#red + violet are pretty colours but we’re also the least sensitive to them

[ezura-knightshade]

This feels like it’ll be added to Gotham.

Because it’s friendly to bats and it also looks like it’s straight out of a fucking horror movie.

perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

[the-walking-memelords]

A2 - Chapter 7: Safety Out-Numbered Part 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 

Series is rated M

Word Count: 1799

There herd was populated by more than just the dead .

Read it on Ao3!

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Clementine’s hand found the handle of her machete only for her wrist to be seized by another. Cold fingers gripped her skin as she felt the presence lean in from behind her.

“Shh.” A gravelly voice whispered in her ear.

The hand pulled on the fabric of her shirt trying to turn She obliged, turning to see a person the same height as her. Under the smears of guts and gore, he wore a military green raincoat with the hood pulled up, but through the shadows, she could make out the toothy grin of someone she had never been so happy to see.

‘Willy?’ She mouthed to him with a smile as he reached out his hand to her quickly yet carefully, urging her to take it.

Taking one last look around, she took his hand as she followed him through the herd. Wiping the mix of rainwater and walker blood dripping into her eyes as she followed his careful movements turning into a near sprint as they escaped. Clementine followed around a sharp corner, smacking right into Louis and stumbling backwards.

He caught her before she fell, saving her from stumbling right back into the herd’s view. The young woman barely had time to regain her footing and smile up at him before something else threatened to knock her off her feet.

“Clem!” AJ said as he hugged her tight.

“We found them!”

“Nice of you finally show up at our little party.” Willy joked as he opened a cellar door off the side of the building, moving the squeaky hinges slowly as to not alert the dead.

“Fashionably late as usual.” Louis whispered back.

“Good thing I actually found you guys. Maybe Brody won’t be as pissed about me sneaking off.” WiIly looked back up and his face dropped.

“Who the hell are you?!”

Clementine whipped around to see Eli winded as he caught up. He looked back at Willy quizzically.

“Eli.” He waved awkwardly.

“Long story, let’s just get inside.”

---

“Hey guys, look what I found!” Willy’s voice grew to its usual excessive volume as he grinned ear to ear after the door was latched shut.

As they descended into the dim lighting of the windowless storm shelter, Clem breathed the hot musty air into her lungs. The space was lit with the unsteady light of lanterns whose batteries strained to keep going along with a few flickering candles. 

The stunned faces of her friends greeted her as Clementine stepped out of the shadows with the others in tow.

“Is that them?” A frantic voice broke the silence from a cot near the far wall.

Violet’s good eye squinted in the faint light as an exasperated redhead nearly had to pin her down as she untied a darkly stained cloth from her left shoulder.

“Please sit still, Vi.” Ruby quietly begged.

“Are y’all hurt?”

The smile on her face told them she was happy for their safe return, but the weariness in her eyes said she was nearly at her wit’s end.

“We’re okay.” Clementine smiled as she let out a sigh that felt like a breath she had been holding since they arrived at the empty school.

Hearing Clementine’s voice was enough for Ruby’s efforts to calm the blonde woman to be in vain as she tore away from Ruby’s grip to hug her best friend tight. 

Clementine could smell a tinge of blood as she hugged back tightly. When she finally pulled away, she saw the rip in the stained blue fabric of her shirt, revealing a nasty jagged wound in her flesh held together by small, even stitches. Fresh blood still slowly oozed out of it from her sudden movements.

“Glad you’re not dead.” Was all the injured girl could say before she stumbled back a few feet where Ruby caught her shoulder.

“She lost quite a bit of blood on the way here so she’s a little out of it.” Ruby said as she guided Vi back to the bed.

“I patched her up best I could but my medicine bag is back at the school so we’ve just been makin’ do with that we could scavenge out of here when the walkers showed up.”

“Some old uniform shirts, a few bottles of water I snagged on the way out of the school, and a mostly-looted first aid kit.” Aasim said dissatisfied.

“We also found a few cans of food but it won’t last long.”

Guess this place isn’t even a temporary shelter.

“We wanted to look for you guys but we couldn’t get around the walkers.” He continued.

“This is pretty much the only place we’ve had to rest for long.”

The school was marked so there was no going back yet, and probably not for a while. They could wait until the herd moves on to search the buildings but who knows how long that would take. The occasional boom of thunder along with the constant rapid pittering of the raindrops against the rusted door reminded her that there would be no way for them to camouflage as long as the rain poured.

Looks like we’ll be fighting our way out of here.

