I woke up the next morning in pure fear because of the strange feeling of something holding me. All that fear washed away when I rolled over and saw Daryl sleeping soundly. I sighed and just watched him breathe. His muscular chest slowly rising and falling, his eyelids moving around slightly. I could tell he was dreaming, I moved a strand of his hair from his face causing him to stir a bit but not enough to wake him up. I gently removed his arm from around my waist and got out of bed. I grabbed an outfit for the day making sure to wear something that would cover up all the new bruises. I grabbed the same towel from last night and got into the shower. There was still plenty of hot water left over which I mentally thanked a god I didn't believe in.

I stood there for a minute letting the warm water melt away my worries. Then it hit me. Like a truck going 80 on a highway. Shane, the rape, everything from last night came flooding back. My heart dropped and along with it I did too. I fell to the ground and sat on the floor with my knees pulled into my chest. I cried hard but made sure it wasn't loud enough to wake up Daryl. He needed sleep and I knew that. After about 5-10 minutes of crying I grabbed a clean washcloth and started to scrape at my body. And yes I mean scrape, not scrub. I needed to get Shane off of me. I scraped until my skin was red. The one part that I felt the most dirty I scraped until I couldn't feel anything at all.

I got out and looked in the mirror. The bruises are much more prominent now. Full hand prints on my thighs, finger prints beaded themselves into my arms and sides. I looked at everything that he did to me and I blamed myself.

'If I wasn't there this wouldn't have happened. If I just stayed in bed.' I started to mentally beat myself up over this. I pulled on my black panties and black lace bra. I didn't really want to wear that one but it was the only one not dirty at the moment. I pulled on a maroon red bodysuit and my black cargo pants with some socks. I let my hair fall and do it's natural wave. I wanted to hide the gash on my head as best as possible. When I walked out Daryl was sitting on the bed waiting for me.

"Mornin' little bird." He said with a gruff morning voice that would usually make me melt but after last night it barely phased me.

"Morning." I said sitting next to him pulling on my boots. I let my hair fall in front of my face. I knew that if Daryl saw my head he would ask what happened and I knew for a fact he wouldn't buy my bullshit 'I tripped and fell' story.

"Um...about last night." He said, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Yeah?"

'Great, he regrets it and now he doesn't want anything to do with you, nice going Raven.' My inner voice screamed at me.

"I...Uh...I'm not good at this. Words." He paused and got up chewing on the side of his thumb. I noticed he did that when he was worried or nervous about something.

"I like you Raven. God that makes me sound like I'm in high school again." I stood up and placed one hand on his face and with my other hand I grabbed the hand he was chewing on.

"Daryl, I like you too. And I don't care how cliché that sounds." I smiled and he hugged me nuzzling his head into the crook of my neck. I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried not to cry out as he squeezed me tighter.

"Alright now redneck. Shower. You smell like sweat and booze." I said laughing and gently pushing him away from me. He gave me an angry face and crossed his arms. He looked like a kid throwing a temper tantrum.

"Don't look at me like that. Go." I said, pushing him towards the bathroom.

"Fine if you kiss me." He said planting his feet firmly in the ground outside of the bathroom. I got on my tippy toes and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. He immediately kissed me back, grabbing my hips and pulling me closer to him. I smiled against his lips and pulled away.

"Now go." I said with a stern voice and a smile on my face. He nodded and walked into the bathroom. I grabbed his towel from last night and sat it on the counter. After I finished getting ready and strapping my handgun to my thigh I walked out to find everyone.

I walked into the cafeteria and found T-dog making some scrambled eggs and everyone looked hung over as fuck. Especially Glenn. He looked the worst out of us all. Rick walked in and sat down next to Lori.

"Hello." He said to the group.

"Morning." Dale said to him.

"Are you hung over? Mom said you'd be." Carl asked his dad with a big goofy grin on his face. I walked over, got some coffee and leaned against the counter across from Lori and Carl but behind Dale and Glenn. I looked at Lori and she looked at me. I gave her a soft smile and nodded at her as a silent 'don't worry. I'm here if you need to talk and I won't say anything.' Lori nodded back at me.

"Mom is right." Rick said with a smile on his face.

"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori said with a fake smile and giggle. Carl laughed and kept eating his breakfast.

"Eggs. Powdered, but... but I do 'em good. I bet you can't tell." T-dog said coming over with a pan full of eggs. He offered it to me and I just shook my head while raising my coffee. He walked over to the table and put some on people's plates. That's when Glenn started moaning and groaning. Jacqui came in and was looking over Glenn. He walked over to Glenn and dumped some eggs on his plate.

"Protein helps the hangover." T-dog said to Glenn who just moaned some more. I giggled at him and Rick held up a bottle of aspirin.

"Where'd all this come from?" He asked Lori while trying to open the bottle of pills.

"Jenner." Rick gave up and handed the bottle to Lori.

"Could you help me, please?" She opened the bottle.

