Three Orphan Pilgrimage (The Alternative to TWDG's Final Season) [Walking Dead]

55. Proactivity

Clementine looked down at the flopping fish she had pinned to the ground with her left hand, trying not to think about the hammer she was holding in her right hand. Looking into the creature's eye, Clem couldn't help but feel it was staring right into her, begging the girl to spare her. Looking to her left, Clem saw Patty studying her carefully. The woman's face said 'do it', but her eyes said 'don't'. Looking straight ahead, Clem saw the lake sprawled out in front of her, shimmering in the midday sun, and she had a sudden urge to toss the fish back into it.

"You know it's suffocating right now." Clementine looked to her right to find Anthony looking down at her, an odd smile on his face. "Every second you just sit there, it's slowly dying and—"

"Would you shut the fuck up?" snapped Patty.

"Hey, you asked for a fishing lesson," said Anthony. "You think killing fish would be easy after killing people all day."

"Walkers aren't people," argued Patty. "Not anymore."

"Fish were never people, but you—"

Clementine brought the hammer down onto the fish's head, then quickly hit it twice more before breathing out. The fish was still now, its head slightly deformed from the blows and its eye now crushed into a gray goo. Clem tossed the hammer aside and took a couple of deep breaths. Looking down at the now lifeless creature, she felt a tinge of sadness stinging at her heart.

"I didn't like doing it either," whispered Patty as she moved in close behind Clem. "But it's done now."

"Yeah..." said Clem in a quiet voice. "Now I... I gotta cut it up right?"

"Yeah, but don't worry, I'll help you," assured Patty.

"You two gut people all the time to smear on raincoats, but get squeamish around cutting open a fish," mused Anthony.

"Why don't you fuck off for a while?" suggested an irritated Patty.

"Whatever." Anthony walked away, moving towards a lawn chair sitting near the lake shore that had a fishing rod leaning against it.

"God that guy pisses me off," grumbled Patty. "He's always looking for any chance he can to talk down to us."

"It is weird though," admitted Clem as she looked at the dead fish. "I've had to do things that were way worse than this, but for some reason this still bothers me."

"Maybe it's because you didn't necessarily have to do this?" suggested Patty. "We have to eat, and we probably should be learning how to do it off the land sooner instead of later, but still, it's our choice to kill a fish to do it; feels different than having to kill something because it might kill you."

"Yeah, I guess that's it," said Clem. "Most of the stuff I've had to kill would have killed me if it didn't. I even had to shoot a dog once."

"You shot a dog?" asked a surprised Patty. "Why?"

"It bit me," explained Clem as she rolled up her left sleeve. "And it just kept growling at me, like it was going to bite me again."

"Jesus..." Clem watched as Patty traced her fingers across the scar on her forearm.

"I didn't like shooting it, but I was scared of what would happen if I didn't," said Clem as she pulled her sleeve down. "But this fish never could have hurt me, even if it wanted to."

"Yeah, unless we don't butcher it right," said Patty as she handed Clem a long knife. "Then we'll all be hurting from food poisoning, or worse."

"And that will mean we killed it for no reason."