[DISCONTINUED] FIND YOU ( T. WALKING DEAD )

- XI.

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FIND YOU

CHAPTER ELEVEN;
( thereafter. )

❛ jack sees a familiar face. ❜

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     A COLUMN OF white smoke billowed in the sky. In spite of the entropy before Elijah, all was still. Discreet. Most things these days were.

There were two lives that he possessed: his life on the outside and his life on the inside. His domesticity and his competence. There was nothing more to have if not one or the other. It was simple, but all the more complex. Fashioned over time by the blade of the new world; his new beginning.

The truck slowed to a stop; upon this, Elijah promptly hopped down from the vehicle's bed, his worn-down shoes crushing the grass below. The slamming of several car doors followed, but he remained unbothered. One by one, his comrades poured out, waiting for the instructions to come.

"Fan out."

Brothers in arms, they were called. But Elijah explicitly remembered actually liking and having regard for his own brother by blood. Long dead now, but the memories were just enough to remind Elijah that these men were not his brothers. They were not family, nor were they even very friendly. These men were just mere acquaintances.

A gun clicked.

The words, "Save those rounds until you need them," hung in the air, followed by the snarling of a nearby walker.

Elijah turned, rifle in arms, just in time to see an arrow fly through the walker's skull, stabbing itself into a tree behind. Only moments after, a pair of walkers on the other end of the clearing were taken down by a bat - their legs broken and heads smashed.

Elijah was convinced he was the only one here carrying a knife.

"Got a breather. Tim!"

The beckoned man rushed over to the destroyed, smoking helicopter. Elijah, too, made his way over there - but only out of mere curiosity.

He'd never been so close to a helicopter before, and he was almost disappointed that it would no longer be of any use. But it wasn't as big as he thought it would be. Aside from the damage taken from crashing down to the Earth, the insides were practically held together by duct tape. Screws hanging out, cracks in the walls. It was no wonder they crashed.

Elijah retreated from the helicopter's interior, the spring sun beaming down on him once again. With that, however, a biting, pungent stench smacked him across the face, crawling into his nostrils and down his throat. No matter how much he was exposed, he'd never get used to the odor of the dead.