Malevolent. The Walking Dead

MALEVOLENT

There are a MILLION ways we could've died today, and a MILLION ways we could die before tomorrow. But we fight for every second we get to spend with each other, whether it's two minutes . . . or two days . . .

            we don't give up on that.
            I don't want to give that UP.

——— RILEY, THE LAST OF US

. . .

JOSEPHINE "JOEY" CABOT saw the world
as black before it actually was.

When her mother died after giving birth to her, it was hardly even a day into her life when she was seen as a mistake, something to regret, something to mourn as if the loss of a life for the sake of another wasn't something to be grateful for. She was always told that when one persons life ended, another's begun ━ but there wasn't much hope left in the doctors eyes when her mother was rushed to the hospital after being forced to give birth at home by Josephine's deadbeat father who pushed her mother too far to the end of her term. Lightning marred the sky in lavender highlights as she was cradled by her mother's corpse. Not soon after the grief enveloped her father like a tight knit sweater, and he decided that living was too difficult to bear, he drove himself down a one way macabre highway towards the end of his days, choking on his on vomit and falling succumb to the calcine hands of whatever pulled him to the other side. Josephine was left to the aid of her grandparents ━ a tortured, mistake child that took the life of two prized heirs.

Joey hated blood ━ she hated its crimson color, the way it smelled, the way it tasted when she would bite the inside of her mouth too hard or pierce crescent ━ shaped moons into her palms when clenching her fists. She hated the color of her hair, when she saw it in her reflection or coaxed it with her scarred hands. It was too red, and it reminded her of what killed her mother. She hated it so much until she couldn't hate anymore ━ anger was the only feeling she felt comfortable within. Her comfort zone of pain and longing was more safe then something new. Joey hated 'new'.

Her world was full of hate until it wasn't. Until there was no world anymore ━ until she was throttled into a new age with the dead roaming the streets, eating the flesh off of innocent civilians and terrorizing the streets of any bustling crevice of the globe, Joey thinks of this as her one way ticket out of the grueling life of an irate, fifteen year old girl, and when her grandparents are the first to go, she is taken under the wing of her neighbor, Bill, who has an affinity for deeming her as cargo and a nuisance. Joey and Bill live off of each for months, sometimes relying on the dependence of other people, having to escape their rigid plans when it turns out humans are the real threat during these times, and starting back at square one ━ Joey sometimes wondered what would happen if she took the shiny blade in her grasp and run it across her throat. It would save her a lot of pain and suffering that would come with the undead world.

When Joey and Bill attempt to go to an operational quarantine zone in San Jose, only to find it desolate with a tape telling them to go to Colorado for one of the last running safe zones, the pair are set on a cross country quest that delves them further into a whirlwind of survivors guilt, mania, and a taste for violence and revenge that swept the country too many times before. Joey feels herself caving into her sadistic imagination, now wanting to see the blood seep from the creatures that took her perfectly piqued world and shoved it down the gutter. She envied Bill and his melancholic nature that kept her wanting to ring his sorry neck every time he spoke. But, Joey knew she didn't want him dead. He was too important ━ the father she never had, the idol she wanted to be, but she'd never confess to it. Her ego was much more important than feeling fulfilled, feeling complete. She would always come first in her own mind.