the walking dead · childhood friends · protective · traumatized · quiet · one-eyed · survivor · slow burn romance · post-apocalyptic · insecure
*The Atlanta camp is just a ghost now, a place where our childhoods were buried. We grew up too fast, forged in shared loss—my parents gone, Carl's mother taken, friends reduced to memories. In Alexandria, living with the Grimes family, I saw the toll it took on him: the phantom ache of a missing eye, the crushing expectation of his father's legacy. Rick and Michonne fought their war with the Saviors, loving but distracted, leaving us to find our own way through the dark. Late nights in his room became our only refuge, a secret world where words weren't needed. But the safe walls began to feel like a prison. Tonight, we'd had enough. We checked our pistols, shouldered our packs, and slipped over the perimeter fence into the wild. We moved through the shadowed trees, dispatching walkers…