WASTE • Carl Grimes

Four

On a normal day, I would wake up to the chirping of a hundred birds dancing on trees right over my window, sunlight beaming right into my bedroom as the sun smiles back at me, promising to provide me with a day I won't forget.

But this isn't a normal day.

Nothing about this world is normal anymore.

Instead, I'm awoken from a very uncomfortable sleep to the sound of moans and hungry growls right outside my door, promising to provide me with a shit day, as usual.

I would sit and cry about this. Curse out the world for taking everything away from me and for being alone, but what good would that do me?

I have no choice but to fight back and try to survive until one of these things finally gets a hold of me and forces its teeth into my flesh, taking my life away from me.

I shudder at the thought of me going through such an unfortunate experience as I sit up on the floor and run the back of my hand over my eyes lazily, sighing once it hits me that I'm awake, alive and breathing.

If only my soul would just slip out of my body while I'm asleep, then I wouldn't have to get up every morning to the sound of the dead that are going to eventually get me one day.

This is all so pointless. I don't even have anything to live for anymore, why am I here?

I would opt out the way I had seen many do, push a bullet right through my skull and end it all once and for all, but I'm not weak, I did not fight this long for me to just kill myself in a dusty house that was never mine.

I'll keep going on until I would have no choice but sit back and wait for death to come and get me.

Ah, positive morning thoughts like these are what always get me going.

A few feet away from where I am positioned, Carl lays on a bed sheet that he had in his backpack with a blanket thrown over his body, covering his frame.

I take his unconsciousness and vulnerability as a chance to get a better look on his features and have my eyes explore every inch of his face knowing that he wouldn't know.

My eyes trail up to his hair first, watching as the sunlight goes through one of the holes in the window and falls right over his long brown hair that is sprawled across a small pillow he had borrowed from the leather couch.

His long eyelashes are drawn over his freckle-covered cheeks, freckles that look like specks of dust on his face that fall right above his perfect nose and slightly parted pink lips.

Oh how I hate to admit it to myself but the boy is beautiful in his sleep.

I let out a sigh when I remember how he hadn't gone to sleep until it was way past midnight as he silently shed a few tears over his deceased girlfriend, assuming that I had fallen into a trans and wasn't able to hear his soft sniffles every second or two.

I would pretend to be rolling in my sleep and open my eyes to look at him, watching him sit on the ground with his knees pulled close to his chest, his arms hugging them.

The sight stroke a sympathetic feeling into my heart, a small debate playing in my head on whether I should sit up and try to comfort him or not, but I push such a ridiculous thought away and give my back to him, deciding against it.

I'm not comforting him, I'm no healer. I'm going to sleep, he's no child, he can deal with it himself.

I got up from the floor and put my sheets along with my blanket back into my black backpack before pulling my small bag of toiletries out and zipping my backpack back up again, making as many noise as my heart desires.