The sky turned pink and faded in orange and red, as if it were a painter's palette. These soft colors gave one a feeling of peace and quiet. You both had escaped to this mass of wandering geography and now you went back exhausted to the hut. The journey was tiring and dangerous, you didn't have a single break to catch your breath. It seemed that the Walkers had multiplied infinitely, they were everywhere. Fortunately, the clearing was silent and let you hope to meet no more of them. You smelled of death... Your companion had a rotten bowel around his neck, like a scarf and yet at the same time he found it disturbing and funny. He had risked being bitten, but he did not care. On the contrary, he tried to deal with this matter positively. But you liked that part of him because it gave you some lightness. Although things looked bad, he could sweeten it with a few jokes. You came to a stream and washed off a little with the icy water to refresh yourselves, but above all to purify yourselves. You have colored the transparent liquid red and thereby distorted its purity. A faint breeze rose in the air, gently moving the leaves of the trees.

"Next time, we'll take them as pets.", he murmured, aggravated by the smell of rotting organs.

"Maybe we should always keep two Walkers on a leash.", you told him.

"I don't know... It would bother me to have them always and everywhere.", he admitted.

"Problem of habit!", you called.

Michonne had survived like that. She had spent months in the company of Walkers. A smart move. Your companion shook his head in horror. Apparently, his experience in the house had sufficed. He had no intention of repeating it. Refreshed, you continued the journey. As always, you talked about nonsense just to fill that silence. At some point, however, he asked a question that took you by surprise.

"I've noticed that you look at this necklace very often...", he asked nudging you. Smiling at him, holding back every veil of sadness and learning to handle those delicate dialogues, you remembered that only the Governor had been aware of that, but you had never talked about it in detail, and at that moment your soul told you that your buddy was the right person for it, perhaps because he knew you were not drowning in these memories.

"She was from my younger sister..."

"Shit... Excuse me, I did not mean to...", he apologized, regretting having opened old wounds.

You reassured him: "Don't worry, it's not a problem... I bought her this necklace when she was born and it hung in her room until she was old enough to wear it... And as-... ", you continued but couldn't talk about it. "You know..."

You felt your shoes walk on something soft and realized that you had reached the flowery field. You had not averted your eyes from the necklace without paying attention to the route. Your buddy invited you to sit down and you agreed. He put his arms on his legs and bent his back.

"Was she killed by anyone?", he asked in a weak voice. You waited just before you answered and lost yourself in this wonder of nature. The world still had beautiful places. Maybe if the humanity came back one day and learned to live differently, they might appreciate what they used to take for granted, even if they had to learn to live with terror. Nobody would have forgotten these times...

"No...", you announced: "She was bitten, she lost a lot of blood and I could not stop the bleeding... Before she closed her eyes, she repeated that she did not want to turn into one of those monsters. She begged me to avoid that... And then she told me that I should overcome myself to kill her... She was a child... She was my little girl and I her sister who loved her so much... She wanted to be like me... Strong and confident... Do you understand? She tried to comfort me, even though I was the one to calm her down to tell her that everything was alright, and instead she's watching her big sister, desperately kneeling down in front of her with tears on her face."

As you spoke, he put a hand on your back, as if he too wanted to calm you down. As if that hand said: "Hey, I'm here, I'll help you."

"She died in my arms... And I did what she asked me to do... And with the same blade I tried after that, when I cleaned it, to take my life..."

You took off the necklace and showed the long scar in the light. You stared at this line and saw this scene again before your eyes. Blood and pure desperation...

"What do you think about me now?", you asked, slightly depressed.

"Surprise! You're a normal person and not an apathetic robot built to kill every Walker. That's what I think.", he replied and you gave him a light punch on the back of the head.

"You son of a bitch!", you said smiling. You both laughed and it did you good. He had once again managed to create a calmer atmosphere. Then his face got serious and this blocked your smile.

"You don't have to be ashamed of trying to escape this new and cruel world, Y/N, you had nothing left to lose at the time... I've thought about it several times, too. I wanted to see how far I would have come if I had saved lives, if I had changed something for somebody. You lost your younger sister... And you felt inappropriate and guilty, you thought it was all your fault... I lost my big brother... He never lost the courage, he kept fighting for all of us... And he always smiled, believe me, his positivity almost annoyed me. I understood it, and I said to myself: 'Now it's your turn, fight and you'll see how far you'll come.'"

You looked at him with shining eyes. Talking about these topics freed you. Maybe you were always wrong to keep everything in your mind to yourself. You had carried that unruly burden on you without realizing that you could have solved it with someone. But maybe you never found the right person.

"Well, I would say, far!", you smiled at him as he got up and spread his arms out to be considered.

"Yes, look at me, I'm a fucking survivor, and I'm alive! And I owe it to you, it was really bad right now, but the important thing is that we're still there! We did not give up. That makes the difference. Even if we've gone through bad times, we're still there, not just scared, you know, there's something else and it's up to us to find it."

His words penetrated your brain. He was right with everything he said. You were so thankful and happy to have met him. You would never forget his speech, that kind of incitement to a search for a better life.

"We are still here...", you repeated. He grabbed your arm and forced you to get up.

"We are still here!"

He held you in a suffocating grip. His hugs were anything but delicate. But you appreciated that gesture, his words. But a sudden and deafening noise made you tremble and urged you to close your eyes...

A loud bang. A shot. And blood splashed on your face.

A loud bang. A shot. And your friend fell to the ground.

A loud bang. A shot. And he was dead immediately.

Time seemed to stand still, the environment moved in slow motion. That sound, that shot, kept ringing in your head. Two men came out of the bush and aimed each with a pistol and a bow. Determination, courage, calm, everything disappeared... Stunned, shocked and incredulous, you watched these men approaching, robbed of the idea of ​​grabbing your weapon and defending yourself. It would have been useless. They would kill you as soon as you moved a finger. The grin on their faces was enough for you to understand what was waiting for you... When they were around, the guy with his gang pointed the gun at your head, and one of them began to search and took your weapons.

"Don't do any wrong moves, otherwise you'll end up like your little friend, you understand?", said the asshole.

To describe what you felt in those moments is impossible for you. Maybe you wanted to move, to defend yourself. Maybe it would have been the right step, maybe it would have saved you. But at that moment, you couldn't think. You were in a state of mental trance. You could not believe that your companion was dead and suddenly a distant voice came over.

"I'm going to pee and you're killing people randomly? I really shouldn't lose sight of you.", grumbled a man with pearl-gray hair. But when one of the men moved and allowed the newcomer to see you, he immediately changed his expression and became serious. He was the boss.

"Joe, look at what we found.", said the man, laughing.

The boss looked at you and then went over to his men. He seemed to be comfortable and looked at you with a strange smile.

"I'm sorry that my boys did not look after your friend, but you know how it works lately... There are no rules in this world anymore, or am I wrong?"

You didn't answer, it was a rhetorical question. But the other two laughed. The one man's look was the one that worried you the most, he seemed like a person who was not very stable. He was thin, with medium wavy hair and a dark beard. He was wearing an brown sweatshirt, showing the dirty gray shirt underneath. The other, however, was more robust. The denim jacket lined the round belly. Dark haired with very short hair and a bandana.

"Please don't hate us, you were a bit unlucky...", he laughed. "But still... You don't know how long my boys haven't had fun..."

You wanted to die, close your eyes and see nothing. And suddenly the two men seized you and threw you to the ground.

"Len, Tony! Hold her tight.", the boss ordered: "I'll start."