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the end of the world

"IT'S YOU!" IRIS EXCLAIMS, HER MOUTH HANGING OPEN AS SHE STARES AT THE PIZZA DELIVERY GUY.

"What?" He responds, a frown on his face that he shakes away as quickly as it had formed. "We've gotta get out of here, now."

"You- you delivered my pizza!" Iris exclaims, taking a shaky step back but realising that she was hastily going in the direction of the bodies in her shop and took another step forward. "Incredible Hulk? Gamma radiation?"

"What?" Iris' attention was drawn to the man that was with the delivery guy, exclaiming out loud. He was Black whereas the pizza delivery guy was Korean, and they were both looking on guard around them as they clutched their weapons in their fists.

"Yeah. Yeah. That was me." The delivery guy says hastily. "I can't believe you remember- no, stop, we don't have time for this. We have to move."

"No. Hold on. Hold on." Iris holds a hand out, desperate to catch her breath and her bearings. "Someone explain to me why the hell I was just attacked by people with weird eyes who can't die!"

"Do you really want to stay here out in the open while we ponder the existence of these things!?" The other man says, already turning on his heels. "We're looking for Opal. I'm trying to drive all of the elderly out of here!"

Iris' eyes widen. Opal. "She's- she's not here. She hasn't worked in this store for a year and a half now. She's retired, so I helped her take over. She's at home."

"Goddamnit." The man exhales, his arms falling limply to his sides.

Iris felt a pang of sympathy for him, knowing what it was to be close to the older generation and to watch this happen. If it wasn't because the world had imploded, it was for a million other reasons. "I'm sorry. It's just me."

"We've been trying to find as many of them as possible." The delivery guy says, holding his hands to the baseball cap on his head. "We haven't found one."

The other man looks out of the window, and Iris could see his closed eyes in the reflection. "There are more coming. So many more. We have to move. Are you with us?"

Iris runs her fingers through her hair, trying to control her shaking hands as the idea sinks into her head. There were more coming.

There were more coming, and she had no idea where Lori and Carl were.

There were more coming, and Rick was in a coma.

There were more coming, and she needed to get her head on her shoulders.

There were more coming, and she was in Opal's tailor shop.

"Hold on." She mutters, stepping over the dead man on her floor. "I'm coming, just give me a minute."

"What are you doing?" The delivery man asks, taking a step forward as if to follow her.

"Glenn..." The other man warns, taking a step back towards the exit.

Iris ignores them both and makes a dash for Opal's safe, punching in the code (4321, to Iris' dismay) revealing the contents inside. She empties it out, walking back to the boys as she picks up her backpack, stuffing some stitching and her red handled scissors inside before chucking it over her back.

She could feel the panic rising in her system, but she forces herself to swallow and get on with it. She couldn't afford to falter right now, she had to find Lori and Carl and get to Rick. If these things were everywhere, then they were in danger.

"You've got a gun." The delivery guy, who the other man with them had called Glenn, remarks. Iris wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question, but she answered anyway.

"I thought we might need it." She replies, taking in a heavy breath. And she knew how to shoot it, too. Rick had taught her the moment he'd gotten his badge, and she was a quick learner. "You got pockets?"

He nods, and Iris tosses him her extra bullets. "Take care of them."

"Hey, hey, what's your name?" Glenn asks, pocketing the spare bullets and clutching hold of his knife tightly.

"Iris."  She replies, bringing her blonde hair up into a ponytail to get it out of her face, willfully ignoring the blood streaks over it. "Iris Grimes."

Glenn nods. "I'm Glenn, this is T-Dog." He pointed towards the other man, who was starting to look very antsy. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming." Iris rationalised that Glenn and T-Dog were her best chance at finding Lori and Carl. If they were the type of men to run around the city trying to rescue the elderly, then they must be good people.

She followed the two men out of the shop, stepping out into the Georgia heat for the first time in a changed world. She forces herself to take a moment as the world spins around her.

Those things were everywhere. Covering every street corner, snarling and smashing into walls, wandering aimlessly. There were two of them on top of a screaming woman, ripping out her neck in a sickening display of brutality. There were human organs lying in the street, and Iris watched as one of the non-humans tackled a running man to the ground. And the smell. It was grotesque, like the stench of a serial killer's basement, and it totally overwhelmed her senses.

