Torn Apart • TWD

Chapter 26 - clean skin

It takes the man a solid minute to react, his mind slow from being woken up so many times by his neighbour's clunky boots and habit of door slamming. The man looks young, in his mid-twenties with brunette hair sticking up at unusual angles from tossing and turning, he appears to have opened the door ready to confront someone who angers him, probably Merle, but now that he has registered that there's an injured and unfamiliar child that wants to come in, he slowly opens the door all the way and steps aside for her to enter, "Hey Vega," he mumbles tiredly then asks, "What can I do for you?"

His home is much more polished than Merle's, with no dust or dead bugs, shoes are neatly stacked together next to the door and his furniture has been arranged for guests to be comfortable. As she's looking around his flat, the man quickly throws on a shirt and rubs the sleep from his eyes then walks around her small body to get to his knees so he can properly look at her and examine the blood coating her face.

"Well I just got to this town and I'm supposed to stay with Merle but he isn't there and um," Tessa looks down like she's embarrassed before muttering, "I don't like being alone in the dark."

His lips press together with sad eyes as he rubs the girl's arm in empathy and leads her over to the sofa to gently push her to sit much to her legs relief at the nonstop moving today. He takes a seat next to her stiffly, unsure of what to do or how to interact with or help her.

"Are you hurt?" He awkwardly points to her head but quickly drops his hand, opting to run it through his tousled hair instead of pointing it at her face.

"I already went to see Doctor Stevens," she informs while constantly switching her gaze from his face to her shoes, never setting her stare in one place. The girl's discomfort reminds him that she's just a child who's probably scared which forces him to get his head together, "He told me to shower and sleep but I just didn't want to be alone. I'm sorry for waking you up."

"I get it, a new place can be scary," he nods compassionately, "And don't worry about waking me up, Merle already did that with his clunking around, acting like an ogre," the man waves off then hunches his shoulders with his arms curved and twists his face around with his jaw sticking out which hides his upper lip behind his teeth and crosses his eyes, making the girl lightly giggle at the attempted imitation.

"Like Shrek," Tessa confirms with a smile and he nods, pleased that he managed to loosen her up slightly.

"Yep, smells like him too," he grins with a chuckle.

The light moment fades with silence, the man is at a loss on how to continue. For Tessa's plan to work, she needs him to like her, to empathise with her and to see her as an innocent and frightened child, so to continue to conversation, she takes in a deep breath and wraps her arms around her body before saying, "I've never been alone, I always had my daddy but he isn't here now and," she pauses with a shaky breath, "I don't know what to do."

Her confession is unknowingly coming from a place of truth, but that truth was from a long time ago. After her family was lost to the dead, she didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to survive and she didn't know if she even wanted to. She was just a lost little nine-year-old with no family and no place to call home, but people taught her to survive and kind people such as Kate made sure she wanted to.

This world is a cruel one to be alone in, but it's better than death which people always bring, it's a harsh reality that people will either need to realise and set off alone or die in the illusion of safety.

It is true that she was never alone during the before, she always had someone to protect her from the monsters under the bed and another to comfort her from the nightmares that scary movies would bring, and when her parents were torn apart and her protectors from both the physical and mental demons were gone, she had to grow up and face them on her own.