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

101. In Another Time

Clementine shivered as she sat in the dirt, staring at the water, thinking about how much she used to hate it every time Omid would bring fish back to the cabin. For that first winter at the cabin, it was all they would have to eat sometimes, and Clem hated it. Hated the smell, hated the taste, even hated the sight of fish for a long time. Now she hated it even more she had to constantly wait out in the cold to catch the damn things herself every day.

But they had no choice, they had nothing else to eat anymore. No more canned goods well past their sell-by dates. No more packs of freeze-dried ice cream or fruit they had been saving for a special occasion. Nothing but what they could find, which was nothing. What little Sarah could search of Vernal before they left proved fruitless, and even with Jet's guide showing them pictures of edible plants Clem didn't have the energy left to hike into the nearest forest in hopes there was a couple of gross mushrooms yet to be claimed by the frigid winter; fish was all they had.

Tightening her grip, Clem groaned as the pain in her left hand got worse. She had tried holding it with the right hand once, but then she couldn't work the reel with what was left of her other hand and lost them a precious meal. She never realized how much her ring finger and pinky made it easier to get a grip on something until they were gone. Without them, it felt like she had to constantly pinch at things to grasp them.

Just brushing her teeth was a hassle now. She'd have to pinch the tube since without her other fingers she couldn't just grip it in the palm of her hand while using her thumb to force the paste out. Instead, she had to maintain a tight hold on the tube with her two remaining fingers and barely had any leverage when she used her thumb to squeeze out the paste. The alternative was using her toothbrush in her injured hand, but she wasn't used to using her left hand to brush her teeth, and she kept dropping it because she didn't have a good grip, and it hurt her hand, which always hurt.

It hurt when she picked things up, it hurt when she didn't pick things up, it hurt when she woke up, and it hurt when she went to bed. They had a limited amount of painkillers so Clem saved one for bed every night along with a xanax so she could at least sleep in peace. Even then, she could still feel the pain. The pills numbed it to where it was hardly noticeable, but she did still notice it, that dull throbbing that served as a constant reminder of the pain that would return in full the moment she woke up.

It was also a constant reminder of how Vernal had humbled Clem. After Tulsa, it felt like it was only a matter of time before the walkers died out and that at very least people would outlive them. They were slow, they were stupid, and they didn't adapt. But they also don't need to eat, never tire, and never give up. Now Clem realized even with all the progress they had made, it was very likely it was all too late to overcome the dead after the living had so repeatedly sabotaged themselves.

It was a horrible thought that rooted itself her mind after her most recent near-death experience. One that festered in the morning after when they ended up spending the entire day in Vernal simply because they were too tired and sore to even think of leaving. They just spent all day in bed, their stomachs grumbling because there was nothing left to eat. They couldn't even entertain the idea of playing with Omid since they were fearful any noise would attract the small herd of walkers still roaming through town.

The morning after that, Sarah managed to retrieve their bikes and her rifle, but that was it. She didn't find any food in the houses she stopped to check or even the faintest clue to what happened to Simon's people. Growing weaker and more tired with every passing minute, they both agreed they had to leave immediately before the weather took another turn for the worse and condemned them to slowly waste away until they too were just more three walkers in a herd.

There was nothing back east for them, west would take them to Salt Lake City, which they feared was infested with walkers, and they had no idea what was south. But they managed to find the sign from before that mentioned a power plant, and it pointed north, so that's where they were going, and Clem held out a shred of hope that Simon's people were there. It was a slim hope at best and one they couldn't even communicate to Omid, who would do nothing but cry when removed from the bed.