67. greatmm

MILO

      SILENCE WAS RINGING THROUGH HIS EARS, the ground crumbling beneath his feet as he tried to keep his balance. He couldn't. He squatted down, his head in his hands as he tried to make sense of it all.

The world couldn't be saved.

They were doomed to live like this forever. There was no end to the suffering, the corpses and the pain. It had all been a lie. He believed in a better future, a better tomorrow, only to have it all taken away again.

'Y-you are a scientist,' Rosita was the first one to speak up, 'I've seen the things that you can do.'

'I just know things,' Eugene mumbled.

'You just..."know things"?' Glenn repeated, his voice breaking.

'I know I'm smarter than most people, I know I'm a very good liar, and I know I needed to get to D.C.'

'Why?' Maggie questioned sadly.

'Because I do believe that locale holds the strongest possibility for survival, and I wanted to survive,' he admitted. 'If I could cheat some people into taking me there, well, I just reasoned that I'd be doin' them a solid, too, considering the perilous state of the city of Houston, the state of everything.'

Abraham slowly sat down on the ground. The look on his face like one of a man whose world just shattered. He'd been living for this one goal, it was what kept him going and now it was gone. Milo could only imagine the void he felt.

'People died trying to get you here,' Rosita said, her voice angry but sad at the same time.

'I'm aware of that,' Eugene spoke. 'Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk and Josephine. And Bob.'

At the mention of his friend Milo felt anger burn through his state of shock for the first time since the truth came out. It burned all his compassion for the man away, all his confusion about having this suddenly taken away and even the guilt of leaving his sister behind. The flame burned inside of him and he could barely stand the sight of the man before him.

'You see, I lost my nerve as we grew closer...for I'm a coward...,' Eugene went on explaining but Milo no longer wanted to hear it. 'And the reality of getting to our destination and disclosing the truth of the matter became some truly frightening shit. I took it upon myself to slow our roll. Find time to finesse things so then when we got there...But at this moment, I fully realise there are no longer any agreeable options. I was screwed either way...'

Milo scoffed but didn't reply, just shook his head. He was screwed and so decided it was okay to screw some people along the way too. Give them hope when there was none. He should've seen it coming, should've known it wasn't that easy. But he fell for it and now he felt like an idiot.

'I also lied about T. Brooks Ellis liking my hair,' Eugene went on and it took everything within him to not shut the scientist up with a punch to his face. 'I do not know T. Brooks Ellis. But I did read some of his books and he seemed like the type of guy that wouldn't blink twice at a Tennesse Top Hat. Again...I am smarter than you. Now you may wanna leave me here but...'

They would never know what he wanted to say because Abraham jumped up from the ground and punched Eugene straight in the face. And despite the situation Milo almost laughed. But when the soldier threw in another punch, and another, Eugene turned awfully still and fell to the ground.

'No,' Glenn mumbled.

Abraham was about to storm towards the man once again but Rosita jumped between them, her hand on her gun, a warning glare on her face, daring Abraham to touch him.

The soldier seemed to understand her warning, stumbled backwards before falling down on his knees on the asphalt.

Milo watched on as the others tried to get Eugene to talk, to react or do something but he lay motionless on the ground. Not dead but probably in shock.

Well, he wasn't the only one.

Glenn was the first one to step away, taking a deep shaky breath before turning around and walking down the road, his expression completely numb.

Gathering the last bit of strength he had within him, Milo pushed himself back on his feet and walked after him. No one should be alone right now.

He found his friend just around the corner of the road, staring at the crazy amount of walkers far ahead of them. Finally a herd so big that it caused enough trouble for Eugene to open his mouth and spill out the truth. The corpses hadn't moved yet and so it appeared that all the noise they just made, hadn't drawn their attention.

Milo came to a halt next to his friend, letting a silence fall between them. There really wasn't much to say. The explanation from the, apparently, fake scientist had taken all their words away. All their dreams about a new world, a place where they could do better. Now all there was left was this endless darkness they'd been stuck in since the prison fell. Milo couldn't help but fear for his friends. No human being could stay in darkness for too long without becoming it. He'd seen it happen to Rick and was starting to see it within Quinn too. He still didn't know the exact details on what happened with her on the road but somewhere between losing Beth and escaping Terminus, she'd grown cold. He didn't want the darkness to swallow anymore of his friends. He just had no idea how to do it. He couldn't save anyone, couldn't offer a better future or a peaceful home. And so the only question remaining was...

