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voltstone · 8 months ago

Text

scav·eng·er | TWDG Retelling | 1

"But we don't eat monsters." "Yeah, but if we could, we probably would..."

At least, that's what Clementine tells him. Because AJ doesn't need to know how warm the fresh ones are on the tongue, nor how decayed flesh claws on the way down.

[The times she scavenged, the times her secret was caught, and the one bite that started it all.]

— — —

Basically I took my creative liberties and ran with them. Head-first. Into…whatever this is. (Based off of the most out of pocket dialogue prompt, which this post is about.) I will blast through all the seasons, so. A full retelling! :D With cannibalism! And gore! And Clementine is not a-okay!! >:D

However, I did decide that I will have to break it apart for pacing, and stuff. But I will post the story in-full as well if people want to read it that way when I'm 100% done. This is the first part of…I dunno yet. But each part will effectively go through each season, or however I think to do it.

Now this is mature, and I did tag it dead dove. Because. Cannibalism, technically. And like. Violence. And stuff. But genuinely though, it is written to be unhinged. Lol.

Anyway. Hope you enjoy!

AO3 | FF | Wattpad

THE BITE

she did not ask for this. it hurts.

[2,721] [Apr.25.2024] — — —

"The first thing that changes, sweetie, is the smell of them."

"It will only take a couple hours. They'll all … start smelling sweet, more like a citrus."

Clementine whimpers. She holds her hand tightly around her arm, up towards her shoulder where he wrangled the dress. Her throat's raw. She's swirling over the conversations Lee had with her, after her hair was grabbed, and he had to explain why the St. John brother horrified her the way he did. The other one. With shadows around his eyes, and a smile that always twitched around her.

Amongst that, Lee admitted why he killed him the way he did—pitchfork at hand.

He horrified him too.

She decides though, as she scrambles away from this man, that it isn't the same.

The man is good with his words, for one, and there's a…sincerity to him. A genuine one, but there's something to his face that Clementine never could've seen through the radio.

He's tall. Gangly.

And in his face, there's something not quite right. It's not the blood—her blood—he wipes from his mouth by a gentle hand. It lies beneath that.

Insanity.

"It hurts, I know. That's what my daughter said too. And that's what I felt when Tess bit me."

This is insanity.

It doesn't matter how well he preens it, this is insanity, and he just… He just—

He. Bit. Clementine.

Didn't look happy about it, and he still doesn't. But he just. He bit her, and hard, like he meant it anyway. He continues look at her like he means it, right with all the ramblings about his family, and how nice they are, and how she'd fit right in. At least, after he gets a proper brush for her. Her hair's quite a bit different from his daughter's.

. "I don't really understand what it is either, or what does it. "I just know…, biting you, you can be a part of my family this way."

"You've already met my wife… You can join my daughter in the backseat. You just have to keep quiet, and she won't do anything to you."

She doesn't really listen to what he says. There's too much of the day's horror racing through her body.

It's the bafflement, however, that strikes her mute.

Because this man bit her, and it isn't something Clementine can just wrest from herself. It spins and twirls until she feels an unease build, and she's about to vomit, her heart's thrashing beneath her palm…

She can't. She's barely eaten enough to force the urge.

It's dark in the bathroom. He's tall. Looming over her.

And.

And Clementine's been bit. He stares at her as though it means the same as every other bite, yet it doesn't, because he's not dead.

She knows how long his teeth are.

They sank far too deep for any genuine, sincere man in his right mind.

"She won't do anything."

Clementine hides in the bathtub for the longest while. Ducks right into it, the moment he shuts the door, and she hears him string the handle, then tie it to the closet across from her.

Every now and then, she dozes. Not because she wants to. She's desperate to stay awake. Yet Clementine is small, and she's tired, and there's no fighting this. It's an exhaustion she never could have fathomed. There's strange nightmares she can't quite place, and they rattle her back where her eyes fly open, the ceramic's cold, she doesn't want to sleep. There is nothing to see in them, those nightmares. Just a desolation, and a twisted ache down her throat. She smells gore in them. Can almost feel the blood and bone bathe down her skin, then crack in her hands.

The meat… There's meat.

In her mouth.

And she chews. And Clementine swallows.

She doesn't understand.

There is one nightmare she sees. It knocks her head into the ceramic tub by the time she wakes again.

A farm. Dairy. Except there's only slaughter. There's butcher across tile. The barn's locker rots.

Clementine never ate there. Never the meat. Not a bite.

Lee saved her back then. He did.

Lee saved her. He'll save her.

Again, and again.

He begins to be what she stirs to.

Her sweat's cold. The world blurs when the tears come.

Before Clementine is lost to nightmare for another time.

Then...

