'is this really the world? shall i grieve? shall i hope?' khaled mattawa.

season 2, episode 2
bloodletting

day 67

It was quite funny now that Alyson thought of it—what a hilarious joke of what her life had now become. This was his plan after all. Sinners will be punished for their wrong doings, that's what she was told from the moment she could comprehend her father's voice.

And from that moment, Alyson knew she was God's greatest sinner. Therefore, her punishment would be unfathomable. Insurmountable. She had always wondered what it would be. How it would occur. When it will fester. How painful it would be to carry it.

But that was a part of the punishment. Awaiting the end. The constant fear hovering over your shoulders, grazing you ever so slightly to raise goosebumps. It keeps you on your toes, makes you fear everything. Because your punishment might not be bestowed to you—it'll hurt even worse given to someone you love.

A single gunshot ripped through the air. One. And the only thing Alyson could think was: why?

She wasn't the only one.

Lori looked back towards the church, which so happened to be in the direction of the sound. The area they separated from the others. They were the only ones with guns, the three of them, yet only one went off. It made no sense.

"You still worrying about it?" Andrea's voice interrupted the silence. Alyson glanced back at the blonde woman to find she wasn't the only one staring at her and Lori. She found an interest in the broken grass, stomped by the seven of them.

"It was a gunshot," Lori reminded, not able to move her eyes. Every bone in her body wanted to go back to her family. She wasn't alone with that feeling.

"We all heard it."

"Why one?" Lori asked, finally facing them. Alyson flattened her lips. "Why just one gunshot?"

"Maybe they took down a walker," Daryl suggested as if that could possibly be true. It was far from true.

Lori knew that.

"Please don't patronize me. You know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly. "

"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol questioned into the still wind.

"What if it's not them?" Sadie asked hesitantly, lifting her head ever so slightly to witness Lori's reaction. The thought had already run through her mind multiple times. The fear.

But fear was not allowed. Not now. Not while they were separated and scared. Not while a child ran through the forest with monsters at every turn.

"There's nothing we can do about it anyway," Daryl told them. "Can't run around these woods chasing echoes."

"So what do we do?"

"Same as we've been. Beat the bush for Sophia, work our way back to the highway."

Easiest plan, the original plan. Doesn't mean it didn't ease the nerves that were tangling. Not everyone could just turn it off like Daryl. He was accustomed to not feeling as it seemed.

"I'm sure they'll hook up with us back at the R.V." Andrea consoled. Only pretty words that held no meaning behind them, really.

Alyson started again, joining Sadie at her side on the hill. Did those pretty words mean anything? Maybe. Possibly. But deep down they knew, some part of them knew that something was wrong.

Andrea and Carol didn't start walking. The former stepped towards the latter, causing everyone to pause and look back. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know how you feel."

"I suppose you do. Thank you." Carol took a double take to the other just a few feet away. Tears were already choking her. "The thought of her out there by herself…it's the not knowing that's killing me. I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't wind up like Amy."

Andrea's comforting pity was reeled back in at the mention of her sister. A story answered. Amy was one of the first who died in their group, had to be or else they would've named someone else. Maybe the youngest, making it easier to compare to a child. Lastly, Alyson was able to tell that the wound was still fresh. Heartbreakingly fresh.

"Oh god," Carol let out, realizing the words that fell out. She held onto Andrea's arms. "That's the worst thing I ever said."

The blonde understood. She shook her head, recollecting her emotions and focused her pain into something else. Comfort. "We're all hoping and praying with you, for what it's worth."

Something ticked in Daryl when Andrea said that. He went towards the women and began to speak. "I'll tell you what it's worth—not a damn thing."

"Hey!" Alyson blurted, stepping forward. Lori held out her arm for her to stay out of it. She even shook her head at the teen. She knew him better than Alyson.

"It's a waste of time, all this hoping and praying." He didn't care. Carol was in pain, and he didn't care. He lived without emotions, blinding him from the idea that others could be strong enough to live with theirs.

