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A L I C E

ALICE DUNLAP WAS NEVER one to owe any debts. Yet, somehow, the girl had found herself indebted to Carl Grimes. He'd given her so much, yet nothing at all—nothing tangible, at least. He'd given her common ground to dance upon as she dealt with all of her feelings about Patrick and her brother. He'd given her a chance to be there for Elliot, and although the girl had invited Carl to talk with them the night before, she felt like she still owed him. She did owe him.

The girl had been informed, that morning, that she was finally allowed to go visit Elliot. She wouldn't have had to sneak around, like last night. She and Carl barely made it back into the tombs without Carol spotting them on the way to their cells.

He'd walked the girl to back her cell block, but turned around and left before she found the words to express whatever it was that she was feeling. Alice Dunlap was never very good at that.

But, after preparing her words of gratitude all morning, the girl hesitantly made her way to cell block C, where she knew that Carl would be packing his things. He was the last of the kids who was to be moved into quarantine.

Alice's bandana was fastened across the tops of her cheeks and Elliot's backpack was strapped her back, slightly bouncing up and down as she entered the cell block. She'd figured that she could offer to help Carl pack and then the two could legally go visit Elliot to drop off the bag of his things. Had Alice known that the two were sneaking around to see her brother, last night, she would've brought it then.

Her gesture would never compare to what Carl Grimes had already done for her, but it was a start—a step in the right direction. And so, with only a few moments of hesitation, the girl knocked on the wall of the boy's cell.

"What Dad?" The boy's voice echoed from behind the curtain of his cell, growing closer and closer before he passive-aggressively swung it open, ready to roll his eyes at whoever it was that came knocking. "I told you. I'm almost fin—"

Alice was met with a wide-eyed Carl. She'd never seen the boy so up-close, without his bandana. His skin was pale, contrasting his dark eyelashes—those of which surrounded the boy's blue eyes. Carl's side-swept bangs somehow seemed to swirl in every direction to perfectly frame his distraught face.

Upon the boy seeming absolutely ambushed by Alice's presence, every proposition she'd prepared for him completely went out the window.

"I—I'm sorry. I should've told you I was coming." She pointed down to the boy's pocket, more-so the black piece of cloth hanging out of it. "You aren't wearing your b—"

"Right, right." To Alice's surprise, Carl stepped towards her, wasting no time before shutting the curtain to his cell right behind him. He quickly began walking out into the corridor, and away from his cell, carrying a certain openness in his body language that led the girl to follow after him. The boy reached into his pocket and then quickly began fastening the fabric around the base of his head. "What is it? Did something happen with Elliot?"

"No, no." Alice began to frantically shake her head. She sucked in a deep breath, hoping that the absence of bad news would ease the tense boy standing across from her. However, Carl's eyes still had the girl in a worrisome hold. He was almost antsy about something as he seemed to hang on to Alice's every word. "I was just coming by t—Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," The boy started, offering Alice a nervous shrug. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Her eyebrows slowly furrowed. "I don't know."

Her words came out slowly, as she felt that if too many of them came out at once, the boy would implode. Alice's eyes studied Carl in a manner of suspicion, while his studied her in a manner of suspense.

"Anyways," The girl subtly shook her head, in order to better remember why she'd marched to cell block C in the first place, considering all that it'd done, so far, was embarrass her. Alice's mind seemed to work overtime to jumble words together and send them traveling along the buds of her tongue. "I just wanted to see if y—"

"Hey, little one!" A voice interjected. It was Tyreese. The man wore a smile and carried a fistful of flowers in one hand, using the other to gently tussle Alice's head of hair.

Since Sasha and Tyreese were so diligent with their self-appointed duties of tending to the children of Woodbury, Alice had grown close with the two. Having lived there together, for a few weeks, before joining the prison made the girl feel as though she had something special with them—something that the established prison group didn't, as they'd previously turned the Williams siblings away. They had the resemblance of a history. And in the aftermath of the world, history meant everything.

The girl allowed the burly man to strap her into a quick side hug. "It's been too long, Ty."

"I'm paying a visit to the quarantined block." He released Alice from the embrace. "Figured you'd want in."

"You figured correctly." The girl let out a laugh through the fabric of her bandana. "Actually, I was just about to ask if C—"

Alice raised her finger, matter-of-factly, as she turned back to where Carl was standing. But the boy was gone. Her eyes briefly trailed around the corridor, in search of him. With the help of the distant sound of the metal rings skidding across the curtain rod, the girl barely managed to spot the curtain to his cell sliding into place.