She snaps upright. Finds herself clambering from the bathtub and to the door. Her head is a smog, but she… Clementine can hear them both. Her voice rattles from her. She doesn't quite hear what she says— All she knows is Lee. At least, she thinks. Hopes so.

A citrus bleeds from the door, and to her nose.

It's likely the man's. He is bit, and his eyes are not quite as…human as he tells himself.

He's just…not dead, exactly.

Not truly alive either. His gaunt complexion tells her so, and the weary treble in his voice. Or he's always just been like that. Sickly looking, if not just plain unnerving.

Clementine can't really tell. It's hard to piece together a person like him, amidst the self-hatred. A loathing, if anything.

Because she fell for it. Fell for his words, the promise for her family. Even though…, Clementine knew, in the back of her mind, it's too good to be true. A random voice on the radio, how could he have known her and her parents? And Savannah? And Lee, and Macon, and everything between?

Simply put…

That random voice knows, because she told him herself.

Told him everything.

The fight for the world's clarity stands no better with her at the door. She sags against the wall. Her arm pangs. The bathroom is…cold, beneath her feet.

Frigid, even, the more the stupid girl's remorse blisters her.

This is what desperation has brought. It opened its mouth for her. His long teeth. And she stared. Looked at this gifted horse in the mouth; discovered a reason to run.

"Yeah. I'm not some cannibal, Lee."

Lee… So he has come to save her.

She knew he would. Clementine just knew he would.

It's enough to spark urgency. She stands.

"Some killer out in the woods. Some v-villain…"

That man is a liar, though. Lee is here, but the man is a liar.

Unless…, what he's done really wasn't murder, nor a kidnapping.

"I'm just a … dad."

Perhaps. Maybe that is right.

Still however. Clementine decides then and there to creep from the bathroom.

She makes sure to keep her sleeve down, and her dress over her shoulder. Because she isn't bitten. Not really.

The same way that man didn't murder.

"Have you ever hurt somebody you care about?" "My wife."

Clementine tries the handle first. It twists, yet the string holds it firm.

She almost weeps. Or she does, and her head is too numb to know.

The bathroom is all the more darker, and her exhaustion grows all the more heavy.

"I hurt her a long time ago. "In a lot of ways…"

Lee sounds… He sounds weaker than he did last night.

Exhaustion slinks from his mouth. It worms the same in her ears—the same as her own. There's a wavering, and then a husk. Like there's not enough life to draw from. And it says something—says a lot, actually—how much stronger the man with his treble is in his words. He's steady. He carries an unruly intention.

And Lee…, he sounds tired. And bleak. Mostly bleak. Doesn't talk much.

Clementine doesn't want to believe the strained breaths cleaving the room is him.

"I hurt her so bad."

The man's wife has her head in his bowling bag.

She rolls in it. Smudges the tearstreaks left behind.

"I hurt her so bad."

Clementine flares the last of her strength. She swallows down the last of the dairy farm as it twitches for another nightmare.

She clasps the handle. Twists it, and tests the string. She doesn't want to get caught. Noise is her bane, and she knows the man has an ear for her.

"Do I look like a monster to you?"

She has to bide her time. It's daunting.

However, Clementine listens for the moment where he's engrossed, and the man is sunk back into his writhing sanity. He likes to ramble. Did it a lot that day, and he even did it routinely on the radio. On and on and on about his wife, and his kids.

Family.

It's always family with him. Family, and being a father, a husband, and having his nice daughter.

"She's already a part of my family now… "There's no reason for you to have come, Lee."

"I smell it on you. You're not going to last."

There he goes again.

Clementine pulls the door just enough for the string to strain, and for her to untangle its knot. It snaps back for the open closet.

The man talks to his wife again. He stares into his bowling bag, and she knows the wife's head to roll again.

She meets Lee by his eyes. He's… He's missing an arm, and he looks ghastly. Drained too. Yet, he has enough strength to nod for the side-dresser, and when her eyes follow, there glints a cleaver.

"Hey, honey. I think this is all going to work out."

It's tight in her hand.

The dairy farm ravages to the blood she ignores down its blade. Clementine hears the groaning instead. The wife. Can almost make out the nonsense the man pulls a few words from.

"I'm glad too. "I wish you wouldn't have had to get this bad, but it's all over hon. Isn't it?"

"I hate seeing you like this. I just miss your smile, honey."

Her strides to him are careful. Clementine keeps herself far from his eye, his peripheral. Lee tenses, though in his face, there's a quiet resolution. His eyes dart between the man, then her.

Clementine raises the cleaver. Moonlight darts along the wall when she does. Her hands tremble; the moonlight does too. She can't help it.