“Who the hell is that?”  Mitch stepped forward when he noticed the stranger half-hiding behind Louis.

“I-I’m Eli.” He looked at the floor, knuckles white as he gripped his sleeves with nervousness.

“Hey, It’s alright.” Clementine calmed them, passing the boy a small smile.

“We saved him from the people that invaded the school. He knows stuff about them he can help us avoid them.”

“Does he know why they’re after us?” Aasim questioned, biting his lip.

“We barely got out of there in one piece, and then those assholes jumped us on the bridge.”

Eli only seemed to sink deeper into himself as he tried to pick his words carefully. With all eyes on the new kid, AJ stepped up right next to him.

“It’s okay.” He said with a smile.

“We know you’re not bad, so they will too.”

Eli smiled and shakily relayed what little he knew. The school’s transformation and why he was there. It wasn’t any more than what he had told them before, but it was clear that was all he knew as well.

“I just do what I’m told.” He said.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one ever tells me the ‘why’ just the ‘what’.”

“You sure about this?” Brody said in a barely audible voice.

Clementine nodded in response. There was no way she could leave this kid to try to make it on his own.

“You guys got to the school?” Omar questioned.

“It must’ve been overrun. The herd came at us from all different directions just as Mitch, Brody, and Aasim got back.”

Louis paced with his brow furrowed in anger. The sights they saw of what they’d done to their home after forcing them out had to frustrate him beyond belief.

“These assholes decided to do some renovations.” He let out a short disheartened laugh.

“All the dorms were barred up and filled with walkers. Probably more in the other buildings too, but we got spotted before we saw anything else.”

His words hung in the air as a hopeless silence filled the dark dingy basement. No home, few supplies, and a herd of the dead prowling the area above them. But they were alive. That’s a better outcome than a lot of the other scenarios Clementine had been through on the road. 

Even though no one spoke it was clear that the same thought danced through each of their heads:

“What do we do now?”

“Even if we can’t stay here for very long, these buildings might be our only shot to get supplies for miles.” Clementine paced as she planned.

“If the buildings are at least half-decently secured from the outside the herd shouldn’t have wandered in unprovoked. There's a few different buildings around here. Something’s gotta be left.”

“It’s risky…” Aasim pointed out.

“Who knows what’s locked in there.”

“Everything we do is risky.”

“Fair.”

“Let’s wait and see if the storm lets up.” Louis suggested.

“Check out some buildings quick and be in and out before the walkers even notice us.”

“Where will we go after?” Willy asked softly, uncertainty in his tone.

“When can we go home.”

Can we ever?

Images of the ranch came to mind. Voices of the people around her became drowned out by the distant screams of her memories. 

The blood. 

The fire. 

The bodies falling around her.

The weight of the little boy in her arms before her balance was ripped out from under her as a bullet ripped through her leg.

The day her life and freedom were left in the ashes of the place she called home and replaced with the brutal hell that almost stole what remained of her humanity.

So much blood.

I’m covered in it.

Was this the beginning of history repeating itself? Losing her home once again just to be captured and forced into a war. Clementine suddenly felt far away from the current situation lost in the visions of what may end up being a premonition. 

A gun pointed.

Innocent people screaming.

A bullet.

And her behind the trigger.

Never again…

Never…

I cant…

I’d die before I went back.

She won’t take me again.

“Clem?” A comforting presence appeared at her right.

“Are you alright?”

Clementine opened her eyes, not realizing she had closed them. Louis took her hand with a worried expression in his eyes. She wanted to respond but couldn’t force any coherent sounds from her dried throat. Pain shot up her left leg as she took a step, what remained of it begged to be released from the prosthetic as each step sent an ache down to her bone.

“Let’s get some sleep.” She mumbled out almost slurred before limping to one of the cots and nearly collapsing.

Clementine didn’t have to move to remove it, which was good, because she didn’t have the energy to. Her eyes fell shut as she pushed a deep breath from her lungs.

Louis carefully undid the straps from her thigh and gently removed the wooden leg attachment. She felt his fingers softly graze the crisscrossed scars across her stump, the skin an angry red colour and sensitive.

Louis and Ruby mumbled at the end of her bed something she couldn't comprehend as mental and physical exhaustion overcame her.

The weight of the cot shifted as someone sat down next to her. Louis’ warm hand brushed through her cold, wet curls as he hummed that song we wrote for her the night before the Delta attacked.

Normally, the song meant safety and warmth and love.

But now it brought her a creeping feeling of impending doom.