Alyson ignored Lori's arm and continued towards him, glaring at his back. A shuffle of shoes against leaves rustled behind.

"'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl, she's gonna be just fine."

Alyson stopped. A body neared behind her, grabbing her wrist. Sadie.

"Am I the only one zen around here?" Daryl asked, turning around to meet Alyson's glare. Alyson kept her eyes on him. His lack of guide perplexed her. There were no calculated thoughts behind what he did—at least none she could see.

And it scared her.

She tore her arm from Sadie's hand, giving her a sharp nod that she was fine before following Daryl. He was too much like her dad and brothers. Too much like people she used to know.

A gunshot ripped through her mind. Her body had no reaction, continuing forward like a machine. She was programmed that way, but her mind? Forged by some other entity. One she knew on the surface and was never allowed to dig further—momma is what she called her. Alyson wondered if she took a pause again, just a single moment without fear, if she would break. Just like her mother.

She couldn't let that happen.

The group decided to return to the highway. After an hour of finding nothing and certainly not reuniting with anyone but fear, they started back.

It wasn't that Alyson was opposed to it. She needed a break from the bugs and false hope; Georgia humidity was one thing she knew she could never adapt to. She was worried. Isaac hadn't returned. None of them did. In the silence that encased them, her mind was set ablaze with ideas.

"How much farther?" Lori asked.

Daryl answered. "Not much. Maybe a hundred yards as the crow flies."

"Too bad we're not crows."

Crows weren't as bad as people made them to be. Associating them with death, yet they were much more than that. They were smarter than most creatures; it added onto the creepy factor associated with them. A creature so different from us yet able to communicate with us.

People find things that are too complex to be terrifying. Things that are different, even the slightest bit different, others will fear it. Alyson saw that when cases of people coming back and hurting others. She believed people were vilifying the disease as people have done it before. Watching the cases stack up through her phone as they passed into Georgia, Alyson still didn't believe it.

It wasn't until the government began bombing every city in America. That's when the Quinn girl realized God was finally punishing them. Blazing flames to destroy what they did not deserve. Sinners would always pay the price.

A skin-crawling scream pulled Alyson out of her mind. She finally noticed Andrea had veered from them. Not a second after, the group ran towards her non-stop cries.

Heavy feet pounded, echoing towards them. Andrea's screams ceased. Only nature, heavy breathing, and hooves stomping against the dirt were heard.

Alyson stumbled into a halt. Her eyes became saucers at the sight of the woman riding a horse. She saved Andrea from death. Would she come to blame the woman for that in time?

"Lori? Lori Grimes?" the unknown woman asked Andrea with a thick southern accent as the others came together.

"I'm Lori."

"Rick sent me. You've got to come now," she instructed urgently.

"What?"

"There's been an accident. Carl's been shot." The world stopped for Lori. Everything she had feared had come alive, facing her in that moment. "He's still alive but you've got to come now." Lori didn't respond. It was too much information at once. "Rick needs you. Just come."

The world started again. Lori swiftly pulled off her bag. Sadie took it from her without a second thought. 

Carl was shot. The little boy who just wanted to help. Shot. He wanted to find his friend—missing friend. They were just kids, what did they do to deserve to be punished for the sins of the ungrateful?

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't know this girl," Daryl attempted to remind. But this was her child, her husband, her family. Something he could not understand. "You can't get on that horse."

"She's getting on that horse," Sadie pointed out in a hushed voice. Daryl glared at her. She sank.

"Rick said you had others on the highway, that big traffic snarl?" Glenn answered her. He was star-struck, and it was not the time to be. "Backtrack to Fairburn road. Two miles down is our farm. You'll see the mailbox. The name is Greene. Hyah!"

The unknown woman left as soon as she came, leaving the others stuck. The creep that attacked Andrea quickly reminded them they didn't have time to think.

"Shut up," Daryl told it, shooting it in its head.

