new beginnings

Morning Walks

I woke up the next day and looked over to Judith's bed. She wasn't in it. Frantic, I got up and opened the door to Dad's bedroom, about to yell that Judith was missing, but then I found Dad asleep with Judith cuddled up next to him. She must have crawled out of bed and made her way over to him last night.

I breathed a sigh of relief and walked downstairs. The only clock in the house said 5:49.

How did I manage to get up so early if I was so tired from yesterday?

I decided to put on my boots and take a walk in the streets of Alexandria. I stepped outside and the cold morning air covered me. I shivered and started walking alone. Of course, I brought my gun, just in case.

I walked in silence for about fifteen minutes when I spotted the teenage boy from yesterday sitting on a porch swing.

I didn't even notice he was there until he called out, "Hey, you."

He pointed to me and gave a hand signal that indicated for me to go up there. I walked up to the porch.

"You're Carl, Rick's son, right?" he asked.

"Yeah... and your name is Ron, right?" I replied.

"Yep. So how do you like it here so far?" he asked, obviously trying to be nice.

"Better than what we have had before, that's for sure," I said truthfully.

"Tell me about yourself. This is the first time I've met someone else my age for a long time, and I would like to make the best of it," Ron said, looking up for the first time.

"Uh, well, I'm fifteen. My sister is Judith, and uh..." I started to say.

"I don't have much else to say about myself. The past six years have been the same thing. There's no time to have fun and I feel like I've kind of skipped all that normal kid stuff," I said.

"I can relate to that. I used to be fun before this all happened," Ron agreed.

Wow, Maggie was right. Maybe I can make friends my age after all.

"If this is too personal, I'm sorry, but who are the most important people you've lost?" Ron said, jumping to a serious question.

I was definitely surprised. What kind of person asks a question like that to a person they barely know? I was hesitant to answer.

"I've lost a lot of important people. But the worst were probably my mom and my friend, Sophia," I replied, remembering some of the worst moments of my life.

In a way it felt like a relief to tell someone new about it, someone who wasn't there at the time. Even if they were a total stranger.

"I lost a lot of people too. My family only arrived here a few months ago. On the way, though, my Dad, he, uh..." he stopped and turned away from me.

"I'm sorry," I said and sat down on the swing with him and patted his back softly. If he didn't want to talk about it, why did he start up the topic? I had so many questions for this kid. But I decided to be sympathetic.

"I understand. It's so rough losing someone. The minutes after, you, you just don't know what to do with yourself because you realize that someone you loved died," I tried to comfort him but ended up choking back tears myself, this was his fault anyway for starting it.

We sat in silence for a few minutes until Ron spoke up again, changing the subject to something lighter, "What did you like to do before this all happened?"

"I was about nine or so when it happened. I played video games, read comics, and played with my favorite toys; Hot Wheels cars," I confessed, laughing a bit at the memories.

"Really? I loved those cars! We could've been friends," Ron said with a smile, adding, "Well, I'm fifteen too, and I was just like you when I was younger. My family is from Maine, so I don't think we would have ever met before all this happened."

"Maine? Wow, that's pretty far. I'm from Georgia," I said.

There was a minute of silence then I decided to ask him a question, since he apparently has little boundaries. "Is that girl from yesterday your girlfriend?"

"Enid? Yeah. We've been dating for about a month now. She's had it tough, too. Both her parents and her two siblings were killed pretty recently. Try to be nice to her," Ron told me, shaking his head.

"That's terrible. I hope she'll be alright. I haven't lost any siblings. I only recently transitioned out of being an only child to an older brother, so it's a bit different for me," I said.

"Oh," he said, then asked, "What happened to your mom?"

Do the personal questions ever stop with him?

"Well, uh, our group was at a prison at the time. We got attacked by walkers and my Mom went into labor. I was a c-section because my mom couldn't have me naturally. The same thing happened with Judith. So we had to do it. Maggie helped me, since we were the only ones with her. My mom died during birth but Judith did fine," my voice broke a little, pitying myself.

"Wow that's harsh. Is Maggie the one with the Korean guy?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, Glenn. He and Maggie are like family to me," I said.

Soon I heard my Dad's voice calling from the street.

"Carl, can you come to the house? Denise gave us some food for breakfast," he said, waving slightly to Ron.

I said bye to Ron and followed my Dad back to our house.

It was nice to say "our house". And it was nice to find someone new to talk to.