THE NEXT MORNING, VIVIAN WOKE UP TO LIAM PLAYING WITH HIS TOYS, SMASHING LITTLE CARS ONTO THE FLOOR NEXT TO HER HEAD,

"Hey, little dude." Vivian smiled at him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, "What are you doing up so early?"

He babbled, showing off his baby teeth. Vivian sat up and grabbed him, putting him in her lap, "You hungry, buddy?"

She stood, swinging Liam onto her hip and gripped his toy. Vivian opened the door and spotted Rick walking down the hallway,

"Hey." Vivian called out and he stopped, squinting back at her, "Hangover?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." He groaned as she caught up to him,

"Uh, about last night-"

Rick paused and turned to her, "Hey," He placed a hand on her shoulder, "You haven't had the chance to grieve yet. It's understandable. You don't need to apologise."

Vivian nodded, "Thanks."

The trio made their way into the kitchen area, where almost everyone was already sitting. Vivian smiled over at Glenn, who was groaning into the table. She sat down next to Marcie, who handed her Liam's sippy cup that Vivian left in the fridge overnight.

"Are you hungover?" Carl asked with a smile on his face, as his dad sat next to him, on the other side of Vivian, "Mom said you'd be."

"Mom is right." Rick groaned,

Lori slid a bottle of aspirin over to him, "Mom has that annoying habit."

Rick struggled to open the bottle and Vivian took it from his fingers, opening it for him before handing it back.

T-Dog walked over with a pan and spatula, spooning food onto people's plates, "Eggs. Powdered, but... but I do 'em good." Glenn moaned and Marcie laughed at him, "I bet you can't tell. Protein helps the hangover." T-Dog told him as he gave him some eggs,

"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked, motioning to the pill bottle,

"Jenner. He thought we could use it." Lori answered,

"Some of us, at least." Vivian joked, taking a bite of bacon and giving the rest to the toddler in her lap,

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn groaned,

"Hey." Shane greeted as he entered the kitchen and went straight towards the coffee machine,

"Hey. Feel as bad as I do?" Rick asked his friend,

"Worse."

"The hell happened to you? Your neck?" T-Dog questioned, staring at the side of Shane's head,

Shane moved towards the table and everyone got a look at the three red scratches on his neck, "I must have done it in my sleep."

"Never seen you do that before." Rick stated,

"Me neither. Not like me at all." Shane commented, and Marcie noticed him staring at Lori, tension filling the room,

A hand reached over her shoulder and Marcie looked up to see Daryl grabbing some bacon from her plate.

"Morning." Jenner acknowledged the group as he entered the room,

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." Dale began,

"But you will anyway." Jenner joked as he poured himself some coffee,

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea stated,

And with that, everyone followed Jenner towards the room with all of the computers that he showed them the day before.

Marcie took Liam from Vivian as she got herself a cup of coffee and sat him in one of the office chairs, spinning him slightly and he giggled,

"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner ordered and the large screen at the front of the room turned on,

"Playback of TS-19."

"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner stated as scans of a brain appeared on the screen,

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked,

"An extraordinary one." Jenner confirmed, "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."

"Enhanced internal view."

The scan shifted and they were able to see a flicker of small light within the brain and it continued to zoom in, "What are those lights?" Shane asked,

"It's a person's life... experiences, memories. It's everything." Jenner explained, "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you... the thing that makes you unique. And human."

"They're beautiful." Marcie whispered, everyone mesmerised by the flickering lights.

Made her kind of want to study medicine in college rather than communications. This seemed so much more fascinating.

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked,

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death." Jenner described in detail,

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick questioned,

"Yes." Jenner answered, "Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" Andrea asked, walking closer to the screen,

"Test Subject 19." He responded, "Someone who was bitten and infected... And volunteered to have us record the process."

Marcie bit her lip, gripping the chair that Liam sat on. She was going to see what happened to Lexi, a detailed process of death and rebirth.

"Vi, scan forward to the first event." Jenner ordered,

"Scanning to first event."

The playback zoomed out and the group watched as a dark matter invaded the brain. It looked unnatural... deadly.

"What is that?" Glenn asked,

"It invades the brain like meningitis." They watched as the subject moved around, struggling, "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." The synapses went out,  Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... Gone."

It was painful. That was the worst thing to imagine. Marcie thought that once you get bit and the fever set in, you would just go to sleep and not wake up. Instead, you die in pain.

It happened to Lexi. To Jillian and Trevor. To Amy. To Jim.

Vivian walked over to Marcie and squeezed her hand. But Marcie knew it was her that needed the comfort.

The mood in the room changed instantly. Andrea held in a sob and Jenner noticed, "She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori told the doctor,

"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." Jenner told the blonde,

"We all have." Rick stated, glancing over at Vivian,

"Scan to the second event." Jenner ordered Vi,

"Scanning to second event."

