What Keeps Her Going (Quarterfinals Entry)

Theme: Will

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Clementine made her way through the burning remains of the McCarroll Ranch, the screams of those behind her reverberating through her conscience. She creeps toward a door that was left ajar. This has to be it.

Clementine pushes the door open to find an older woman slumped over against a shelf, dead, a bullet hole in her cheek.

“AJ?” Clementine asks. This is where that man said the nursery was. The lockers that sat on the opposite side of the room were both open and empty. The room was silent, not a hint of life to be seen.

“AJ, you here?” Clementine calls out. She checks all areas of the nursery, finding nothing. AJ was already gone.

“Shit…” Clementine says. I’m too late. She didn’t know if he was dead, somewhere else, missing, or worse. She had come all this way, fought through hell and back, just to find him, and he had slipped through her fingers. A horrible feeling rose in her stomach. Have I failed? She exits the nursery, not a trace of AJ to be found. She steps out back into the flaming remains of the ranch, now at a loss. What the hell am I gonna do now?

Clementine notices an open door on the opposite side of the ranch that leads to the outside, only a long hallway between her and the door. No, he’s out there somewhere. He has to be. With nothing left to lose, she carefully makes her way down the hallway, walking towards the open door. Another person stumbles into the hallway from a side doorway, and Clementine instinctively fires, shooting the man in the neck.

The man falls to the ground, but not before he fires as well, shooting Clementine in the leg. She falls to the ground, a hot, searing pain ripping through her right leg.

“Fuck!” she yells. She looks down, a bullet hole now present in her right leg, just above where it connects to the foot. Blood poured from her wound as she examined it. The bullet seemed to go clean through. It burned as if a hot coal had been placed on her leg.

She grimaces as blood continues to pour from her leg. She needed to stop the blood, and fast. She tears off a strip from her shirt and wraps it around her wound. It hurts like absolute hell, and she has to bite down on her jacket to stop from screaming. She ties it tightly to keep pressure on it, and she leans back, exhausted. Blood starts seeping through the cloth, but it seemed to do the job, for now.

Clementine looks up toward the still open doorway to the outside. She tries standing up, only to immediately fall back down to the ground, stifling a scream. Holy FUCK that hurts. She tries standing up again, only to fall forward onto her hands and knees, the pain in her leg screaming at her to stop.

Every fiber of her being wanted to stop. Wanted her to sit down and not move. Not do anything. The pain was almost unbearable. It would be so much easier to fall down and give up. Her body ached for it.

But she knew giving up now would be giving up on any chance of seeing AJ. If she stayed here, in this burning horror show, who knows what would happen to her. And who knows what would happen to AJ if he was still alive. If she ever wanted to see him again, she needed to get up, and now.

With her leg screaming in pain, she hoists herself up off the ground and stands up. She clenches her teeth to avoid yet another scream. She takes a step, which causes another shockwave of pain in her leg. Another step. Another step. Each step burns worse than the last. Her vision becomes blurry as she almost passes out from the pain. She stumbles, catching herself on a nearby wooden guard railing. Using nearby walls for support, she slowly and painfully limps her way out of the ranch and into the outside.

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15 minutes had passed, and Clementine limped along a lone road in the forest. Trees surrounded the road, the green of the forest going on for as far as the eye could see.

She looks down at her wound, blood now fully soaked through the cloth. Sweat dripped down her face the same way blood dripped down her leg. She continued limping down the road sluggishly, only the thought of reuniting with AJ keeping her going.

Her vision goes blurry and she stops to keep her balance, her head spinning from the constant burning pain in her leg. It felt as if a thousand fire ants had crawled onto her leg and were biting her flesh.

She continues limping forward for another few minutes, until she sees a figure in the distance. Before she can determine what it is, she collapses to the ground, and everything goes black.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Clementine slowly opens her eyes to a painful throbbing in her head. She attempts to move her hand up to massage her head, but she can’t move her hands. Her vision steadies, and she finds herself in what seems to be a living room, herself sitting in a chair. Her wrists and ankles are bound together with zip ties.

