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⠀My eyes bored into the dust permeated air, ignited by the morning sun that transpired through the high windows. I blinked frenziedly, squinting. I breathed slowly, pushing out a yawn.
⠀"Hey!" someone's fingers appeared in front of my eyes, snapping rapidly. "Wake up, sleepy." Daryl's voice was jaded, and fretful ― he was itching to get going. My eyes snapped towards him, as he glimpsed to me from the corner of his eyes. With one of his hands, he held something.
⠀Ooze dripped from the lustrous uniform adorning the table. It fell in heaps, slowly in strings and dollops. I resisted the impulse to retch.
⠀"We're supposed to wear that?" I catechized no one in particular, casting my pupils to the unkempt haul we had gathered on the cafeteria table. "As in... on us?"
⠀"No!" Daryl said in an insolent tone, thrusting the glove to the slab. He then seized a helmet, throwing it between his hands in satiety. "I ain't wearing this shit!" His mouth curled, and the liquids poured from the apparatus, sliding over the bench and to the concrete floor. It decorated the area around our shoes, and I stepped sideways in haste.
⠀Sticking my tongue from my mouth, I rose an eyebrow as if to agree ― definitely. "No thanks," I muttered, pushing the goo with the toe of my shoes.
⠀T-dog to my left, mounted another piece on the end of his forefinger. "We could boil them?" I wanted to know if he was joking, in the act of opening my mouth in inquest.
⠀"There's not enough firewood in the whole forest, no." He shook his head, moving the soiled costumes away from himself. Instead now, picking up a long stick, comparable to my lance that ranked at the end of my bed. He tossed it lightly in the air, passing it over my way and I only just caught it. "Besides, we got this far without them."
⠀He had a good point. We had been wagering our lives with vulnerability yet we were all still here. Yet, as I settled with my back to the gate, I couldn't help but yearn for the supplemental providence just within our reach. "But it doesn't hurt." The man beside me didn't seem anymore convinced that they would help. "Literally, it should hurt less."
⠀He nodded in concert, gifting me an apt response, but still seemed to push any old guard's uniform away from himself and towards us.
⠀"Hershel?" The voice drifted from the cell block, and the collection of us circulated towards Carol, who stood idly in the doorway. The man in question took half a step forward towards the woman.
⠀Rick looked towards her, overwrought with concern. "Everything alright?" He knew it was about his wife, I could tell by the way he held himself back. All these months it's been there ― the disquietude ― it just seemed to be behind frosted glass.
