Alice was not worried of the unknown. She was worried of what she already knew. She was worried of the promises that the new people were making to her-the ones bringing the people of a fallen Woodbury into their own settlement. The girl felt sorry t...
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C A R L
CARL GRIMES HAD BECOME a master at keeping up appearances. So much so that he'd forgotten what was true to himself. Ever since that night—ever since the Sanctuary—the lines became blurred, the lies became transparent and the gesture became empty.
The boy would've been better off spewing word vomit, this time. Maybe then he wouldn't have found himself hungry at the absence of a full stomach, at the end of the hall, a finger anxiously tapping on his folded arm as he waited for the rest of the group to fall asleep.
He remembered the taste of egg very well.
A hunger so deep he suffered the risk of being poisoned to satiate it. He'd once eaten powdered eggs, back at the center for disease control, having not been fond of the food ever since he figured it would've been his last meal. Only for it to happen all over again.
The candlelight fizzled out one by one, blown to whispers of smoke as his people turned in for the night. Ever since the darkened night spent in a cell, relentlessly squinting his eye at a low-quality picture of himself and Alice, he never thought he'd be thankful for a dark hallway again.
His toes slowly straightened as his feet touched the floor. The socks enclosing them granted a stealth that his boots would never allow.
Carl's fingers curled around the spherical knob, a small metallic churning echoing out into the night. A low light bled into the room. The hallway was never completely darkened, not if Alice was waiting at the end of it.
Her room was the only one with an illuminated door frame. The faint candlelight shined along the borders. His target evident. The peace of a night's sleep behind it awaited him.
The boy couldn't wait to hold her. To kiss her. To spend time together that he never thought they'd get another chance to share.
His palm pressed to the surface of the wooden door. The other twisted at the knob, a few hours untouched by the heat of his own hand. He stepped into the room, his eye first landing on the sliver of the bathtub shown by the gap in the bathroom door, then the first empty bed, then the second. It continued to host the half-eaten plate of food.
Two lonely twins on either side of the small room. No sign of the girl. Their sheets untouched, no wrinkles to match that between Carl's eyebrows.
"Alice?"
Someone stirred around within the small bathroom, his eye eagerly following the noise. He tiptoed across the floor, the bathroom tile smooth and slick underneath his sock-covered toes.