"He thought we could use it. Some of us at least." She said looking over at Glenn.

"Thank you." Rick said to Lori.

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn said. I giggled.

"Don't worry Glenn. You get used to it." I said grabbing some more coffee. Glenn just shook his head and immediately regretted doing so.

"Hey." A voice came from behind me. Shane. I felt my whole body tense up and I could feel my eyes beginning to water. But I toughened up and turned around.

"Hey." Rick said back to him. Shane walked over to get some coffee. He looked right at me and I thought I was going to puke. I pushed past him and sat on the counter I was originally leaning against.

"Hey Rick. Toss me those?" I said pointing to the Aspirin on the table. He nodded and threw them at me. I caught them with ease and took 4 of them. Yeah I know you're only supposed to take like 2 but, my head and body were in pain.

"Feel as bad as I do?" Rick asked Shane as I tossed him back the pills.

"Worse." Was all Shane said.

'Yeah I fucking doubt that you rapist.' I said in my head, scowling at him. I looked away before anyone noticed well, except Lori. She saw me giving him the stink eye and she shook her head, I just nodded and drank my coffee. Lori couldn't even look at him after he almost raped her and here I am plotting to cut his dick off and feed it to him.

"The hell happened to you? Your neck?" I heard T-dog say. My head shot up begging he wasn't talking to me and he wasn't he was talking about the 3 long scratches on Shane's neck. I looked at Lori with a

'Did you do that?' face and she shook her head. Then I realized it must have been me when I was trying to escape from him the first time. Shane sat down at the end of the table.

"I must have done it in my sleep." Shane said, looking at T-dog.

"Never seen you do that before." Rick said to him

"Me neither." Shane said with defeat in his voice.

"Not like me at all." Shane said, looking at Lori and then me. I looked away from him and stared at my coffee. The dark black color looked just like I felt. Black, dark, a void of space. We all sat quite for a minute then Doctor Jenner walked in.

"Morning." He said to the group walking over to the coffee maker.

"Hey, Doc." Shane said as Jenner walked past him.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." Dale started saying as Jenner poured his coffee.

"But you will anyway." Jenner said, cutting Dale off.

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea said. Jenner turned and faced the whole group. Daryl walked in and grabbed some coffee and some eggs and stood next to me.

"Alright follow me." Jenner said and we all followed him back to the big room.

Jenner walked over to a computer and sat his coffee down.

"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner called out to Vi.

"Play back of TS-19" She said in response as a big screen pulled up a video.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner said as the screen fully loaded. I stayed kinda close to Jenner trying to stay far enough away from Shane. Daryl came and stood by me, his hand lightly brushing mine. We didn't want the whole group to know about us. Not yet anyway, so we refrained from showing any major affection, no more than what we usually did. It's not like we were official yet. The screen loaded up a visual of a human brain.

"Is that a brain?" Carl said standing next to Jenner.

"An extraordinary one." Jenner said to Carl who got a smile on his face.

"Not that it matters in the end." Jenner said kinda to himself but, also to the group.

"Take us in for E.I.V.." Jenner called out to Vi.

"Enhance internal view." She said as the camera zoomed in closer to the brain. We all watched in awe as the video got closer to the brain. It was like watching lightning across a blue clouded sky. It was beautiful.

"What are those lights?" Shane said sitting about 5 feet away from Daryl and I. I had leaned over the computer and was watching. Daryl did the same as me.

"It's a person's life...Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you." Jenner explained almost like a college professor teaching his students. And we all sat and took in everything he was saying.

"The thing that makes you unique. And human." Jenner finished.

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl said, crossing his arms and looking at Jenner. I hugged him and he gave me a 'What did I do?' face. I just shook my head as Jenner continued to speak.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain, that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks, from the moment of birth to the moment of death." Jenner stared at the screen.

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick said, walking towards Jenner.

"Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil." Jenner told Rick.

"This person died? Who?" Andrea said, leaning against one of the computers. It didn't phase me all that much. I just watched the beauty of it all. Like a laser show of someone's life.

"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected... and volunteered to have us record the process." Jenner said, looking at Andrea then back at the screen. I noticed sadness in Jenners eyes. He wasn't telling us something about this person.

"Vi, scan forward to the first event." He called out.

"Scanning to the first event." She responded as the screen moved forward at a fast pace then stopped and continued playing in normal time. We all watched as a black shadow started to cover parts of the brain.

"What is that?" Glenn asked from the back of the room.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs" Jenner said as we watched the person on the video struggle and then the whole brain went black. Like someone turned off the lights.

"Then death." Jenner said after the person died.

"Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone." Jenner said, looking back at us and stopping at me.

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked her mom.

"Yes." Carol said, nodding her head and then hugging her daughter close. Andrea took a deep breath and tried to keep from bawling.

"She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori said looking at Jenner who was looking at Andrea. He walked over to her and leaned close.

"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." He said, trying to give her some sort of comfort.