The sheet rippled with the quick gust of air, resuming its seclusive position as if Alice Dunlap had never even come knocking on Carl's cell, in the first place.

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Traveling through the tombs alongside Tyreese felt completely different to Alice than when she was with Carl. She would've thought that she'd feel safer, knowing that she was allowed to be there—that a grown man was there to protect her in case the dead had gotten in from the exposed part of the prison.

This time around, there was an undeniable stench. And although last night the smell of the dead was prevalent in the tombs—just like everywhere else in the world—Alice's nostrils now tickled with something entirely different. The girl clutched her hands tightly around the straps of her brother's backpack, as she tried to breathe through her mouth.

Alice Dunlap wore a hopeful smile—one that was no longer concealed by a black bandana—as if to rid herself of the feeling that was settling in her gut. She didn't pay much mind to Tyreese as he slowed his pace and peered into Karen's cell. Instead, the girl readily walked around him and headed straight for Elliot's.

She thought that she'd remembered where her brother's cell was, but was stricken by a wave of panicked confusion when he wasn't in the bed. In his place was a wide splotch of blood shed atop his white pillowcase. Her eyebrows furrowed as she traced the scuffed liquid across the floor of the cell to right underneath her very own feet.

Her feet lifted off the floor, as she quickly stepped out of the trail of blood, and she inspected the bottoms her stained shoes. Amidst the girl's overwhelming confusion, she felt large hands briefly place themselves on her shoulders, as Tyreese swiftly made his way around her. She watched as the man hurriedly made his way down the hall, following the extended bloody trail that she'd failed to notice.

All of the sudden, Alice no longer held concern for her shoes. She knew that something was wrong—very wrong. She should've known this entire time, but distracting herself by worrying about small things was what the girl did best.

As the man turned the corner, heading for the exit, the girl began to follow after him. Each of her slow footsteps felt like one dilemma after another. She knew that she wouldn't want an explanation to what she'd just seen, but it was like her feet just couldn't stop.

She turned the corner as Tyreese finished fastening a dangling light bulb. That of which illuminated the remainder of the bloody trail that could be seen on their side of the door.

The man wasted no time before opening the exit, flooding the hallway with outside light as well as the same stench that'd caused Alice to resort to breathing through her mouth. The smell was now unavoidable, and the girl removed the grip of her hand from the strap of Elliot's backpack, instead using her sleeved wrist to cover her nose.

With her lifted arm bracing herself from the odor, she stepped out of the tombs and traced Tyreese's eyes to the source. As she studied the two bodies that were hardly composed of anything more than ashes, her arm slowly dropped down from her face, as their smell was no longer what bothered her the most.

She tilted her head, watching as the smoke whirled away from her brother's body—the aftermath of a smoldering heat being swept away by the breeze of the outdoors.

The tearless girl could do nothing but watch. It seemed as if nothing else was around her. It was just Alice and Elliot—one sibling left alive and one not. She had no questions as to how this'd happened. She didn't have time to breathe, let alone process that this was real.

But, as Alice Dunlap could no longer go without a breath, she suddenly allowed a large gust of the contaminated air to enter her lungs, burning her throat as it went down. The only thing to remove the girl from this consuming moment was the worry of whether her sore throat was caused by her instinctual mouth-breathing or something else.

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By the time that Elliot had finally been laid to rest, Alice Dunlap seemed to have also been buried underneath several layers of her own demise. With rapidly worsening symptoms, she was definitely infected. But she wasn't quite ready to put that on display. The sun hadn't even fully set since she'd lost her brother.

The girl silently wept at Elliot's grave ever since it'd been made. She would've preferred to grieve within the privacy of her own cell, but too many people were scrambling in and out of the cell blocks, trying to figure out who'd done this to Karen and Elliot. Alice knew that she was keeping the others safe as long as she was to resume kneeling, with her knees in the loose dirt, at the far end of the field.

Amidst her hushed sobs, Alice hurriedly reached into her back pocket and grabbed her black bandana. The girl held the fabric up to her mouth and let out a series of coughs as discreetly as she could. She tried her best to mask the obvious symptom as just another overwhelmed cry.

The girl was waiting for any opportunity to quietly slip back into her cell block, without anyone noticing. Her symptoms were becoming more and more difficult to conceal and Alice knew that she needed to get out of plain sight.