She struggles for a few moments against her binds, but they don’t budge. She looks around, seemingly in a cabin of some sort. The walls were made of a dark brown wood, although it looked lighter because of a layer of dust and grime that covered the walls over the years. She looks down, finding her leg wrapped in a bandage. She furrows her brow at this revelation, heavily confused.

“Finally awake?” a voice calls from another room. Clementine snaps her head towards a doorway to see a man walking toward her, carrying a water bottle and a knife.

“Cleaned that wound as best I could. Bandaged it. Hopefully it won’t get infected.” the man says. His voice was soft and quiet, not that far above a whisper. He sits down in a chair directly opposite Clementine, who was glaring into the man’s eyes.

“Name’s Jim.” the man says. “And you are?”

“Let me go.” Clementine hisses, struggling once more against her bonds. Jim just shakes his head.

“Why? So you can attack me? Don’t think so.” he chuckles. “I asked you a question.”

Clementine looks down at the floor, mulling over her decision. “Clementine.”

“That is a very nice name, Clementine.” Jim says, offering a soft smile. Clementine offers no expression back.

“How did I even get here?” Clementine asks.

“Well, I saw you pass out on the street over there.” Jim says, pointing outside the cabin. “Contemplated putting a knife in your head until I heard you breathing.”

So he’s the figure I saw on the road before passing out. Clementine squirms uncomfortably in her seat, the zip ties starting to chafe her wrists.

“Glad I found you when I did. You were close to bleeding out. And if that wasn’t going to kill you, exhaustion was. That’s why I had to take precautions.” Jim says, pointing to her binds.

“Well, could you take these off now?” Clementine asks. Jim’s soft expression hardens in an instant. He leans forward.

“When I do this, if you try anything, I will kill you in an instant. Got it?” Jim warns. Clementine ponders taking advantage of him for a moment, but quickly decides against it. She was weak, dehydrated, and tired. He was a full grown adult. She nods.

Jim looks her over for a second before cutting off the zip ties on her wrists and ankles. Clementine massages her wrists, which are raw and tender to the touch. She leans back, stretching. Man, I feel like shit.

Jim’s cold demeanor turns back into a soft smile. “Good choice.”

Clementine eyes the water bottle next to Jim, which sat on a stand next to him. Her mouth almost instinctively became dry. Jim traces her stare back to the water, quickly offering it to her.

“Here, drink up.” he says. Clementine snatches the bottle from him, downing the water in swift gulps. She drops the finished water bottle to the ground. He chuckles.

“Well, you should get some rest.” Jim says, standing up. Clementine peers through a window, now just realizing it was pitch black outside. “Holler if you need anything. We’ll talk more in the morning.” Jim says, before entering what was seemingly a bedroom.

Clementine feels an overwhelming urge to sleep overtake her, and before she knew it, she passed out in the chair, asleep.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Clementine awakes to a warm, pulsating light. She looks around, finding herself shrouded in darkness. A dark orange glow is all that separated her from complete darkness. She stands up brushing herself off. She looks down, seeing AJ a small distance away from her.

“AJ!” Clementine exclaims. She starts walking toward him, but he doesn’t get any closer. What the hell is happening? She starts running toward him, but he only seems to be farther from her reach. No no no, please. She starts running harder and harder, fully determined to get to him. But it was no use. The harder she ran, the further away he seemed.

Clementine looks up in terror to see a walker shamble up behind AJ. She tries to save him, but he’s just out of her reach. The walker gets closer and closer…

“AJ! No!” Clementine yells, snapping awake. She darts her head around, finding herself back in the chair she fell asleep in. Her breath slows as she takes in the surroundings of the cabin once more.

She started to relax, until she thought of AJ again. She still had no idea where he was, or where he could be at this moment. The anxiousness ate away at her conscience, not knowing if her goofball was dead or alive.

Clementine stands up from the chair, stretching her limbs, immediately stopping when a surge of pain stabs her leg. Although it was much better than before, her wound was still far from fully healed. She hobbles over to a nearby counter, where Clementine’s knife lay, unsheathed. She pocketed the knife, just in case. She opens the front door, finding Jim leaning over the railing of the deck, cup of water in hand.

