𝔽𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝 ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕫𝕖𝕟𝕤 ₁

Choices

As expected, I woke up the next morning with a hangover. God, even my throat was burning. Was coffee something Jenner would have? Did coffee even last long? Knowing my luck, coffee had likely expired, along with most of my favourite things.

Josie had left a note explaining that she'd gone down to the rec room with Eliza and Sophia. Once again, I was left child free. I considered that a rare treat. I couldn't afford to spend time away from her outside of this building. My every waking moment was devoted to keeping her safe.

Without Jenner to lead me around, the CDC seemed like a maze. I walked into several different rooms before I finally found the dining area again.

T-Dog had made breakfast for everyone. Rick greeted me as I walked past, clearly hung-over too. Shane walked in not long after I did, heading straight to the sink for a glass of water. I saw that a kettle had been used. "Is there any coffee?"

"Third cupboard on the right. Hope you like it dark, we don't have milk."

"I'll live without it." I made my cup of coffee and inhaled the smell like it was the antidote to a poison simmering through my bloodstream. God, I'd missed coffee.

"The hell happened to you?" T-Dog asked suddenly. I followed the direction of his gaze, where it was fixated on Shane. "your neck?" Shane lifted his hand to the side of his neck, where there were three long, shallow scratches.

"I must have done it in my sleep." He concluded.

"Never seen you do that before." Rick looked at him oddly as he sat down. I leaned against the counter and waited to see what he said. I could see Shane's fingernails; they were short and trimmed down and most definitely not long enough to cause those scratches.

"Me neither," His eyes flitted across the table to Lori, who swallowed and kept her eyes on the food T-Dog had made for her. "not like me at all." Well, shit. This, combined with the conversation I'd heard at the quarry, was enough to make me believe that Shane and Lori were most definitely up to something. Could I tell Rick? Was it even my place to tell Rick?

I didn't get a chance to think about it anymore; the good doctor strolled in moments later and helped himself to a spoonful of eggs. "Morning."

"Mornin'"

"Hey, doc." T-Dog greeted him. Jenner barely even had time to eat his eggs when Dale spoke to him.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..."

"But you will anyway." The doctor interrupted dryly. There were bags under his eyes that must've weighed enough to pull his eyeballs from their sockets.

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Dale retorted. Doctor Jenner sighed, he looked old and tired in that moment, like he'd been dealing with a heavy burden for years and years. Jenner motioned for us all to follow him, and he led us to the 'Zone 5' area. Everyone who hadn't been in the dining area was given a chance to come down, and he waited patiently until the last people had filed into the room, sleepy and filled with alcohol-related regrets, before beginning.

"Give me playback of TS-19." His computer complied and brought up an image. "few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked.

"An extraordinary one." There was a note in his voice that was familiar to me. Remembrance, a hint of grief. Something I'd been through more than once since the dead had started walking. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V." The images zoomed in closer, and eventually focused on a bunch of lights dancing around other large blue lumps. Synapses. This was the brain activity of a living person.