Living with the Dead.(twd)

Voices (125)

Carls pov.
"This is ridiculous. She's locked  herself in her room for two days and nobody has tried to get her out." I argue over the dinner table.
Dad sighs. "Leave her be Carl. She's grieving." He croaks. He's just as worried about her as I am, but he doesn't know what to do.
"Shes hiding. She has no idea what she's doing more than we do." I correct. Michonne props a squirming Judith back into her high chair.
"Carl, so much has happened to her in the past 3 weeks. She lost her little sister who she practically raised. You have no idea how that feels. To mother someone and make them promises only to have them broken against your will and there's nothing you can do. Then she starts to get sick again. She must be terrified and when she needed her friends help the most he was murdered by her father who she thought was dead. Not to mention he slammed her with the whole 'you can save the world' thing. I can't comprehend what i'm thinking, let alone what she must be thinking." She tells me.
"I've been bringing food to her over the past few days. She has it eaten in no time but she looks..... dead. She used to be bubbily and she had a sparkle in her eye when she was with everyone she loved but ever since Abbie died her sparkle has been replaced with tears. I just don't know how to help her. People have come to sypathise with her, but she doesn't want to see anyone." Maggie tells us.
"Has she spoken anything to you?" Glenn asks.
"No, but I've sent Beth in a couple times and when she talks to her Madison will just nod or shake her head, but she won't talk." She confirms. I stuff a carrot into my mouth as I play with the rest of my food.
Everyone has started sleeping and eating in their own houses lately, but we need Maggie, Beth and Glenn's help with Madison so they've been having dinner at our house. I can't sleep knowing that Mads is in her room alone in pain and it doesn't make matters any better when we hear her getting sick. She better be taking her medication. My dad isn't much better, he can't sleep at all. I hear him getting up at early hours of the morning to go into the kitchen. I think he just goes in there to think because eventually he goes back into his room to pretend he slept there all night, but Michonne and I know better.

"She keeps getting sick and I don't know how to stop it." Beth tells us.
I suddenly don't feel very hungry anymore. I push away my plate and I see mostly everybody else do the same. It scares me that she's alone and it terrifies me that she's still sick and we don't know what to do.
"We need to tell the doctor here." Glenn states.
"Already tried that. He doesn't have the correct equipment to operate on her. It would only kill her if he tried anything else." Beth sighs. I watch as my dad rubs his temples with his fingers and when he lets out a sigh he pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Okay, well what do we do? We can't leave her in there alone. Carl told me that she practically told him to kill her. She can't think straight. Too much has happened, too quickly to her." He groans as he opens his eyes and lets his hands drop to the table.