“How are you feeling?” Jim asks, taking a sip. The wind blew his hair from side to side.

“Better.” Clementine responds, taking a spot next to him.

“You are one strong girl.” Jim says, staring deep into the forest. What kept you going?”

“What?” Clementine asks, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“That gunshot wound in your leg was fresh, at most an hour old when I took you in. Even the most strong-willed people wouldn’t walk on a fresh gunshot wound, unless they have some purpose to drive them. What drove you to keep going?” Jim asks, looking over at her.

Well, Clementine certainly knew what kept her going. Even the thought of being able to reunite with AJ could drive her to the ends of the Earth. Push her through the most agonizing pain. Hell, she should probably be searching for him right now instead of standing here on this deck. However, it’s not like Jim would probably even let her leave in her condition.

“His name was AJ. His mom died the day after he was born, and I looked after him for a long time. It was just me and my goofball.” Clementine says, smiling as she leans over the deck, looking at the ground many feet below her.

“What happened between you two? I mean, considering you’re not... you know… with him now.” Jim asks. Clementine’s expression quickly changes from a fond happiness to a bitter anger.

“A year ago, these people I joined, called the “New Frontier”, took AJ away from me. Told me I was too young to take care of him. That I’d just get him killed. And I’ve never seen him since.” Clementine says, her anger growing with each word. “I managed to track his location down to the McCarroll Ranch, not too far from here. But raiders had gotten there first, and he was gone before I could get to him.”

Jim stared at her in deep thought, the cogs turning in his head like he was deciding something. Clementine couldn’t get a read on him. He was a riddle, locked in a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma.

“About maybe a year or so into the apocalypse, I lost my son. A horde yanked him right out of my grasp.” Jim says, sighing.

“I- I’m sorry. Must’ve been horrible.” Clementine says. Jim nods.

“Yeah, no physical pain could ever hurt as badly as losing a child. Never forgave myself for it. You know that just as well as I do.” Jim points out, motioning toward her. She nodded in agreement “And ever since, I’ve been holding out hope that someday, I could redeem myself for letting my boy slip through my grasp.” Jim admits.

“I joined a group of raiders a little while back, f-for protection, obviously.” he clarifies, earning a stare from the teen. “I don’t believe in what the raiders did, but I figured it was better than being by myself.”

A long pause passes by, with Clementine soaking up all the information being dumped on her, but Jim kept going.

“Recently, I was on a team that was raiding a place, and by this point, I was basically looking for any excuse to leave the group. And when we raided this place, I found my reason. I found my redemption.” Jim says, a bright smile on his face. “I escaped with him, and I found this place. Found you in the road the same day.”

Clementine furrows her brow. Escaped with him? The same day? Wait, he couldn’t be talking about…

As Clementine pondered the possibility of what she was thinking, a voice can be heard from inside the cabin.

“Jim?” a voice calls out. Clementine looks from the door, to Jim, and back to the door.

“Why don’t you go see who it is, Clem.” Jim says, a grin slowly spreading across his face. Clementine’s heart started to race as she gripped the door knob. She slowly opened the door, the door creaking loudly. Her jaw dropped.

There he stood in the middle of the living room. Her goofball. After a year of searching, all of the pain and suffering she was put through was instantly proved worth it in that one moment. She accomplished what she set out to do. Despite all the odds, all the barriers, all the obstacles, she found AJ.

“AJ…” Clem whispers, dropping down to her knees. “I found you.”

AJ looked at her, not with happiness like she expected, but had a look of… confusion. Did he forget who she was?

“AJ… you remember me, right?” Clementine asks, placing her hands on his shoulders. “It’s me, Clem.”

AJ furrows his brow. “Clem… Clem!” he yells, throwing his arms around her. She breathed a sigh of relief. She remembered her name, at least. Never had a hug ever felt so good. Not since Lee.

“Would you look at that,” Jim says, standing behind them. “Nice little family reunion we have here.”

“I thought I might never see him again.” Clementine exclaims, a lone tear trickling down her cheek. The pain in her leg was nothing compared to the euphoria she felt coursing through her veins.

“Never say never.” Jim responds, sitting down in a chair next to them.

