𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 , 𝐫. 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬

ninety four -

EPISODE ONE
"i hear nebraska's nice"
SEASON 9

The CRM does not exist as the CRM in this story. It is replaced by the Nebraskan settlement of the commonwealth. The commonwealth exists in three states, Nebraska, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, with a train track connecting all three communities.

"if strength and power meant everything, the elephant would be the king of the jungle, not the lion."

◌

NEGAN SMITH

have you ever had to remind yourself of your name every day because it was the only thing you had left?

i once used my name to build an empire.

my name, it meant something at one point. it terrified people who heard it.

negan.

negan.

but i gave all that up awhile ago to become something more. so we all could have more. so my empire and his empire could become one, and we could be unstoppable.

for awhile i prayed they all made it. i prayed they got everything they wanted.

that was two years ago, the fight we made on a train to ohio, the last time i saw a familiar face. it was two years ago that i rode the train out west to nebraska while everyone else got off at where they were supposed to be.

someone had to keep the train going.

if it never arrived to nebraska with its shipments, my people would have found themselves in an even bigger pile of shit than we already got ourselves into.

so i fought and bled until the train came to a stop and i was hauled off by the one man i couldn't win against.

because of him i couldn't hide, couldn't make my way back unseen, and i ended up exactly where most people wished i'd end up—stuffed away into a room too small for a man over six feet, a prisoner. forced to wear black armor when shipped off to do another's dirty work.

the western outpost of the commonwealth was far ahead of the ones on the east coast. i don't know if ohio ever caught up, but from what i learned two years ago, they were heading in that direction. with their people going missing and those walkers that were somehow smarter, made to be sent back into the world as some kind of experiment.

since then i've kept my head down, kept quiet. i figured it was all i could do if i wanted to survive, but even then, i wasn't sure if that's what i wanted. maybe it would've been easier to make a scene and get a bullet in my chest for it.

but it's never been easy to make me do something i don't want to do. hell, i'm the man who makes other men do what i tell them to do.

all this time being someone i'm not, i found myself questioning what parts of my life were real. were they at all? with no living proof of any of it, any person i ever met, any place i ever called home, i started to question if any of it ever happened.

the only thing i'm sure of that's real is the dead that continue to roam, and my name.

there was a flu going around a few months ago in the fall and i ended up in the infirmary over night. the place was flooded with others sick with the same thing, so with overflow, they had me in a room that held splints and casts, and prosthetics.

the fever and the cold sweats and the sleepless nights had me talking to my late wife. i asked if she'd take me back if i came to her that night, if she'd forgive me for all that i'd done in the time since i lost her.