Suddenly there is a high pitched scream coming from the hall. We are all on our feet at once as we run to the hall and find the noise coming from behind Madisons door.
"GO AWAY! GET OUT OF MY HEAD! YOUR DEAD!" She screams over and over. The door is locked and I push passed everyone in the way. I thump the door over and over to grab her attention.
"MADS OPEN THE DOOR. WE CAN HELP. THEY AREN'T REAL. YOUR JUST SEEING THEM. OPEN THE DOOR I CAN HELP YOU." I yell into her. I know she's seeing her dead family. Beth and I talked about this yesterday. We wondered how long it would take her to 'see' her father again. There's more screaming and then there is the loud thrashing noise. If she keeps breaking things in her room there will literally be nothing left in it.
"MADS IF YOU DONT OPEN THE DOOR NOW, I'M KNOCKING IT DOWN!" I warn.
There are a few long seconds until I hear the door click and everyone pools in immediately. Madison is on the ground beside the door with her fists pushed to either side of her head, blocking out noise as she rocks back and forth. Its a scary image but I shake it away. I kneel down beside her and slowly pry her hands away from her ears so she can hear. She looks up to me, her brown eyes are scared and desperate. Her hands bunch up in my shirt and she pulls me closer until i'm holding her still and she sits on my lap.
"Nobody is here Madison. Just me and you. Okay? Me and you." I assure her and the others take that as their cue to leave but I know they're outside listening. She screws her eyes shut again and begins to rock again.
"Listen to my voice. Theres nobody here. The people you loved and lost are in your heart not your mind. Open your eyes Mads." I whisper. She shakes her head no.
I sit properly on the ground and pull her light weight by her waist onto my lap and I pry her hands away from her face.
"The only people here are you and me. Thats all. Nobody else. Just us." I assure her over and over.
"What about the voices? I still here them." She panics.
"Listen to my breathing Mads. Match yours to it." I distract her. She breaths in when I do amd exhales when I do.
"Everybodys worried about you Mads. You need to come outside. You need to talk to people. Get some fresh air." I whisper to her.
"Theres no point. Everyone just dies." She cries and I watch as tears escape her shut eyes.
"Thats not true. Im still here. So is my dad and Maggie, Beth, Daryl.... we're not going anywhere." I promise her.
"Don't make promises you can't keep Carl." She croaks. I sigh. I know I can't promise that because I don't know what might happen to us.
"How about this, I promise that I'll do everything in my power to stay alive and keep others alive." I propose
She nods silently.
"Are the voices gone now?" I ask in hope that my distractions worked for her.
"Yes." She says in suprise.
"Open your eyes."
She slowly opens her eyes and cautiously looks around the room.
"See, just you and I." I say and I can't help but reach down and kiss her forehead. She grabs my hand and lifts it to her lips and whispers
"thank you." Against it before placeing a light kiss there. I hug her and stand up and help her to her feet after. She takes me by suprise when she quickly wraps her arms around me and i'm quick to resond when I wrap my own around her waist and my head lies in her hair. It smells like strawberries.
"You need to leave." She whispers and the mood in the room suddenly changes.
"Mads that's not a good id-"
"I just want to sleep." She tells me and true to her word she hops into her bed and throws the blanket over her. I watch as she holds the corner of the blanket and hugs it into her neck so she is surrounded by only her body heat inside the blanket. I sit on the old rocking chair in the corner of her room and wait for her to fall asleep, but I don't have to wait long because I can hear her light snores in minutes. While she's sleeping I pick up the broken glass from the smashed vase and I throw out a couple of broken picture frames that were shattered and thrown across the room. Already the room is starting to look slightly bear and there are dints and chippings in the walls where Mads hit it or threw stuff at it.
I open the window in her room to let some fresh air in before leaving and shutting the door tight behind me.
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Madisons Pov.
I woke up in my bed with cold air hitting my exposed skin. The mixture of heat from under the blanket and the coldness from above it makes me irritated. I sit up in the bed and look around the room. Carl is nowhere to be seen but I can't remember him leaving. The room is cleaner now then when I went to sleep. I find the source of the cold air and I march over to the window.  I look outside to see the sky lit up by stars. I glance at my bedside table and look at the digital clock that sits there. I sigh when I see it reads
2:47am
How am I meant to go back to sleep?
I look out the window and look at the distance from my window, on the second story, to the ground outside. I take note of the way there is a long, thick, green vine that spiraled its way up past my window. The vine is supported with window cills on either side. I noticed it would be an easy escape root. I like climbing trees, this doesn't look much harder. I can just use the window cills to climb out if I ever need to. A gush of wind blows my hair back and raises goosebumps on my arms. I slam the window closed and the glass shudders. I pace up and down my room thinking of ways to distract myself of thinking about who I saw earlier and what they were saying. I remember Carl knowing exactly what to tell me to make the voices go away. My stomach growls and interupts my thoughts. I sigh and push my tangled hair out of my face. I walk to my door and open it. I decide to get something to eat. I mean, its almost three in the morning. Nobody is awake. I go downstairs and walk through the sitting room to reach the kitchen. When I reach the kitchen I find Rick sitting in a chair at the counter with a glass of water in his hands. I was honestly scarred to face Rick of all people. His back was turned to me and the only sound to be heard was the ticking of the clock. I tried to slip away unnoticed, but of course with Rick thats not possible. He's too observent.
"Mads? What are you doing here? Are you okay?" He rambles.
I don't want to answer his questions and even if I did i'm not sure if I could. I decide to take a seat across from him anyways. Might as well get this done now and out of the way.
"I was hungry, but I didn't want to talk to anyone." I explain.
"So you decided to wait until three in the morning to eat." He questions.
"I was asleep, but even if I wasnt it wouldn't make a difference. Even in the day its night." I sigh.
He pours me a glass of milk and places it next to me. I didn't realise how thirsty I was until I gulped down the whole glass and he refilled it again. I smile a small smile to thank him.
"I don't know what your going through Mads, but I want you to know that we're all here for you. I'm here for you." He promises.
"Thank you."
"Can you explain to me whats happening with you?" He begs.
"I don't even know whats happening to me Rick. I feel like im going insane. These voices keep coming into my head. Abbie, Luke, mom, ben, Nick my father.... the list is endless and i'm afraid the list hasn't been completed yet. Im terrified that it might be Carl next. Or Maggie. Or Beth... I just can't think but at the same time, thats all i'm doing. Does that make sence?" I ask. He shakes his head no.
"Just..... so much is happening at once, I can't keep up. These voices make me crazy. They tell me to do things and I have to resist, but it scares me that one day I won't be able to resist."
"What do they tell you to do?" He asks
"I can't talk about that." I amend. He nods understanding.
"Theres just a hole somewhere inside me and it feels like death himself is slowly chipping around the edges, eroding the hole, making it bigger. Soon there will be nothing left of me." I whisper. Rick doesn't know how to respond to that and I don't blame him. I was just thinking out loud.
"Sorry." I excuse myself for the tension. He stands from his chair and returns minutes later to place a plate with a sandwich on it. I smile a genuine smile, but it feels foreign to my face. I lift the sandwich to my mouth, but stop when I smell a revolting stench that makes me want to throw up. I drop the sandwich and quickly massage my temples trying to make the nausea disappear.
"Rick?"
"Yeah?"
"What did you put in the sandwich?"
"Ham. You don't like it?" He asks.
But I didn't have time to answer as I ran to the nearest bathroom with my hand clamped over my mouth until I'm bent over the toilet bowl getting violently sick. When i'm finished I flush the toilet and make my way up to my room again. I brush my teeth before lying back into bed and thinking that I need to get my hands on some type of medicine to control this morning sickness. I'm only fifteen, I don't even know if that exists, but what I do know is who to get it off. When the sun comes up I'm going to find Ron.