Sadie stood still. All her thoughts and ideas of what could have possibly happened to Isaac were unanswered, Alyson could read it in her grim expression. Was he fine because the woman didn't bring him up, or was he gone because the woman didn't know about him to bring him up?

"He's fine. He's gonna be fine," Alyson muttered to Sadie. Sadie would claim, saying things aloud would convince the brain to believe it.  She stood in front of her, getting an up-close view of the tears welling in her eyes. Sadie looked everywhere but at Alyson. "Say it."

"He's fine." Sadie met her eyes. Even drowning in fear, she was beautiful.

"We'll see him soon."

Isaac hadn't been injured, a mild concussion, maybe, but nothing drastically unlike Carl. The young boy, barely reaching thirteen, was shot in a moment of solace. Blood seeped out of him, draining him pale as Rick scooped him up. Everything happened in a blur.

Isaac sat at the table, bouncing his leg in the Greene's kitchen with invisible blood on his hands. He stared at them, feeling the ghost of Carl's blood. He hadn't been injured, but Carl was. He was supposed to watch him, protect him, yet the young boy laid in an unknown bed a few rooms down with bullet fragments in him while he was unharmed, only stained mentally.

He failed.

A glass cup clinked against the wooden table, muffled by the thin cloth dressed across. Isaac lifted his head to find a blonde girl from before, halting his leg movement. She had stepped out behind Maggie when the four men came running, her curiosity punished her at the sight of blood.

Isaac had seen girls before. He's liked them, found them attractive in their own ways, and even dated some. He did the same with boys. Mostly in secret, he did live in Virginia. But, never, ever, ever, in his life had met a girl as bright—no, that wasn't the word—iridescent as Beth Greene. But he hadn't known her name yet. She was just Greene, even though she was the most loveliest shade of blue he had seen.

"Thought you might need it."

A smile grew on his face, slowly then all at once. He was surprised by himself when a chuckle came out. Beth, too. Her eyebrows kissed, scrunching up her nose at him.

"I-I. Sorry, I just…didn't think I would ever have lemonade again— or-or anything other than water and flat soda," he babbled, taking the cold glass into his calluses hands, invisible blood-covered hands. Everyone says blood is thicker than water, yet the condescension coated his palms just the same.

Beth giggled, filling the air like a song written by angels. Isaac spared her quick, embarrassed glances. "Well, just ask and I'll fix you up some. We gave a bunch to share."

"Thank you…"

"Beth!" she beamed before turning scarlet. She held out her hand and cleared her throat. "Beth Greene, and you?"

He wiped his stained hand on his dirty jeans before taking it. "Isaac Arya."

A pair of cladded footsteps echoed throughout the quiet home. Isaac turned his head to find Lori holding Rick up as the two entered the kitchen. The teenager hadn't noticed Hershel in the room until he turned. He stood up swiftly, clattering the chair as he did.

Isaac lended his seat to Rick. His face was drained to a pale white from his second transfusion that day. The similarities between father and son were blatant with translucent skin. He sipped on a cup of lemonade Hershel gave him.

Beth slipped away after getting a silent, yet loud look from her father. Isaac stepped back hesitantly, he wasn't family, he was no one. He watched Beth look at him before disappearing around a corner. It would be even weirder if he followed Beth. A sixteen-year-old unfamiliar boy (turns out he wasn't seventeen just yet according to the calendar the Greenes still had) following the sixteen-year-old daughter of the man who owned the land.

His last choice was to sit outside and wait. For what exactly? He didn't know.

He took a step to leave, but a hand placed on his shoulder stopped him. "Stay, please," Lori murmured. Isaac paused before nodding.

Since Rick refused to sit, Lori used the chair to hold herself up. "Okay, so I understand, when Shane gets back with this other man—"

"Otis."

"Otis," she repeated, wincing like his name shot her. "The idiot who shot my son." A phrase she didn't believe would ever utter.

"Ma'am, it was an accident."