"I miss you so much, Tess. You're gonna like Clementine a lot, though. She's not Lizzy, but she's sweet. "She wouldn't hurt a fly."

Clementine sinks the cleaver deep. Thinks of it as a bite for a bite.

The man lunges away from her, and he reaches for the blade plunged into his shoulder.

Lee hurls his weight across the table, and knocks into the man. The fight is blurring. Clementine strafes, feels her heart soar when Lee buckles him into the wall.

Before he curls. The fight is too much for him. The man is strong in his intentions.

His hands are around Lee's neck. The gun is heavy in her hands. She trembles again. Aims. The world is whirling, except for Lee, and for the man, and the bullet she punctures through his crown.

She—

Clementine just shot him.

Just shot the man.

He's dead.

Bafflement finds her again. Locks her there, in place. Trembling. Air doesn't come easy. Her heart does well to scald her, and it's restless.

It names itself shock, however. She's not inclined to argue.

There's a look in Lee's eyes. Gratitude, but the shock as well. It rattles them both.

She cries. He consoles. But air doesn't come easy, nor do the words to her mind.

When he dawns her back her Dad's hat, however… The world doesn't cage her anymore.

It's not as cold.

It's still a desolate shade of moonlight.

A walker stands at the door. The citrus is pungent in the room. There were traces before.

With the dead looming in the doorway, however, it swamps her now.

And the gore Lee lathers down her clothes makes it worse. A thousand times worse. Because the citrus is like… It's like the oranges she plucked from at a fieldtrip's orchard. It's sweet. She can't tell if she's about to vomit or not. She sweats. It's cold again. Lee mistakes both for terror. Or, it's that she's the one mistaken, and this isn't anything beyond a break in sanity.

Her parents are dead.

They have been.

She sees them, when Lee guides her into the dead's orchard.

"The first thing that changes, sweetie, is the smell of them."

"The second thing…"

The second thing… There's a second thing. It rattles somewhere. She can only see the red jacket he held for her. The same she refused before.

The same that… The same that Lee—

Lee's falling.

His voice trails after him. He stumbles too, the more she whimpers and pulls at his shoulder. He isn't limp. He is not awake.

But he does move. Her arm throbs, Clementine trips over herself, and Lee is staggering after her. With a haze in his eyes. He shoulders into anything and everything.

The dead don't mind. Not really.

They don't mind him. Nor her.

Clementine's left to pull him into a store. She finds a string. Reaches for it.

The gate it guides slams to the floor once gravity has its say.

They are alone, her and Lee. Secure. There is no leaving… Which frightens him. More than the St. John brother ever did.

Clementine knows he's bit before he says it.

It's the sweet citrus.

The same that washes off the walkers, it leaks from Lee in steady waves.

It just breaks her heart, knowing that… That he really is a-about to— To die.

There's no time to tell him about her bite. She wouldn't have had the heart to regardless, nor the mind.

So she clings to his words. Nods to Lee, when he tells her to keep moving.

Lee doesn't have to tell her what to do next. Clementine knows.

So when he runs out of energy, and time, and mind…

She just knows.

"I'll miss you."

The gun is the heaviest when she raises it to his head.

. . .

SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG

. . .

There is no fever. She doesn't understand, because it is not a fever, it's this brisk chill across her body, beneath the morning sun.

Maybe it's from lingering beside Lee's body for longer than she should have. Or, it's from stalking in the shadows where the walkers couldn't quite reach.

Yet, no. Those were the quiet lies she told herself, before reality wormed its way the moment she found them. Or, when they found her—none of them can decide. The more they hug her, the more Omid squeezes her shoulder and Christa holds her from her from the weary ground, the more Clementine realizes this for what it is:

The bite.

And it's rough against cotton. Cold too, like the deep inhale before something really, really bad happens, and now her body teems of it, and her head swims to every sharp clap of gunfire. Her eyes too, because the world warbles whenever Clementine passes wherever the sun is strongest.

This is the same cold which agonized her body in the Marsh House. In the bath, then in the room—with Lee's rattled breaths, and the walker splayed beside them both. It's the cold she fought against. Fell asleep to. Would awake to.

It feels like her body has been disturbed. As though…she herself, to her core, hasn't grasped what hit her.

Except that it has a name, and its name is dread.

It takes months for the hunger to set in.

[Next] AO3 | FF | Wattpad

— — —

As much as I enjoy writing stories for the sake of catharsis, I do enjoy being unhinged and writing this kind of thing too. Cuz it can be fun. Once you get past the concerning things. Again, I am breaking it up for pacing's sake, so shorter chapters. My little writer gut tells me shorter chapters good, actually. For this. So the TBC will have a link to the next post once I'm done.

Hope you enjoyed so far! :)