'What do we do now?'

Glenn blinked, as if not noticing Milo before and being slightly startled that he was here. He shook his head, moving his hand through his hair to get it out of his face. 'I-I,' he started, then took a deep breath. 'I don't know.'

Milo nodded, finding some comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one feeling lost. 'Let's get back to the others and figure it out,' he mumbled, suddenly feeling incredibly tired.

Glenn nodded, turning around and heading back to the broken down Fire Truck around the corner. Milo followed him with a heavy heart, afraid of what they'd find but the scene wasn't much different than how they left it.

Abraham was still sitting on his knees, staring at nothing with a numb expression. Maggie and Rosita were knelt down beside Eugene, who was still out cold and Tara was ordering their water rations.

'They have no clue we're here,' Glenn told Tara, looking at her work.

'That's great news for GREATMM,' she said, then added: 'In less great news for GREATMM, we just scraped the bottom of the water barrel.'

Milo frowned. 'What's GREATMM?'

Tara gestured towards the plastic bottles she organised, each with a letter written on the lid. 'Us. Group name. Solidarity. Band of brothers. GREATMM.' She reached for the bottle with the "G" written on it and handed it to Glenn. 'Thinking about getting a tattoo on my knuckles.'

Milo reached for one of the bottles with the "M" on it and despite the situation, the smallest of smiles appeared on his face. But it disappeared as soon as he noticed the bottle wasn't even half full.

'I'm sorry,' Tara sighed, 'I'm just trying to think of something else, you know?'

Glenn nodded. 'Yeah.'

Footsteps approached from his left and he turned to see Maggie and Rosita had come to join them. Worry was written all over their faces.

'Anything?' Tara questioned.

'No,' Maggie replied.

Silence fell as each of them tried to think of the options they had. There weren't many but there was one that seemed like the most logical thing to do, maybe the only thing and it was Glenn who voiced it.

'Should we get him to the church?'

'Moving him could make him worse,' Maggie said, sounding so much like her father that Milo felt his heart clench in sudden, unexpected pain.

'What will make him better?' Rosita questioned.

'Waking up,' Maggie sighed. 'If he doesn't...' She fell silent, her unspoken words hung like a death sentence in the air.

Rosita nodded curtly, then took Abraham's bottle and walked up to the man, probably to try and get some reaction out of him.

Milo turned his back to them, giving them some privacy. The girl could pretend to be tough all she wanted but everytime she looked at the soldier her eyes softened with so much live that it was almost painful to look at. Or maybe that was just his interpretation of it. Whatever it was, it was best left between the two of them.

He walked to the front of the truck, not even bothering to spend a second glance at Eugene. It was that herd, even though they hadn't moved, that had him worried. Walkers could move with a scary speed and even worse, they never got tired. Whereas their group was exhausted, vulnerable and completely out of resources.

'Milo,' Glenn called out his name, walking around the truck. 'We're going to look for water. You coming?'

He nodded, desperate for something to do and get his mind off things. Following Glenn back towards the others, they got their gear and moved into the woods. Apparently Rosita had seen a creek on the map and she led them through the woods with determinate steps.

They crossed a clearing with a fallen tree in the middle of it, pinning down three walkers beneath it.

'Just stay down guys,' Tara told them, 'don't get up. There's nothing for you in Washington.'

'That's not funny,' Rosita said, her voice cold.

'It's not, not, not funny,' Tara countered.

'Hey, I get that we're dealing with things in different ways...' Glenn started but was interrupted by Tara. 'Listen! I don't know what to do without D.C anymore. But I'm not dealing with it. I'm over it. I just want him to be okay. Eugene wasn't strong. He isn't fast. He doesn't know how to use a weapon. Truth hurts but he was useless. He had one skill that kept him living. Are we supposed to be mad at him 'cause he used it?'

'Damn right,' Milo replied, tightening the grip on his gun.