“I missed you.” AJ whispers. Clementine’s face and heart lit up with delight.

“I missed you too, Goofball.”

“Well,” Jim says, standing up from the chair, “You can stay here for the next few days, while your leg heals. Then you can say your goodbyes, and be on your way.”

Clementine paused for a moment. Did she hear him correctly? Goodbyes? She almost had to do a double take at the news.

“Goodbyes?” Clementine asks, turning to Jim.

“Well, of course.” Jim continues. “AJ will stay with me, and you can sleep easy knowing he’s safe.”

Clementine’s heart dropped. It felt as if she had been crushed by a falling anvil.

“Are you serious?” Clementine asked in disbelief.

“Wait… you didn’t think you were gonna leave with AJ, now did you?” Jim asks. He looks at her in amusement.

“Of course I am! I’m the one who raised him!” Clementine yells.

“Nope, AJ is staying here. He’s my second chance.” Jim says. His smile vanishes.

“I’ve been searching for AJ for the past year. I’m not leaving without him.” Clementine asserts, glaring at him.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to leave now then.” Jim announces.

“Fine.” Clementine says, taking AJ in her hand. “Cmon AJ, let's go.”

“Not so fast there, Clementine.” Jim says, pointing Clementine’s gun at her. “The boy stays here.”

Clementine stared at him in disbelief. “If you think I’m leaving without him, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“AJ is my second chance, my redemption for my son.” Jim asserts, cocking the gun. “And you want to take that away from me?!”

“I raised AJ since he was born! You’re the one taking him away from me!” Clementine spits back.

The tension in the room was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Jim pointed the gun at Clementine, glaring at her. She thought for a moment that he might actually pull the trigger. Clementine gripped the knife in her pocket. Fortunately, he holstered the gun, and attempted to calm himself down.

“I don’t want to have to kill you, Clementine.” he says. “You can still leave. I’ll even give you a bag of supplies for the road, including meds for that wound. But the boy stays here. I need him. I need this.”

“No.” Clementine responds coldly. AJ looked from Clem to Jim, not knowing what to do, what to say, or even what to think.

“Cmon, now. Just make this easy.” Jim pleads, and he starts creeping toward her. Clementine grips her knife even harder.

“Stay back.” Clementine warns, ushering AJ behind her. Jim inches closer to her, and he outstretches his hand. Clementine pulls out her knife, and slashes Jim across his hand.

“Ah! Fuck!” Jim yells, staggering back. He looks down at the palm of his right hand, a long cut across the diameter of his palm. He goes to pull the gun out again, but Clementine smacks it out of his hand, and the gun flies across to the other side of the room, sliding underneath a couch. Clementine looks up only for Jim to headbutt her, and she falls to the ground, her vision being doubled.

“Damn it!” Jim yells. “You are making it very difficult to not kill you, Clementine.”

Clementine’s head throbs with pain, but she slowly stands back up, determined not to quit.

“You know I’d be a better protector of AJ than you.” Jim pokes. Her glare towards him turns colder.

“You sound like the New Frontier.” Clementine argues.

“Well maybe they had a point.” Jim spits back. Clementine, outraged, attacks Jim, knife in hand. But he grabs her wrist, twisting it until she drops the knife. He then shoves her against the nearest wall. She collides with the wall hard, a thud reverberating through the walls. AJ runs to a corner of the room, terrified. Jim stoops to pick up the knife.

“You just don’t quit do you?” Jim asks, almost amused. Painful aches shot through Clementine’s back, elbows, and head. But still, she slowly but surely stood back up.

“I can do this all day.” Clementine sneers.

“Heh, stubborn son of a bitch.” Jim chuckles. Clementine lunges at him again, but he backhands her in the face, and she falls to the ground yet again, her right cheek stinging like it was stung by a dozen bees.

“Last chance. You still can leave in one piece.” Jim says. AJ sits in the corner, crying. Clementine’s body so desperately wants to cave in, to accept Jim’s offer, and stop this beating. But deep down, she doesn’t even consider it. She slowly gets on her hands and knees, before standing up fully.

