#kidgrimcs

          DAWN OUTSIDE ;  light shines through parted curtains --- but all he can see is the dark, pierced by floodlights. Quiet, but all he can hear are sobs, a bat cracking against bone. And what courses through his veins is rage, and sorrow, and helplessness, and fear; something toxic in his bloodstream, something he’s not sure will ever get out. His own words stuck in his head --- I’m not gonna let anybody die like that again. But he had. Glenn and Abraham both, and there’d been NOTHING they could do to stop it. But he knows that they’re strong --- stronger than the Saviors know; even now, especially now. And he’ll kill Negan himself if he has to.

          Breath will escape lips --- left hand raises, rolls the fabric of his right sleeve up high. Anger, hot and heavy, takes hold; and part of him wants to keep it there, that thick black line, a reminder; as if the memories won’t be enough. His father’s pleas. And his arm in spasm as the hatchet raised. As if it will change things, having something real and tangible to remember it all by. But it won’t. It won’t go away with the ink of a pen. It won’t go away until Negan is dead.

          Still, it sets a match to something in him already burning; hatred. And as he tugs his sleeve down, in no rush to wash the mark away; and flexes his fingers, one by one, then his whole hand --- the one he’d been willing to lose for his family, the sound of soft knocking against wooden door demands his attention. Eye focuses there; blinks. It’s his dad, or Michonne, or Nick. He knows that much. But second thought tells him that his dad and Michonne are probably together, and that leaves only one. One that he’d been expecting, sooner or later.  “ Just come in. “

i’m screaming y’all stop stalking me so much