That night. That night was the worst night of your life. The fire.. the smoke, the gunshots, the walkers everywhere. Alexandria falling again. Carl getting shot again…and this time he’s not coming back.

Carl got bit saving a man, a good man. Siddiq was his name. He hid it so well. The fever, the pain. He created a safe place in the sewer of Alexandria, days before Negan attacked. Working endlessly to keep the people he loved safe.

In the sewer when Carl finally revealed the bite to you, Rick and Michonne you wanted to punch him. Why did he have to be so selfless? So kind? So trusting? If he had just left Siddiq to the walkers he’d still be here.

Carl was brought to the ruins of the scorched church. You each sat with him a while. He told you all he loved you. To tell his baby sister Judith that he loved her. Then. As you sat outside with his dad and Michonne. You heard the gun go off. And his arm fell. Rick cried. Michonne cried. You? You couldn’t cry. It had only been a few months since the line up. Since Negan killed Glenn and Abraham so horrifically that you’d carry it with you forever.

Now, you lost Glenn, a kind gentle man. Abraham, a rough around the edges but teddy bear of a man when you got to know him. A man who’d risk it all for his friends. And now Carl. Your best friend since the age of 3, your world, your everything, the man you wanted to marry. To start a family with. A kind person, the type of person that didn’t get changed by the world. He wasn’t cold or heartless. He cared, maybe a little too much. Someone who was goofy but mature when needed. He was, in your eyes, perfect.

Now he was gone. Nothing but a memory and pictures on the wall. His little sister Judith won’t remember him. She had a wooden plank with blue hand prints on it, one hers and one Carl’s. That was her memory. But you couldn’t let her forget. Not ever.