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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A L I C E
ALICE DUNLAP'S LONG, TREACHEROUS battle was coming to a sudden end. She'd put up a good fight, gotten everything she wanted out of this life—finally letting go of what could have been. Because what had already been was more than enough. She had Carl. She had a home. She also had a way out. Something she always wanted that found her just as she began to want much more. Yet, somehow, the girl had found herself actively picking her own, final battle.
Much to his discomfort, Carl'd granted the girl time to say goodbye to a wide-eyed Enid, who stood across from her in the locked infirmary trailer, as she nervously fiddled with her fingers. Alice couldn't decide which of her issues to showcase first.
"What is it, Alice?" Enid shrugged. "You're really starting to scare me."
The girl continued to stir. She'd been sweaty, sickly, but the gut-wrenching nature of Enid's stare amplified the feeling. Alice took more of those countable breaths of hers. In and out. One diaphragm flex closer to death. Each exhale spilling less substance than the one before it.
Alice cleared her throat. "Enid..."
"Yeah?" Her eyebrows furrowed.
"I—" She swallowed. "I—um—"
"What's going on?" Her voice was clear while Alice's mind was anything but.
"I don't know how to..." She felt the tears coming on. "I—"
Enid folded her sleeved arms. Feet planted in place, standing within boots that Alice's eyes often dropped to. Her body acting stern but her eyes questioning in a dire manner. The girl was picking up what Alice was hesitating to put down. But, there were two sides to the predicament scarring on the girl's collar bone, pulling on the skin with a wide-spread soreness and hiding underneath the mock neck of an undershirt.
"I'm going to pull down my pants." Alice breathed. Enid's eyebrows furrowed as her eyes dropped to the girl's belt buckle. "Okay?"
Alice shimmied into the examination table behind her, bracing for what was to come. She slightly reclined, timid in her every movement.
"Okay." The girl began to concentrate. She stepped forward, her arms dropping to her sides as Alice revealed herself.
There was blood. Alice wished she wasn't so sure it would still be there. It was both old and new, soaked into the sanitary pad and sitting on top of it.