"Scan to the second event." Jenner called out walking back to the front of the group.

"Scanning to the second event." Vi called over the speakers and we all waited for the next screen to load.

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as 3 minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours." Jenner said as the next video loaded up onto the screen.

"In the case of this patient, it was 2 hours, 1 minute, and 7 seconds." Jenner said trailing off. Then I knew that this patient was someone he knew and someone he was close to, because that was strange that he knew the exact time when it wasn't even on the screen. We all watched as red lights started to spark in the lower part of the brain.

"It restarts the brain?" I asked out loud.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving." Jenner answered my question looking over at me.

"But, they're not alive?" Rick said, walking closer to Jenner.

"You tell me." Jenner said to him, gesturing to the screen.

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick said, looking at the screen.

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part...That doesn't come back. The 'you' part. Just a shell. Driven by mindless instinct." Jenner said to him while watching the screen. Then we all saw a flash and something went straight through the person's brain. A bullet. I knew that much.

"God. What was that?" Carol asked.

"A bullet." I said, staring at the screen

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea finished saying my thoughts.

"Didn't you?" Andrea asked Jenner.

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations." Jenner said, walking away from us all.

"Powering down the main screen and workstations." Vi said as we heard everything shut down around us except the lights.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea said, now starting to freak out. Jenner looked defeated.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Jenner said to us all.

"Or the wrath of god?" Jacqui said. Personally I didn't believe in a god.

"There is that." Jenner said to Jacqui.

"Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea said I knew she was looking for even a sliver of hope but she wasn't going to find it.

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol said, trying to give Andrea that hope she was longing for.

"There may be some. People like me." Jenner said, it was like the whole group was attacking him at this point.

"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick said, filling the group with a new found doubt. Well not all of us.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives...all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner defended himself.

"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing?" Andrea paused.

"That's what you're really saying, right?" She finished and there was a long pause. Rick looked defeated; he had thought we were somewhere good. That Jenner would be able to help us but, he only knew a bit more than we did.

"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again." Daryl said, walking away.

"That makes two of us. Wait for me." I said following him. I could feel Shane's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but...that clock...it's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asked and this stopped Daryl and I in our tracks and sure enough there was a clock on the wall with big red numbers counting down from an hour.

'Great! What else could be added to this amazing week!?' I said sarcastically to myself.

"The basement generators...they run out of fuel." Jenner said and walked away.

"And then?" Rick asked him, but Jenner just kept walking out.

"Vi, What happens when the power runs out?" Rick called out to the computer system.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi said and this caused the whole group to panic.

"Men come with me we're gonna check out those generators, everyone else just go back to your rooms and we'll come get you." Rick said and the guys followed him. Daryl looked and me and I nodded at him to go and he followed after him.

"Come on guys. You heard Rick lets go." I said walking out of the big room and headed to mine and Daryl's room. I was cleaning up my stuff. I had washed all my dirty clothes in the shower and hung them to dry on the towel rack and over the couch. I was packing up my dry clothes when I heard a knock on my door. I turned around and it was Lori.

"Raven, I wanted to give you a proper thank you for helping me with Shane last night." She said walking in and sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Lori, you don't have to thank me. Anyone would have done the same thing."

"Yeah, but if you weren't there I..." She started to cry.

"Hey, come here." I hugged her and rubbed her back.

"Don't think about it, okay. Everything is fine now. You have Carl, and you have Rick back. Don't worry about Shane. I can deal with him." She pulled away from me.

"Thank you Raven." I nodded

"Okay now wipe your tears honey and go pack up." I said, helping her to her feet. Lori smiled at me and left to her own room. I just sighed and took a deep breath. No she wasn't raped by him but what he did to her was still traumatizing.

"Emergency lighting on." Vi said throughout the building.

"What the fuck is going on?" I said out loud

"Raven." I jumped at the sound of my name but, when I turned around I saw Daryl.

"Fuck. Daryl, don't scare me like that." I said.

"Here, want some?" Daryl handed me a bottle of Jack and I took a drink.

"What's going on?" I asked him

"I dunno baby." He said, grabbing my hand. I was taken back by the way he called me 'baby' but it made my heart flutter.

We were standing in our room when I noticed the air conditioning wasn't on anymore.

"What the hell." I put my hand up to the vent, and there was nothing.

"The air conditioning turned off." I said kinder to myself but, also kinda to Daryl. Daryl took a drink out of the bottle and then leaned out of the room door.

"What's going on? Why is everything turned off?" Daryl asked as everyone was congregating in the hall. Jenner reached down and grabbed Daryl's liquor bottle and kept walking down the hall.

"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner said while walking down the hall. We all left our rooms and followed him down the hall.

"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale said Jenner shook his head and took a drink out of the bottle.

"It's not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down." Jenner said to us.

"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean? Hey, man, I'm talking to you." Daryl said running up to Jenner.

"What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?" Daryl said, finally catching up to him.