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

104. Future Proof

Clementine wheezed and gasped for air as she forced herself to keep pedaling. She had to travel quite a few more miles then she expected before she could reach the others on the radio. When she finally did and reported the good news that she had found food, Sabriya told her to wait by the road and they'd pick Clem up in the bus. A minute later Sabriya called back with the bad news the bus wouldn't start.

With the biting cold growing worse with every mile, Clem searched the immediate area for shelter. Up ahead was a depilated trailer awkwardly wedged between the road and the canyon wall. Swerving over to it and hopping off her bike, Clem reached for her gun only to remember it wasn't there. She groaned as she looked at the front door, dreading there could be a walker inside. She winched as she gripped her tomahawk and pulled the door open.

Clem couldn't see much of what was inside, so she banged her weapon on the door frame a few times. Only silence followed, and carefully exploring the interior revealed no signs of threat, nor anything of interest. Whoever lived here was long gone and left nothing but a mess of wrappers and empty containers for her to find. Wandering into what remained of the bedroom, Clem collapsed onto the bed. The mattresses was so worn out she practically sunk into it, and all the water stains on it made her think she should keep her mask on as much as possible.

Throwing off her backpack, Clem dug out her canteen and drank what little water she had left. It was so cold it hurt her cracked throat, and just removing her mask for a second was enough to get a whiff of the thick mildew hanging in the air. Looking around at her surroundings, this stinking wreck of a drafty trailer, Clem realized it wasn't much worse than the bus, and she briefly wondered if there was anywhere left on Earth that wasn't another festering shithole.

Her own thoughts gnawing away at her waning willpower, Clem started digging through her backpack, desperate to distract herself long enough to catch her breath. She had a can opener, her utensils, a toothbrush, and a can of spray paint leftover from yesterday when she left the 'CERES' code on a road sign, for all the good that had done. She hadn't thought to pack a book or anything else to keep herself entertained, so she just picked up her copy of Jet's guide. Looking on the back she saws the words 'Don't Panic' written in silver, and smirked.

Flipping through the pages, Clem wondered if it would have been better to stay wait in Tulsa like everyone had wanted. She had argued with them to start a farm because she wanted a future, but now she was thinking those two years they may have had really was the most she could have hoped for. Back then, she wanted to see Omid grow up. Now, she'd settle for him just being happy for a little while before the next inevitable disaster.

Looking at one of the pages, Clem noticed something written in the margins, and it wasn't her handwriting. She must have taken Eskiya's guide by mistake and upon realizing that found herself instinctively looking over her shoulder. She half-expected Eskiya to be behind her right now, as if she had summoned him by reading a spell from his book. He wasn't of course and once Clem accepted that she turned back to the guide.

Clem's first thought was to close the book and not pry into Eskiya's personal thoughts. Her next thought was realizing he wouldn't offer her the same privacy. Looking at the writing closely though, Clem realized she couldn't actually read it. She knew the letters, but they weren't arranged in a way that made any sense to her, with the words just reading as gibberish to her. Either Eskiya wrote in another language, was writing in code, or both. Whatever the case, she had no chance of deciphering it.

Flipping fruitlessly through the guide, Clem found a large pouch with single page tucked in it at the very back. Pulling it out, Clem recognized it as the small maps Jet printed up that showed people where they had been. Examining this one, Clem saw that Eskiya had made great use of this map. She couldn't read his writing, but all the marks and scribbles over entire states painted a pretty stark picture of how much of the country was effectively a dead-end.