ALL NOVEL S2E50 – Planning for the Future
[1st Person POV]
“Ugh…”
I wake up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. My body is sweating, and my throat feels absolutely parched. Each breath feels scratchy. As I lift my arm up to try and wipe some of the sweat from my brows, I notice that the feeling in them is nearly completely gone.
“Hurgh…”
I just barely manage to flip over to my side, away from Clem. As I try to stand between the front seats, my legs give out, and I fall down onto my hands and knees.
“Wh-What the fuck is happening…”
I manage to crawl onto the passenger seat and weakly bring my hand up, reaching into my inventory space and bringing out a bottle of water. I try to twist off the cap, but my arms are so weak that I can barely hold up the bottle. I just barely manage to squeak out a call for help,
“Cle…m…”
However, my call is so quiet that I doubt she would’ve heard it even if she were awake.
Slowly, over the next few minutes, the weakness in my body leaves just enough for me to get some water in me. I’m about to call for Clem again when a screen pops up in front of me,
[Limits exceeded!]
[+3 to all stats]
After this screen pops up, all the pain in my body dissipates as though it were nothing but a dream. The exhaustion from the pain causes me to drift back off to sleep, slumping over in the chair.
—————————
Four hours later, I find myself being stirred awake by the menacing glare of the sun bouncing off the chrome of the old pickup truck in front of the house. As I start to fully wake up and wipe the sleep from my eyes, I give my body a little stretch.
Bones pop all over my body, relieving the stiff feeling from sleeping in the chair. As I open my eyes and look out over the horizon, I notice something… Strange… I can see things… Things that should be so far away that they should blend together. It’s nothing insane like being able to make out each individual leaf on a tree a mile away. But more like… I can make out their general shapes. It’s not one giant green blob anymore, but a collection of smaller green blobs if that makes any sense.
I also notice that my mind is a lot clearer than before. Where yesterday I was pretty much kaput in the whole brain department, I’m able to think clearly. More clear than the day before, too.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a small group forming. Namely, Jaqui, Dale, Daryl, Jim, and Rick. Shane is also there, but he’s keeping watch over the perimeter. I notice them taking out a map and discussing something.
As I take a deep breath, I open up the door to the truck and head out to meet them. Walking towards the group, I straighten up my clothing and do my best hand brushing of my hair. Though, no amount of hand brushing will fix the mess that it’s become since I cut off my ponytail. I’ll have to get someone to cut it. I see Hershel making his way up as well. Alright, let’s get started.
I walk up to the group and give them a small smile and a raised hand. I look towards the group and ask,
“Alright, what we talking about?”
Daryl speaks up first,
“We were trying to come up with a plan for that prison you mentioned before.”
I nod my head and say,
“Alright, whatcha guys got so far?”
Rick motions to the map, which I see is a hand drawn map of the prison. I furrow my eyebrows and say,
“Uh, who drew the map?”
Rick says,
“Glen did. While you guys were out trying to get food, Glen had the idea of scouting out the prison to try and get some kind of idea of how we could possibly take it over.”
I nod my head and motion for him to continue on,
“So, I’m thinkin’ that we should all go around the inside fences with some spears, stabbing through the fence. We draw the walkers over and get them distracted while one of us goes up and locks the upper gate, letting us clear the yard.”
I stop him there. This was one of my biggest gripes with the prison arc,
“Uhm, just a question. Why go inside at all? If we go early in the morning we’ll be able to clear the entire thing out most likely. And it isn’t like we’re in a rush anyway, we could take our time with it. Though I do want us to clear it out as soon as possible so we can stop intruding on Hershel here.”
Hershel nods his head at what I say. Rick looks back down at the map and says,
“You’re right. I don’t know why I was wantin’ us to risk ourselves like that.”
I point at the prison itself and say,
“I’m worried about clearing out the inside. For all we know, there could still be prisoners living in there. I’m not opposed to letting prisoners live with us, depending on what got them in there. Theft? Sure, they’re fine. Murderers and rapists? Better off with a bullet in ‘em in my opinion. “
Rick nods with me, as do most of the group aside from Dale who speaks up about his views,
“Why kill them when we could always lock them up? I mean we would be in a prison after all. Or we could even exile them.”
I notice that he doesn’t have that look he had in the show, but instead shows genuine confusion. I speak to him,
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the modern civilized world it used to be. Not only would they be a drain on valuable resources, but they’d also be a security risk. If one of them manages to escape they could cause havoc and kill many, many people in the dead of night. And exiling is an even worse idea. We don’t know if there’s any big violent groups around us like those guys we dealt with yesterday.”
Dale nods his head, but says,
“I still believe that they shouldn’t just be killed, but I can see where you’re coming from.”
The next couple hours are spent debating on different strategies, trying to come up with the best way to clear out the prison.
As I’m taking out an MRE for breakfast, I see Amy walking towards me with a look of frustration.
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