[DISCONTINUED] FIND YOU ( T. WALKING DEAD )

- I.

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FIND YOU
CHAPTER ONE;
( peace. )

❛ at otis' funeral, jack recalls
the events of the night before. ❜

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"BLESSED BE GOD, father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to Him for the gift of our brother Otis, for his span of years, for his abundance of character; Otis, who gave his life to save a child's, now more than ever, our most precious asset. We thank you, God, for the peace he enjoys in your embrace. He died as he lived, in grace."

Peace, grace - all the things that Jack couldn't bare to hear. There was no such thing as peace when your life was fleetingly valued less than that of another, and grace was nonexistent when your body was just another meal to a horde of monsters that would be hungry again just ten minutes thereafter.

Murder was not an act defined by peace and grace. In fact, Jack strongly believed it was the exact opposite.

It had been too long. Knowledge of the passage of time was something she lacked while inside of a stationary truck with no watches or clocks, but one thing she knew was that it was taking too long. She'd had enough time to skim through a book from front to back, and of course, the ending was still the same as the previous times she'd read it.

The boy saved the girl and they would live happily ever after - that ending wasn't going anywhere. The words, no matter how torturous, wouldn't change. The storyline had no alternatives. That was that, and it was something that only frustrated Jack every time she read the book and, for some reason, expected some other ending.

Had the book been set in the new world - the real world - the girl probably would've gotten eaten alive and the boy would've been so sad he'd take the "easy way" out, like Dr. Jenner and Jacqui chose to do just days ago. The new world was a merciless one, one in which happily-ever-afters failed to exist.

And perhaps that was what agitated Jack time and time again. It was like the characters were living in some alternate universe, some utopian reality, and not in the world that Jack herself lived in just months ago. They complain of their relationship problems, while Jack just hoped that she'd live long enough to even meet someone worth loving in such a ruthless world. Everything they complained of seemed so juvenile to Jack, a girl who complained of the exact same things just earlier this year.

One, two, three, four, five, six - six thunderous gunshots that erupted through the still midnight air. Jack placed the novel on the dashboard as she instinctively jerked up in her seat, eyes focusing on the building ahead in search of... anything. Anything that could give her some sort of signal - a call for help or a reassurance that they were okay, either would've been fine. The gunshots meant they were alive, which Jack found to be a great relief, but it meant that they were fighting to stay alive.