Once her body was too fatigued to let out anymore coughs, she removed the bandana from her mouth and almost immediately caught sight of the bloody mucus that'd just dripped from her lips. She quickly wiped at her chin, ridding it of the liquid before raising her gaze and scanning the courtyard. For a few moments, the coast seemed to be clear, until her eyes landed upon the one thing that had somehow slipped her mind: Carl Grimes.

He was standing out on the edge of the courtyard. The boy no longer had his face covered. His hands were shoved deep in his front pockets as he studied the mourning girl from afar. The boy's gardening gloves hung out of his back pocket, a few of their fingers poking out to the side where the girl could spot them. Carl and Alice stared at each other for a few moments—their gaze being a momentary distraction from the chaos that'd left its evidence buried right underneath the girl.

Alice thought that it was ironic that she'd gone to sleep and woken up thinking about the boy. Things had changed so quickly since she'd marched to cell block C and knocked on his door, that morning. Thanking Carl was no longer the priority—staying away from him was.

And as the boy stepped onto the gravel path, readily making his way towards Elliot's grave, Alice lost all concern for the secrecy surrounding her predicament. The girl sucked in a breath, preparing herself to flee the scene before Carl was able to make his way to her.

He'd managed to get dangerously close to the grave site in the few flustered seconds that she spent fumbling around with her bloody bandana, trying to shove it in her back pocket. The girl's desperate need to be as far away from Carl as possible was enough to distract her from the feeling of her bandana slipping out of her jeans and falling onto the dirt.

Alice Dunlap became increasingly panicked as the boy continued to approach her. The girl quickly picked herself up off the ground, keeping her stare locked on a confused Carl as his feet came to a sudden stop, just a few yards away from her. She offered the boy an exasperated glance, lacking the knowledge of any words that were complex enough to explain herself.

With nothing but a flustered expression and a breath caught deep within her scratchy throat, Alice's feet shuffled to a speedy start, headed in the opposite direction of Carl Grimes.

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Alice Dunlap truly felt as though she was a dead girl walking. Her labored breathing seemed like the beginning of the end as she tried to cherish every passing minute of the remainder of her life. Patrick hadn't even been sick for a full day before he died. The boy perished without warning, scared and all by himself. Just like Alice now was—scared and alone.

Her tears only stained the supple skin of her cheeks, as she'd run them out of their current, several minutes ago. Although she could no longer form tears, her body still heaved with panicked shudders of breath.

The girl sat on the floor next to her bunk with her back pressed against the wall, leaning her head back and folding her arms over the tops of her knees. She didn't even have enough energy to pull herself onto Elliot's bottom bunk, earlier, upon arriving back to their eternally empty cell.

Alice Dunlap was going to die a horrific death and the girl only wanted to exert what was left of her energy in coming to accept it. Inside of her mind was a desperate battle of whether she no longer had to live in this world anymore or no longer got to. Elliot, and Patrick wouldn't have wanted this for her, but nearly every part of her wanted to be with them—knowing exactly what that would entail.

"Alice?" A concerned, familiar voice echoed behind her, from the outside of her cell. She'd never heard her named uttered from the boy's lips before, but his identity was irrefutable. "Can I come in?"

The girl gently rolled her eyes to a close, letting out a bargained breath. She exhaustedly shook her head, although Carl couldn't see her. "I—I'm not safe."

His boots slightly shuffled around right outside of the cell door, before the girl heard the fabric of Carl's rough flannel slide down the wall, as he sunk down to her level. The two now sat on opposite sides of the same wall, despite the thick concrete not granting the boy any protection from the air-transferred dangers festering the other side.

"I know." He muttered, his voice now echoing level with the girl's ears.

Alice held no questions as to how he'd known. She no longer cared. But it was clear that the boy had no intention of leaving her to die in peace, if he'd gone to her cell aware of the risk of being around her. After all he'd done for her, the absolute least she could do was suppress her infected breath from his presence.

She dropped one of her arms to her side, noticing that gravity now posed a stronger force against her weakening muscles, before reaching into her back pocket to retrieve her bandana. Except, it wasn't there. It hadn't been there since her visit to the graveyard. The girl sucked in a short, humored breath at her obliviousness.

"You—um," Carl started. "You left this."

The girl saw something slide along the floor, out of the corner of her eye. She tilted her head, lowering her gaze to see the item that the boy had just passed underneath the curtain. It was the bloody bandana that was supposed to have been in her pocket.

"Don't worry," The boy comforted her. "I'm wearing mine."

