After the Last Day on Earth (TWD Fanfiction)

Blood Brothers

Riley's P.O.V.

I woke up the next day with a pain in my neck and my back up against a hard surface. I looked to my side and saw a sleeping Colton resting his head comfortably on my shoulder. We were both covered with a blanket, which I don't remember getting.

Colton must've gotten it after I fell asleep. Knowing him, he was probably either too tired or too comfortable to go back to his place, I figured, and quietly laughed to myself when I knew I was right about the latter part of my theory.

After about 5 minutes of waiting for Colton to wake up, I realized I had to go visit everyone in the Infirmary and see how they were holding up. Slowly and steadily I stood, trying not to wake up my snoozing comrade.

I headed for the door, but stopped in my tracks when I knew Colton would wonder where I went. I grabbed a pen from a nearby table and wrote "INFIRMARY" on his hand.

That should do it, I thought, and chuckled to myself as I headed out the door.

The terse walk from my place to the Infirmary didn't give me enough time to think about Ezekiel's upcoming confrontation with Rick, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I walked through the first door of the hallway to see knees on the floor and eyes of glass that looked as if they were about to shatter. That is, if the tears hadn't started flowing already. I stayed silent and leaned on the molding of the door as I watched each new arrival mourn the loss of their friend. I didn't know his name, but he sure did have the most unique hair of the bunch.

A burly man with fiery red hair and a mustache inched out of his chair next to the bed and held his own hand in Mullet Hair's hand. He leaned down to the man's ear, and everyone heard him as he whispered a few words just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

"You were my brother, even if you weren't blood," he breathed out and broke down not even a second after. I guessed the man had stopped breathing, for his chest wasn't moving up and down and he was as motionless as could possibly be. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry because I just felt so bad for this group that thought of each person as a family member. I didn't even know this man, but I knew what it felt like to lose a beloved family member.

Mom. She was the one who was actually there for me when I needed her. Unfortunately for both of us, she got cancer a few weeks before the outbreak and died soon after it started. I didn't fully understand what was going on in the world, so when she stopped breathing, all I could do was sit next to her and cry.

Stop crying, already! People die all the time. You know that, my dad would scold.

I guess within the next few hours, her corpse reanimated, and I had to be the one to put her down because Negan, being Father of the Year, was nowhere to be found. He left, and he never came back like he often did. Even if it was after weeks, he still came back. Not this time. I knew what happened when you got bit or scratched or anything like that, but I thought that was the only way you could turn. The moment I slowly drove that knife into the base of her skull was the moment I realized it didn't matter whether or not I got bit or scratched, because I would still turn. Everyone would turn. The only way I wasn't going to turn was by not dying, so that's exactly what I think to this day every morning to keep me going.

I will not die. Not today.

"Riley... Riley... Hey!" I was snapped out of my thoughts by Rick. I looked up to face him and his son, whom I have yet to meet...along with many others.

"What- Oh, yeah...um, I'm very sorry for your loss. I didn't know him, but I do know what it's like to lose a family member."

"I appreciate that. Thank you," Rick responded, looking down. "I think it's time you meet everybody." He motioned to each stranger as he spoke their name. "Riley, this is Carl, Rosita, Michonne, Aaron, Sasha, Eugene is in the bed, Abraham, and Daryl. Glenn and Maggie are in another room."