"I'll take that under advisement later. For now he's the idiot who shot our son," she muttered, trying to piece everything that has happened in the last hour in her head.

It made the guilt rot in Isaac faster. Eating away at him for not protecting Carl enough. There was no reason for him to not take the lead in order to ensure Carl wouldn't get hurt by the deer. It was a skittish creature, and Carl was just a curious boy. He failed. He rubbed his hands together. The sensation and sound sent chills through his body.

"Lori, they're doing everything they can to make it right," Rick reminded.

She was tired of being reminded of that. She was upset and was allowed to be. Isaac remained silent since it wasn't his place.

"Okay, as soon as they get back you can perform this surgery?"

"I'll certainly do my best," Hershel told her, knowing as a doctor, it was better to tell the better part of the truth rather than be fully truthful.

Lori sniffled with a nod. "Okay. You've done this procedure before?"

"Well, yes, in a sense."

In a sense?

"What does that mean?"

Lori shared the same confusion as Isaac, only hers was comforted by Rick. "Honey, we don't have the luxury of shopping for a surgeon."

"No, I understand that. But I mean you're a doctor, right?"

Of course he was a doctor, he had to be. The way he spoke and took control of the situation spelled it out. How his eldest daughter and that woman, Patricia, knew things. They wouldn't have brought up the option of them operating on Carl if he wasn't a doctor. It wouldn't make sense if he wasn't a doctor.

"Yes, Ma'am. Of course." Lori let out a sigh of relief. "A vet."

"A veteran? A combat medic?"

"A veterinarian."

Isaac was dumbfounded. A doctor, just not the human kind. He was better suited to fix up the deer they left behind than Carl. Silence stilled the air. He probably should have led with that. He really should have led with that.

"An-and you've done this…surgery before on what? Cows? Pigs?"

Her inquiries made the world spin a little bit faster for Rick. Reality hit him. "I—I have to—" He fell into the chair, dropping his empty glass on the table. The three rushed to help him and keep him from kissing the ground.

He remained upright with Lori's hands holding him in place. What else could they do? As parents, they needed to decide for the safety of their child. Their options were spread thin. Losing the only requirement to be labeled as parents was an outcome that stood at all choices.

"Completely in over your head, aren't you?"

"Ma'am, aren't we all?"

Hershel walked out to go back to Carl. Out of stress, Isaac chugged his lemonade. He hated lemonade, specifically when it had pulp. There was something always off about the drink, but it was something to quench the bubbling guilt.

Still it rose. Isaac feared he'd vomit the half-digested beans he had for breakfast, and dinner, and breakfast again.

"Are…are Sadie and Alyson okay?" he questioned, trying to ease his mind and distract theirs.

Lori looked up at him. A new worry about upsetting her budded. A tired smile sprouted instead, removing his negative thoughts. "Yeah, they're okay."

Isaac looked down at the glass. His tan flesh warped by the transparent curves. Blood may have stained his hands, but they were there for a reason. There was always a reason. None of which he had time to ponder with regret or content. But at that moment, his hands were clean. The cleanest they've been for a while. Carl was safe and stable. Sadie and Alyson were fine.

"You…you care about them a lot, don't you?" Rick asked, sitting up straighter, attempting to focus on something other than his son's pain.

"They're like my sisters, sir. They're family."

*looks around* heyyyy

I had this chapter ready since June, it's November. sorry.

originally this was supposed to be longer but I was like 'why have this chapter be longer when I can have more chapters instead?' so I split the chapter. if things go as plan (aka me finding a quote before the day ends) I'll post another chapter to make up for everything.

okay now that's done, all I have to say is that I absolutely love writing Isaac and Alyson's povs. the guilt and suffering they radiate just fuels me with motivation and writing I am proud of. I plan on delving a lot into Alyson's religious trauma/beliefs as well as Isaac's guilt and slight self-hatred.

also! one last thing, Beth and Isaac own me. I love them. my purest relationship ever. God, I hate AMC for forcing me into their future.