"Oh my god." She breathes out, her own voice sounding foreign to her ears. "Oh my god."

"We're exposed." Glenn says, approaching her carefully as her eyes filled with tears that never fell. "We have to get to the van."

Carl.

"No." Iris barely registers her own voice as it leaves her mouth. "My nephew. His house is that way."

She catches Glenn and T-Dog sharing a glance, but she takes a step forward, in the opposite direction of the van. She needed to save her family. How could she live with herself if she didn't try?

"Iris..." Glenn says, and she can sense the protest on his breath.

"Glenn, there's no time." T-Dog grabs ahold of his arm, but Glenn shrugs him off.

"Just hold on a second. Just give her a second."

Iris breaks out into a run, but the moment she rounds the corner of a building, she trips and lands on her knees, using her hands to break her fall.

It was a leg.

She tripped over a leg.

In front of her was at least fifty of the non-humans who locked their milky white eyes on her.

Iris let out a scream, scrambling up despite her grazed knees. Her heart was racing faster than it had ever raced in her life, it felt like it was about to explode. Glenn had her by the elbow, pulling her up and dragging her away. "Iris. They're blocking the path. We have to go to the van."

Iris let Glenn pull her away, despite the roar in her soul that felt like she was failing Carl by not chasing after him. She lets out the tiniest whimper but she finds her legs and manages to run without Glenn dragging her.

T-Dog's van wasn't too far away, and he already had his keys out, clicking the button and practically ripping the driver's door open. Glenn slides the door to the back open, a hand on Iris' back as he half pushes, half helps her on the seat. Iris lies down, catching her breath as she buries her face on the brown leather seat.

As Glenn runs around to the passenger side of the van, narrowly avoiding one of the dead not dead things and slams the door shut. The three of them take a couple of moments in the safety of the car, breathing out in unison.

Iris sits up, resting her arms on the seat in front of her as she looks between Glenn and T-Dog, two strangers who had saved her life. "What now?"

Glenn turns around, his face partially shadowed by his cap. "We get the hell out of Atlanta."

T-Dog steps on the gas and floors it.

𖤓𖤓𖤓

It seemed that every person in Atlanta wanted to get out of the city. The line of cars on the highway was miles long, stretching way ahead of them and way behind them.

"How many cars are there?" Iris murmurs, lifting her head from where it was resting. She had spent the last two hours with these two strangers who weren't exactly strangers anymore, and her tears had dried and blossomed into a shaky solidarity with the two men in the front seat.

"Too many." T-Dog sighs, playing with his hands on the steering wheel. They hadn't moved in an hour, and he'd called it half an hour ago, turning off the engine. All around them, people had left their cars, walking ahead or setting up tents. Either way, no car was getting through this blockage.

"Everyone's got the same idea." Glenn licks his lips in defeat, looking between T-Dog and Iris with his body twisted to the side to see both of them. "Anyone packing any snacks? I'm starving."

"Nah, man." T-Dog replies, squinting his eyes as he watches ahead. "Wish I did."

Iris swings her bag off of her back, unzipping it and rifling through the blood covered scissors and her thread to find what she had originally packed in there. No snacks. A book, a little pouch where she kept her essential hygiene stuff, her keys, spare paper...

And her most precious belonging.

She thumbs it carefully, stroking the cool metal in her hands. It was tightly secured to the lanyard in her bag, which usually took residence in her bedroom, but she had so happened to put it in her bag the night before because one of Opal's friends had asked to see it. It was strange, fate.

"What's that?" Glenn asks, catching the shimmer even as dusk fell over them.

"Oh, it's a pin." Iris says softly, flipping it over in her hands to show Glenn. "It's in the shape of a  flower wreath, made of gold metal. It was made in 1809."

"It's pretty." Glenn nods, watching as Iris fiddles with it. "It looks important to you."

"Well, it's from my grandmother." Iris explains with a shy smile. "She got it as a present from her father when she was thirteen, and she gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday. It's supposed to bless you with eternal life, but the tradition is that you gift it to the ones you love to pass on the blessing. It's been in my family for a long time. "

Iris couldn't think about the fact that she may be the last person left in her family now that the world had suddenly ended. She couldn't stomach the thought of Lori or Carl or Shane becoming one of those things. And god forbid if she lost Rick. The hospital had to be the safest place for him, it had to be. They probably evacuated him and the other patients first, to whatever refugee site they had started to set up.

