Broken Memories • The Walking Dead Fanfiction

14

Hi friends. Long time no see. Let's get this chapter on the road (:
Btw, the song for this chapter is Young God by Halsey.

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"Carl. Skye." Rick said quietly as he walked in from the front of the church to where Carl and I sat talking quietly. "You two are staying here while we go on this run. I need to tell you both something important."

Carl shifted in the pew for a moment, offering his full attention and I did the same, tuning into his words. "Listen. You are not safe. No matter how many people are around- or how clear the area looks- no matter what anyone says, or what it looks like, or what you think- you are not safe."

I lowered my gaze to the floor, remembering my father once tell me these words, except a long time before this moment.

"I'm going on a run into town and I know that it's dangerous, for me and for you two. I know that you are both smart." Rick glanced between the two of us as we sat side by side in the church pew. "I've seen the two of you survive. You both know what you're doing. You look out for each other. But you have to understand. Both of you. It only takes one second."

"It only takes one second, and it's over."

The words stung like knives sinking through my skin. A silence fell among the three of us as I sat thinking through his words carefully. It only took the pull of a trigger, a stray bullet, one blind move into a walker's grasp, one slip up in front of the wrong people people, the incorrect word.

A split second or a single mistake, and everything that you worked so hard to achieve in your brutal survival can fall to shreds, and you're dead, no second chances. Rick was right, and I looked him in the eye, nodding, letting him know that he had been heard.

"Remember that. And look after each other okay?" He said to Carl and I, looking between us equally. I gazed over at the brown-haired, gun-wielding boy, and he watched as he nodded, jaw clenched in determination. My head shook mindlessly in agreement.

"Okay." He stood up, ruffling my hair out of place and resting a hand on Carl's shoulder. "Keep Judy safe too. Both of you." The hollow taps of his boots ended the conversation as he left the church.

"The group. Your Dad. They're gonna be fine." I murmured, watching as the man exited the church, leaving the two teenagers in the hollowing abundance of silence that the building grasped to. "They always make it back."

"Yeah I know." Bluer eyes locked onto mine and a soft smile ran across his lips naturally. "I just don't like how he always leaves without me. I'm not allowed to help much, but I think he's trying to change that. He's trying to treat me more like a man."

A distant flashback played through my mind. Rick's words, exchanged with his son in the large, empty house post to the destruction of their home. Carl had been with me for just two days, and Rick had woken up. I had eavesdropped on the conversation. "You're a man, Carl, and I'm sorry." Rick's few words seemed laced with regret and genuine sorrow. After the moment of silence that had followed his words, the reply from the boy next to me echoed through the room."Don't be."

And now I sat nearly a month later, still wondering what on earth the conversation's meaning was.

"Is that what you're dad was talking about back in the house?" I sort-of blurted out, no thought going into it. When Carl only offered a lopsided glance of confusion, I realized that I hadn't been specific enough. "When he called you a man? I had been eavesdropping... sorry... but is that what he mean't?"