"The resurrection times vary wildly." He announced, "We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute... Seven seconds."

They watched as red lights began to flicker throughout the dark, dead brain. It was just as beautiful as the blue and yellow lights, but looked more deadly.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked,

"No, just the brain stem." Jenner explained, "Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick questioned,

Jenner looked back at him, "You tell me."

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick stated,

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part... That doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." Jenner clarified,

Vivian felt sick to her stomach. She wouldn't wish that death upon anyone. She didn't want to believe that's what happened to her best friend. And she silently prayed it didn't happen to her family across the country,

An object appeared off screen and a streak of light went through the brain and the test subject stilled once more, "What was that?" Carol asked,

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea stated, "Didn't you?" Instead of responding, Jenner ordered for the power to be turned off and the room began to dim, "You have no idea what it is, do you?"

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Jenner listed off,

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui spoke,

He nodded, "There is that."

"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea ranted,

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol questioned,

"There may be some. People like me."

Rick stepped towards him, "But you don't know? How can you not know?"

"Everything went down. Communications, directives... all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner told them,

"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" Andrea called him out,

How could the world fall so quickly, in the matter of weeks? Surely there must've been a protocol for a situation like this that countries had set in place.

Daryl pressed his hands to his face, "Man, 'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again."

Dale began walking across the room, "Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... that clock..." He pointed to a timer that was counting down in big red numbers on the wall, "It's counting down. What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators... they run out of fuel." He answered before walking towards the door,

"And then?" Rick asked, but was ignored as the doctor left the room, "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."

Everyone glanced nervously at each other, not liking the sound of a decontamination. A few of the men went to go find the generators while the others went back to their rooms.

Marcie began packing up her stuff, moving into the kitchen to grab some water bottles before going back to her room to stuff them into her bag,

"What're ya doin'?" Daryl asked, leaning against the doorway with the bottle of whisky in his hand,

"Packing. Don't want to be here when that clock hits zero." She answered, grabbing her jacket and slipping it on, "Decontamination doesn't sound so fun to me."

Daryl scoffed, "Probably just gonna spray some hand sanitiser around the buildin'."

She stopped and turned towards him, eyebrows raised, "We're in a building that contains hundreds of deadly diseases, including the one that ended the world. You think all it's gonna do is spray sanitiser?"

The lights inside the room shut off and Marcie noticed the difference in temperature. She raised her hand towards the vent and noticed the lack of air coming through,

Marcie slipped her pack on and pushed past Daryl to check the lights in the hallway, noticing the others doing the same,

"What's goin' on? Why is everythin' turned off?" Daryl asked as Jenner walked by, swiping his bottle of whisky and taking a swig,

"Energy use is being prioritized."

"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale asked the doctor,

"It's not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down." He responded and everyone followed behind,

"Get your bags." Marcie told Vivian and the older woman nodded, handing her the toddler before rushing back towards her room,

"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Daryl asked aggressively as they followed behind the doctor towards the computer room once more, where the clock was getting close to zero, "Hey man, I'm talking to you. What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

"You'd be surprised."

The other men joined them and Rick went up to the doctor, "Jenner, what's happening?"

"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule." He took another drink of the alcohol before turning towards them, "It was the French."

"What?"

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution." He explained,

Marcie furrowed her eyebrows, clearly that never happened,

"What happened?" Jacqui asked,

"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs of fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" He grinned,

"Let me tell you..." Shane began to approached the doctor and Rick pulled him back,

"To hell with it, Shane. I don't even care." The sheriff turned to his wife, "Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!"

As everyone dispersed, alarms went off. Liam began to cry and Marcie tried to cover his ears as Vivian ran in, bags in hand.

A system warning appeared on the screen, along with the countdown, "30 minutes to decontamination."

"Everybody, y'all heard Rick. Get your stuff and let's go! Go now!" Shane yelled and as they ran towards the doorway, metal doors shut in their faces,

"Did you just lock us in? He just locked us in!" Glenn yelled,

Vivian took Liam from Marcie's arms and tried to comfort him as the yelling and the alarms scared him,

"You son of a bitch." Daryl growled, approaching the doctor, "You locked us in here!" Shane and T-Dog  jumped forward to grab him and pull him away from Jenner,

"Jenner, open that door now." Rick ordered,

"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner explained,

"Well, open the damn things." Dale replied,

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that." His eyes glanced over the group, "It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick's eyes glanced towards the clock that was counting down, "What happens in 28 minutes?" Jenner ignored him and Rick pulled him up to stand before raising his voice, "What happens in 28 minutes?!"

This was a side to him that Vivian hadn't seen before. Rick had always been calm, the voice of reason. When dealing with Merle, when Glenn was held hostage, Rick had never raised his voice. And that's when she knew they were in deep shit.