There was an uneasy silence hovering over them, interrupted only by the noises of the distressed people in the cars all around them. In the quiet, Iris couldn't stop her burning thoughts from racing. "Hey, do you think the government is prepping a refugee camp for us?"

"I don't think they're that organised." T-Dog replies, a defeated air to his words. "I think it's up to us now."

Iris bites her cheek. "But they'd evacuate the hospitals, surely?"

"If not the government, but the doctors." Glenn swings his head round to catch her downfallen expression. "You got family in hospital?"

"My brother. He's in a coma." Iris whispers.

"I'm sorry." Glenn says, and Iris can tell he doesn't think Rick will make it. "All of my family is home in Michigan."

"I'm sorry." She echoes, an entire world's worth of grief and loss planting itself firmly on her shoulders.

"What do you think they are?" T-Dog asks, breaking through the tension like a well meaning breeze on a cool winter's night. Iris and Glenn share a look, their anxious faces softening for just a moment, neither of them sure of the answer. When his question had hung in the air for too long, T-Dog spoke again. "Think it's some sort of disease?"

"I don't know." Glenn looks through the windscreen of the stuffy van despite the fact that night had very quickly fallen. "Even if it is, they're dangerous. We did what we had to."

None of them liked the thought that they had killed people who were just sick.

"I got one right in the heart." Iris admits, pressing her chapped lips together. "And he stood right up like nothing had even happened. He should've been dead. I don't think they're just sick people. I think they're dead people."

That revelation hung in the air.

"We can't stay here." Glenn decides, speaking rapidly as if mimicking his beating heart. "These cars aren't going anywhere. All it takes is one person to be bitten or whatever it is causing them to turn will spread like wildfire. We're sitting ducks."

"We can't abandon the van." T-Dog rationalises, his eyes widening as big as plates. "Where are we supposed to go?"

The hairs on the back of Iris' back stand up as she hears a distant swooshing sound in the sky. She scrambles to the window of the van, her heart almost stopping as she registers exactly what's happening. "Guys..."

"We can't stay here either." Glenn was still speaking to T-Dog in a hushed but urgent tone.

"Guys."

"We'd be no better off on foot." T-Dog argues back. "We have shelter, safety here."

"Guys!" Iris yells, finally catching the attention of the two men in front of her. Rather than explain, the words dying on her throat as an apple sized lump begins to form, she opens the door of the van despite their protests and stumbles out of the van, the cool air smacking her in the face but she didn't dare rip her gaze away from the sky.

"Airplanes." Glenn says, the moment he gets out of the van and follows her line of sight.

"What are they doing?" T-Dog asks, as they speed over their heads and fly towards the city. "Are they evacuating people?"

Iris wraps her arms around herself, watching with bated breath. Maybe they were extracting hospital patients who were too helpless to get themselves out. Maybe there was some hope for Rick.

The planes started to spray a sickening amount of white, smokey gas over the city. Everyone on the highway froze, like Roman statues forced to watch their city burn down in ruins, unable to do anything but stand in their grand poses as the world crumbled down around them.

The scream left Iris' mouth before she could even process what the gas meant.

"They're dropping Napalm on the streets!" Glenn chokes out, holding his hands to his cap, but unable to rip his eyes away from the picture ahead of them.

Iris felt the hot tears pour down her cheeks, breathing out heavily as she watched the display of defeat, of the abandonment of the people by the army. If there was anyone left, they would surely be dead.

But that's what the army wanted.

They'd set out to kill their own people.

"You were right." T-Dog grips the straps of his backpack, taking a step backwards. "We have to move. On foot."

Glenn nods, but Iris can't look away from the planes over the sky. The bag on her back weighed her down, despite the few things that were inside. Those few things were all she had left in the world. Her bag and the clothes on her back. The pin that she still clutched in her hand.

Eternal life.

What a colossal lie.

"Iris."

She could hear her name being uttered but it felt as if she were underwater. She could hear everything around her increase by tenfold like a roar in her ears, as if her blood pressure was at an explosive level, taunting her mind and making her vision swim. There were children crying, adults crying, horns honking, and the goddamn planes over the skies screaming bloody murder over the dying city.