“How could I trust you with AJ when you couldn’t even protect your own son?” Clementine fires. At that moment, Jim’s face lights up with a rage, and he tackles Clementine. They burst out the front door, and onto the front deck.

“You just don’t know when to stop, do you?” Jim asks, his anger now fully unleashed. He shoves Clementine against the wooden railing of the deck, pulls out the knife, and starts to bring it down on her. She holds him at bay as best as she can, but the knife comes ever closer.

“I’ll show you…” Jim warns. Just as the knife is mere inches from plunging into Clementine’s chest. The railing of the deck starts to crack, and before either two realize it, the railing breaks, sending both down a story to the ground below.

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Clementine slowly stirs with a grumble, both her and Jim recently knocked out from their fall. Her head throbs as she tries to get up, aches firing up and down her body, as if she was on fire. Jim stirs quietly next to her. She flips herself around so she’s laying on her stomach. She looks up, and sees the knife several feet in front of her. With her head and body aching for her to stop, she starts crawling toward the knife on her hands and knees, each step closer to the knife more painful, yet closer to salvation.

As she makes her way closer to the knife, she feels a piercing blow to her side, as Jim had gotten up and had kicked her to the ground.

“I knew you had heart.” Jim says, the previous anger in his voice now seemingly gone. “You know, it’s okay to give up. There’s no shame in it.”

Clementine had no intention to heed his words. Fighting through the pain with a grunt, she resumes her crawling toward the knife. Jim scoffs.

“I guess not. Just not your style, is it?” he asks, before delivering another kick to Clementine’s midsection, sending her to the ground once again with a groan. Jim gets on top of her, grabbing the back of her head and slamming it into the ground, increasing the throbbing pain in her head.

“It’s alright. Once you’re dead, I’ll take good care of him.” Jim taunts.

“Fuck you.” Clementine shoots back. Jim flips her around so he’s now looking into her face directly.

“You think you know me? Huh?” he asks with a certain vigor, and he starts strangling her. “Well let me tell you something. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Clementine’s vision starts fading as he continues to strangle her, the lack of oxygen she’s intaking making it harder to see. She reaches her free right hand up above her head, and she’s able to just grab the handle of the knife.

In a split second, Clementine grabs the knife in her hand and thrusts it forward, stabbing Jim in the throat. He keels over, gasping for air as blood pours from his fatal wound. Clementine gasps for air now that he’s no longer strangling her, her vision fully coming back. Without hesitation, she runs over, plunging the knife into his skull. She does it again. And again. And again. And again. Each stab paints her hands further in Jim’s blood.

She collapses to the ground, completely exhausted. She inhales and exhales deeply, completely out of breath from the events of the past two minutes. She sits up, Jim’s face resembling an acupuncture doll.

A calm breeze flows overhead, a newfound calmness now present all around her. It felt soothing. It was almost as if she could lay down and forget everything that happened today. But that never transpired, as like always, she had more important things to attend to.

AJ. Without a moment of hesitation, she groans heavily as she sits up, before standing up. She limps her way back up the steps of the cabin, her body aching with every step. She now stood on the front deck, a now huge hole in the railing where they fell.

She could hear a soft whimpering coming nearby, and she limps over to see AJ in the doorway, sniffling into his sleeve. She picks him up, carrying him inside, away from the body down below. She sits him on the couch, and sits next to him, groaning.

“You alright, AJ?” Clementine asks, placing a hand on his shoulder. He slowly nods his head, before looking her up and down.

“You look hurt.” AJ states. He was certainly right. Her upper lip was busted and swollen, and there were huge bruises on her cheek and forehead. That also paled in comparison to her leg, or her internal pain.

“Yeah, I am.” Clementine admits. “But I’m still alive. Just for you.”

AJ smiles at this, before frowning again. “What happened to Jim?”

Clementine quickly scrambled for something to cover her tracks.. “He decided to leave.”

“Really?” AJ asks, confused.

“Yeah, he decided to let me keep you after all.” Clementine lies, smiling.

“Good.” AJ states.

“Yep, that’s good.” Clementine reaffirms. “Don’t you worry, I’m staying around for good this time.”

“Really?” AJ asks.

“Absolutely. And I’ll never leave you again.”