Involuntarily, Alice's body mustered up enough energy to be sent into another series of coughs. Her body leaned forward as she let the tacky blood drip from her throat and onto the floor. The girl used her sleeve to wipe everything that remained on her chin, before allowing her body to fall back against the cell wall.

A comfort was provided to her knowing that someone was waiting on the other side of the cell. If she were to suddenly stop breathing, someone would be there to put her down—to deliver the news to the others. Her situation wasn't in any way ideal, but Carl Grimes was once again granting the girl something that could never be returned—a peaceful sendoff.

The girl's lip began to quiver at the thought of this being her sendoff. Although she had all the means necessary to accept her fate, she didn't want to die. Her tears started once again, demonstrating the extra bit of life needed to do so. The girl's body sucked in sorrowful breaths that were kept no secret from Carl Grimes.

"Can I come in?" He asked once again, more-so sounding out as a hopeful plea.

Alice's tears began to intensify, losing the composed rhythm she'd once maintained. The girl shook her head, forcing her cracked voice and her tightening throat to form her desperate words. "I don't want you to see me like this."

For a few moments, the boy said nothing. It was probably for the best as Alice continued to weep behind the curtain. The girl lacked the energy necessary to contain her cries. Why did she need to grasp at whatever was left of her dignity if she was going to be dead by morning?

The girl heard motion coming from Carl's side of the wall, before something else slid underneath her curtain. Alice's eyes lead the way, before her head turned to look at what was on the floor, approaching her.

It was Carl's overturned hand, facing up. However, his open palm and fingers were encased in one of his old gardening gloves—as to protect his skin from the germ that Alice Dunlap had become. "I don't want you to do this alone."

The girl shuffled around, barely managing to pull her sweaty back off of the wall, before reaching into her waistband and removing her gun from the small of her back. She eyed the familiar weapon—the thing that'd kept her safe for so long, just to be used to end her life—before placing it into Carl's hand.

"No," Carl let out a breath. The girl watched as he gripped her gun, before turning his arm over and placing it on the floor. He then opened his palm upwards, once again, using his hand to enunciate his words. "Give me your hand."

With furrowed eyebrows that quickly softened, Alice didn't hesitate to let her fatigued hand slip into Carl's gloved one, intertwining her fingers with his. She gripped his hand as if her life depended on it. The rest of her life did depend on it.

The girl let out a breath, sinking into the comfort that his gentle grip provided her. She continued to cry, letting her sobs echo out into the empty cell block. Even though Carl was there, she still felt the same privacy and peacefulness that a vacant cell block D would've provided her. If anything, she felt better not having to do this alone. She felt somewhat prepared to face whatever was in store for her, although she wasn't ready for the possibility of her own death.

A few months ago, upon their first interaction, Alice Dunlap never would've suspected that the two would've ended up here. Although the two were part of the same group with the common goal of surviving in a world of ruins, she could've never imagined a scenario in which the boy would be there for her. And there for her he was, when she most desperately needed it.

Even after everything that'd happened to them in the last few days, she was only now beginning to feel Carl Grimes. She knew that there was so much more to be felt through the coarse fabric of the glove that separated them, but that there was a possibility that she'd never get to explore the depths of the boy sitting outside of her cell.

Alice allowed her body to slump over and rest her spinning head against the bottom bunk. Her eyelids became increasingly heavy before fluttering closed. What she thought was the catching of her own breath, was just her body no longer being able to recognize how hard her breathing had become. The pain slipped from the girl's body, leaving Carl's gloved hand to be the only thing sending a sensation across her cold skin.

With a few peaceful breaths, and the loosening of her grip on his hand, Alice's shortness of breath finally caught up to her, tugging at her consciousness and jeopardizing the possibility of her ever getting to truly feel Carl Grimes.

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3752 words
February 22, 2023
6:15 PM

A/N

I've had that last scene planned for so long you guys have NO idea. I'm kind of loving how it turned out too :P

also I'm officially on one knee proposing to all of you for blowing up my tiktoks about this book. I'm so overwhelmed with all of the support rn!!! no fr like you guys have no business being THIS awesome.

this is the first time I've uploaded "late" which is actually on time (bc I usually publish the Tuesday night before) because I've been SOOO busy these last two weeks. but all of that is over until my next wave of exams XD

disturbedia life update: I got a 48 on my bio exam but im positive I got A's on the other two even though I haven't gotten them back yet. im not a delinquent I swear. (my biology grade can still be an A at the end of the semester xoxo)

anyways thank you guys AGAIN for all of the support on this book + growth on my tiktok account!!

☆vote if u care about my well-being☆