"Hey. Iris."

Glenn's light and unsure touch on her arm brings Iris back to her senses with a sharp gasp, dropping her grandmother's pin on the floor from the shock of it. It twists and collides with the concrete, but Glenn leans down and holds it delicately in his hands, holding it out.

"Thanks." Iris murmurs, their fingers brushing for a split second as she takes the pin back, turning it around between her fingers. She brushes her thumb over the golden flowers before putting it back in her bag, safe.

"We need to move." T-Dog says, nodding in respect to Glenn and Iris. "It's just us now."

Iris takes one more look out to the city. The sorrow she felt in her soul was monumental, overwhelming her with grief and anguish. But there was no time to wallow. There was no time to mourn. There was no time to do anything except survive.

"Yeah." She says, tightening the straps over her back until it felt close to crushing her. "We should walk ahead, try and figure out if there's a way forward from here."

Glenn and T-Dog both nod, making sure they had all of their supplies from the church van. Glenn taps the bullets in his pants pocket. "You want these back?"

Iris took hold of the handgun that was safely secured to her belt, catching the way Glenn's eyes followed the weapon in awe. She slides the magazine off. No bullets missing. She looks back at Glenn, shrugging. If she's stuck with these guys, she may as well trust them.  "Keep ahold of them. Don't need 'em yet."

Glenn looks pleased. "Oh. Okay. Cool."

Iris, Glenn and T-Dog start their walk, looping through the stopped cars and the people who were inside, all who had lived their own lives, their own dreams and hopes and memories, all to end up in the same place in the end. Some of them had food, sitting in the trunks of their cars and sharing out what they had left. Iris didn't even realise how hungry she was until her stomach let out a large growl.

"We need to find food." T-Dog voices Iris' thoughts exactly, his footsteps starting to slow.

"We're on the highway." Glenn points out. "There's not exactly a Walmart close to here."

"Well, maybe we can-" Iris' words are cut off when a low, snarling growl from the other side of an RV gets louder, along with the yelps and pleas of a man that Iris couldn't spot from her position. "Shit."

She moves closer, despite Glenn and T-Dog voicing their protests, holding her gun steady as she crept forward.

"Wait." T-Dog steps in front of her, and just when Iris thinks he's going to try and stop her from saving the man, he pulls a knife from his belt. "Not with the gun. There are kids around."

Iris nods, letting T-Dog take the lead. She makes sure Glenn is close, she'd be damned if she got split up from her only allies. T-Dog hides behind the corner, waiting for his moment. With his knife ready, he pounces and kills the dead not dead human and throws it to the floor. Iris moves over and holds a hand to the shoulder of the man. He was old, with grey hair and his hands hanging loosely on the doors of his RV. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." He replies, nodding and standing himself up. "Thank you. I was trying to get a look of what was happening."

"Nothing good." Glenn says, leaning against the RV. "The city's in ruins."

The old man closes his eyes, taking a moment before speaking. "The angels weep for us."

"Yeah." Iris agrees. "It's the end of the goddamn world."

The man gives her an odd look, which she could've sworn held a remnant of a grin. "Well, I've never been one to turn away a good person in need of help. You three don't look like you have a vehicle. Or a meal."

"We don't." Glenn says. "We've been on foot for the past hour."

"Well, my name is Dale." The old man holds out his hand for Glenn to shake. "I've already picked up two sisters who needed help, so it's a little cramped, but I'm plenty stocked on food. Come on in, all three of you."

Iris smiles, looking at Glenn and T-Dog who had similar relieved expressions on their faces. "I'm Iris. This is Glenn, that's T-Dog. We can't thank you enough, really. We were seriously getting worried about our lack of food."

Dale nods in solidarity at her, a kind smile on his eyes. "Well, the three of you better come on in, then."

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AUTHORS NOTE

❥ Welcome back to Doomsday!
❥ The pizza delivery guy from chapter one was Glenn, in case you didn't realise 😁😁
❥ I'm already in love with writing Glenn and Iris, I am so excited to write more and watch their story pan out
❥ I'm also currently writing chapter three of Doomsday, which I am about 800 words into. It's a very exciting one!
❥ If you enjoyed please vote and comment <3