A Broken World

Seventy-Three

Morning didn’t arrive so much as seep.

It bled through the narrow windows in gray bands, soaking into concrete, into clothes that never quite dried anymore, into the lines on everyone’s faces. The prison woke the way a sick body does—slow, uncertain, testing each breath before committing to the next.

The fence still stood.

That alone felt like a victory.

I came down from the catwalk with stiff legs and a head full of half-dreams that hadn’t bothered pretending to be kind. Daryl peeled off in the opposite direction, already headed for the corner brace with a wrench slung low in his hand. No words. We didn’t need them this early. Survival didn’t require conversation, just agreement.

Inside D-Block, the air was worse.

The heat had settled heavy overnight, trapped by bodies and breath and fear. Hershel sat where I’d left him, shoulders squared by habit rather than strength now. The bulb rested in his palm. Glenn’s chest still moved beneath the plastic rig—shallow, uneven, but moving.

That was everything.

Maggie caught my arm as I stepped in, fingers tight but not frantic. She’d learned how to hold herself on the edge of panic without falling off.

“He asked for water,” she said quietly. “That’s… good, right?”

“It’s something,” I said. In this world, something was currency.

Glenn’s eyes fluttered open as if he’d heard his name. His gaze drifted, unfocused, then locked on Maggie with startling clarity.

“Hey,” he rasped.

Her breath hitched so hard I felt it through my ribs. She leaned in, forehead nearly touching his. “Hey. Don’t talk. Save it.”

He smiled anyway—small, crooked, stubborn as hell.

Hershel watched them with that look he got when hope dared to show its face. He didn’t encourage it. He didn’t stop it. He just kept counting breaths like numbers could hold the universe together if you stacked them right.

Across the row, Sasha slept sitting up, head tipped back against the wall. The wheeze in her chest had softened overnight, more whistle than rattle now. A damp cloth rested at her throat. Someone—Beth, probably—had braided her hair to keep it off her neck.

Small mercies.

I stepped back out into the corridor and nearly ran straight into Rick.

He looked like hell.

Not the dramatic kind. The quiet kind. The kind where the eyes are too sharp because the rest of the body hasn’t caught up yet.

“Hershel?” he asked.

“Still standing,” I said. “Barely. Glenn’s awake.”

Rick closed his eyes for half a second, the way men do when they can’t afford the luxury of relief. “Good.”

We walked together down the block, boots echoing in that hollow way sound does when the walls are listening. Rick stopped outside the admin wing where the kids had slept in a loose sprawl of blankets and borrowed pillows.

Lizzie sat cross-legged near the wall, rocking slightly, fingers twisting Carol’s old hair tie around and around. Mika watched her like a guard dog too small to bite but willing to try.

Rick followed my gaze.

“You want to tell me,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “But not here.”