"You know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff!" Jenner yelled at all of them, trying to get it into their heads, "Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!" Jenner sat down to calm himself, "In the event of a catastrophic power failure... in a terrorist attack, for example... H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H.I.T.s?" Marcie questioned, her fingers twisting her bracelet in nervousness,

"Vi, define."

"HITs... high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000° and 6,000° and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

Next to Vivian, Carol burst into tears and clutched her daughter close to her. Vivian pulled Liam into her, placing a hand in his hair as her vision went blurry.

"It sets the air on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief... Regret." They all stared at Jenner in horror, "Everything."

Vivian shook her head. This isn't what Jillian wanted for Liam. She wanted him to live, to survive.   This can't be the end. This isn't how they should go out.

Marcie looked down at her friendship bracelet that matched Lexi's. This wasn't how she thought she would die.

"I never got to find them." She whispered, and Daryl looked over at her, "My parents won't get the answers they deserve."

He tightened his grip on the bottle in his hand, "We ain't dyin' here." He stalked towards the exit and threw the bottle, and it shattered upon impact with the metal, "Open the damn door!" Daryl  yelled,

Shane ran towards the door, axe in hand, "Out of my way!" He began slicing at the door, not making a scratch. T-Dog tossed another axe to Daryl, who began helping Shane,

Lori and Carol sat with their children, who cried into their shirts. Liam soaked the shoulder of Vivian's shirt as she sat in the office chair and ran her hand up and down his back,

"You should've left well enough alone. It would've been so much easier." Jenner stated,

"Easier for who?" Lori snapped at him,

"All of you. You know what's out there... A short, brutal life and an agonizing death." He turned to Andrea, "Your... your sister... what was her name?"

"Amy."

"Amy. You know what this does. You've seen it." Jenner looked up at Rick, "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"

"I don't want this." Rick growled at him before turning to Shane,

"Can't make a dent." He panted, leaning against a computer,

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner stated,

Daryl approached, preparing his axe to swing down on the doctor, "Well, your head ain't!"

Dale and Rick held the redneck back while T-Dog tried to rip the axe from his hands. Marcie stood and pushed Daryl back by his shoulders, "Daryl! Killing him won't get us out of here!"

Jenner stood from his seat, "You do want this." He said to Rick, "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."

The group turned to look at their new leader, "What? What? You really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane asked his best friend,

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick replied,

"There is no hope. There never was."

"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere..." Rick responded,

"What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand?" Andrea snapped at him,

"But we're still here." Marcie told her, "Everything's not gone because there are other's like us out there." She looked over at the doctor, "I'm sorry about your wife, and I know you're ready to give up... but we're not. We've come a long way, and not all of us made it this far, but we did. You did. And we can go farther, but you have to let us out."

He stared at her for a moment before shaking his head, "Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

"This isn't right. You can't just keep us here." Carol cried,

Jenner sat down once more and tried to comfort the mother, "One tiny moment... a millisecond. No pain."

"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this."

"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner asked,

Shane grabbed a shot gun and aimed it at Jenner, pushing Rick out of the way, "Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off! Do you hear me?!"

Glenn pulled Marcie away as Rick tried to stop him, "Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get out of here."

"Shane, you listen to him." Lori ordered,

"It's too late. He dies, we all die!" Rick told him,

Shane yelled and changed the aim of his gun, firing at the computers. Vivian covered Liam's ears and backed away as far as she could,

Rick grabbed the gun, wrestling it away from Shane before smacking him in the head with the butt of the gun, "Are you done now? Are you done?!" Rick yelled at his friend,

"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane panted,

Liam began to cry harder from the noise and Vivian bounced him on her hip to try and soothe him,

Rick handed the gun off to T-Dog before turning to look at everyone. They thought of him as the leader, to keep them safe. He led them to a death trap.

Rick turned back to Jenner, "I think you're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying about no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?" Rick asked him,

Jenner shook his head, "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"

"Not because I wanted to." Jenner glared at him and stood, " I made a promise... To her." He pointed at the big screen, "My wife."

"Test Subject 19 was your wife?" Vivian asked,

Marcie watched as Daryl grabbed the axe from the floor and went back to the door, trying to find a way out,

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no?" Jenner sighed, "She was dying. It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just... Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."

Vivian walked towards the doctor, "If you let us out... you'll be our saviour. That will matter to us."

Rick came up behind her, "Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's... that's all we want... a choice, a chance."

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Marcie begged,

Jenner stared at all of them for a moment before sighing, "I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." He moved over to another computer to swipe his card and press some buttons,

The door opened and Daryl turned towards them, "Come on!"

Marcie checked the clock. Four minutes and thirty seconds. She slipped her pack back on before moving to help Vivian with her bags.

Vivian paused, turning towards Rick who was speaking to Jenner on last time, "There's your chance. Take it."

"I'm grateful."

"The day will come when you won't be."