Those words seemed to be a sign for Tara for shut her mouth and Milo was almost glad she did. He wasn't ready to even think about forgiving Eugene.

They reached the creek in silence and watched as Glenn took his water bottle and filled it bit the water was brown and definitely did not look drinkable.

'Perfect,' Glenn sighed.

'You think it's any clearer upstream?' Tara asked.

'Probably not,' Rosita replied while started to tear part of her sleeve off. 'Doesn't matter.' She walked over to Glenn. 'Let me see.'

He handed her bottle and the three of them watched as she started working on a water filter and not even two minutes later she was done. Watching as she water slowly dripped into the bucket they brought, clean.

'So, you just built a water filter in about two minutes, huh?' Tara noted.

'Eugene taught me,' Rosita explained. 'Takes a while, but it will be clear. Then we can boil it.'

'Where you with Abraham before it all happened?' Tara questioned out of the nowhere.

Milo half expected Rosita not to answer and felt slightly surprised when she did.

'No,' she started, 'no, I was with other people just trying to make it.'

'How'd you wind up together?' Glenn asked.

'We crossed paths in Dallas. Me and my group, we were fighting off some dead ones and he jumped in from out of nowhere with that big truck. Rest in peace,' she slightly smiled at the memory. 'He had Eugene in the cab. And afterwards he told me he was trying to save the world. And that he saw what I could do and that he wanted my help.' She let a short silence fall, seeming to gather her thoughts. 'He was the first person to ask me for that since this all started.' She chuckled softly. 'Maybe he was lying, too.'

Milo couldn't find words to reply to that and let his gaze travel over the creek instead, frowning when he noticed a ripple not far away. 'You see that?' He asked, pointing towards where he saw it. 'Those ripples, those are fish,' he explained upon seeing their confused gazes.

'Okay, how?' Tara asked slowly.

'Come on,' Glenn said, seeming almost excited at the discovery. He walked back towards the fallen three with the Walkers beneath it and killed them with ease, starting to take off their vests.

Milo realised what he was doing and walked to the last Walker alive, driving his axe through its skull. Then he pulled the piece of cloth from around the corpse its shoulder and carefully pulled the mesh that was on the inside, free.

They walked back to the creek while Rosita bound the different pieces of mesh together. Glenn and Rosita made their way into the water while Milo stood guard and Tara opened the bag she found at the tree.

His eyes scanned the treeline when laughter reached his ear. Milo turned to see Rosita laugh with triomph as Glenn held up the fish they caught in the self-made net.

'Guys!' Tara called out, making the three of them turn to look at her. 'You will never believe what's in this bag.'

Milo frowned, walking up to her and almost burst out in laughter upon seeing her hold a yo-yo in her hand. She looked as happy as a kid in a candy store and he could hardly understand why, all he knew was that her expression made him wanna laugh.

Shaking his head, Glenn walked up to them, a small smile tugging at his lips. Then he gestured towards the forest. 'We should head back.'

They gathered their stuff and made their way back, Tara smiling all the while because of the toy she found.

'You know, the more I think about,' Glenn started, looking at her overjoyed face, 'maybe it wasn't completely not, not, not funny.'

A radiant smile appeared on her face and she nodded. And somehow her warm expression made his chest glow and finally a chuckle escaped from his lips, the lie that had gotten them here forgotten, even if it was for just a second. It was going to be hard but somehow he knew, they were going to be just fine.

A U T H O R 'S   N O T E

Hi guys, I'm back!

Sorry it took so long for this chapter to be published but school has kept me very busy and I'm sick as well so yeah. Life isn't going very great at the moment but at least being sick means I get to stay home and write a little. So, I hope this chapter doesn't suck that much and if it does, I'm sorry but I can't really do any better right now.

Also, I'm really sorry to say that school has forced me remove the monday from my update scedule. I really can't keep up three updates a week anymore now that I'm so busy. So, updates will be on saturdays and wednesdays and maybe I'll update on mondays in the hollidays but for now, that's simply not possible.

Thank you so much for reading, please leave your thoughts in the comments and give this chapter a vote! Also, prepare yourself for saturday because the next chapter is going to be quite a ride.

Much love,

xXx

UYM