up. There wasn't much more he could do with his hands tied behind his back and his hurt leg.

Kyllian didn't want to tell him. The reason Dale was all the way out there was because of Randall. Not that it was Randall's fault, but Kyllian was still mad. "Shut up!" he screamed.

Randall cringed back, but recuperated quickly. "Someone died, right?" he asked softly. "The group I was with, they always got angry when one of us died." He looked away in shame. "It always ended with more death, but not the people from our group."

"What don't you understand about 'shut up'?" Kyllian grabbed the shovel from the rack.

Randall lowered his head and stayed quiet. He didn't need to ask again to know he was right. If this group was anything like his former group, he would be dead before the day was over. He twisted his wrists. They were chafed badly. It hurt, burned. He'd tried to break free so many times already. Each time he only ended up with more painful and bloody wrists.

Kyllian headed out of the shed with a shovel in hand, still with a thunderstorm on his face.

"Wait," Randall spoke just after he had disappeared around the corner.

"What?" He whipped around.

"Don't kill me, please," his voice broke. Saying it out loud made it real. "I'm sorry for shooting at you,okay? I didn't hit any of you. The group I was with, they made me believe it's what we had to do. I can be a better person."

No reply followed and the door slammed shut with a loud bang. The lock slid back into place.

The only thing on Kyllian's mind was digging a grave. He couldn't handle whatever Randall had going on. Theresa would stop by later today and she would talk with him. As long as it didn't have to be him, he'd be happy.

He picked a spot next to Otis' grave and began to dig. He ignored the two empty graves to the side. The manual task would keep his mind occupied for hours. It was a silence he welcomed gladly.

"Mind if I join?" Glenn asked as he approached with another shovel. "I have to do something for Dale, you know." He looked just as defeated as Kyllian felt.

"As long as you don't expect me to talk a lot, you're more than welcome," he replied with a shrug.

"Well, I wanted to ask how Randall was doing," Glenn admitted.

Kyllian stabbed the shovel into the rough rocky subtray. He leaned in on the handle and looked up at Glenn, blinking against the morning sun. "That defeats my whole point of not wanting to talk."

"I know, but this is about Dale. If we hadn't... If we hadn't behaved like we did yesterday he never would've gone on that walk and he never would've died."

"Or the walker wandered into camp and killed more of us," Kyllian grabbed the handle of the shovel tighter and glanced at Levi's empty grave. "It happened before and we lost a lot of good people. One bad guy, but no one mourns him."