Chapter Text
That night at McCarroll Ranch changed everything.
They took AJ, they took her baby, and they hid him from her there. It took months, maybe even years, to find him; she’d lost track now, it’d been so long. She still remembers the events of that night though, chiseled into her mind forever, reinforced by its twisted retellings in her nightmares.
Clementine rode to the Ranch on horseback. Long before she arrived, she knew something was wrong. The night sky was starless, and the usually cool, clean air of late Fall was poisoned with the stench of burning plastic; something was on fire, and it was big.
There was nothing she could do but wait, letting her horse carry her into the pitch black night, until slowly, it wasn’t pitch black anymore. Before her was what she could only assume was the ranch, completely engulfed in flame.
It wasn’t what she had anticipated; it was an enormous building, towering over her with three, maybe even four stories. It was backlit by the fire licking towards the sky, hot embers drifting upwards to dot the sky with stars. Screams of the dying could barely be heard over the deafening roar of the inferno. Tendrils of light shot up into the sky over the edifice as ash fell delicately like snow.
Clementine couldn’t help but gawk at the sight, caught completely off guard at the state she’d found it in. Her hand tightened around the reigns as she thought of AJ, trapped somewhere within.
She was ripped from her thoughts by the sound of a gunshot. The horse beneath her tensed and screamed, rearing its body into the air and throwing her to the ash-covered ground. Shocked, she scrambled to get behind a nearby overturned car. Glancing behind her, she saw the horse collapse, spasm, and die, eyes wide and glassy.
Breathing heavily, she flinched as the gun continued to fire, shots dinging as they hit the car, until all she heard was the repeated click of an empty gun. Risking her head, she peeked over the side of the car, where she saw her attacker. It was a man, older and with a scraggly beard, whose legs were crushed beneath what appeared to have once been a small, metal balcony. He locked eyes with Clementine through the bars of his prison and furrowed his brow.
Clementine, more carefully this time, approached the building. As she got closer to the man, she noticed his eyes were full of both tears and malice. Staying a few feet away she spoke to him. “I’m looking for a kid. He’s about three, dark skin.”
At first the man said nothing. He let out a feeble cough and blood trickled down his lip as he gestured for her to come nearer.
Hesitant, Clem leaned towards him, brandishing her knife. He looked up at her before spitting in her face, more blood than saliva. Clem stood up straight once more, wiping the slime off of her face with the front of her shirt. She sheathed her knife, leaving the man trapped beneath the balcony as she entered the building through a huge opening, the doors that once stood within it lying charred on the ground.
Once passed the doorway, the heat emitting from the building was nearly unbearable. Her face flushed and her eyes watered at the smoke and soot filling the halls. She drew her scarf up over her mouth and nose, trying in vain to keep from choking on the air.
The roar of the flames was the only thing she could hear over the rushing of blood in her ears as she skulked cautiously down the hallway, her hand resting on the hilt of her knife. She nearly screamed as she felt a hand brush her ankle.
At first glance, it appeared to be a walker, an undead human, but this person was unbelievably alive. Their skin was turned to charcoal, dry, dusty, and completely black. Cracks in their skin revealed smoldering pink flesh, oozing fluid that sizzled as it reached their skin. It was muttering, whispering, pleading for death incoherently. It didn’t sound like words, just desperation.
“Tell me where my son is. He’s three, dark skin. Have you seen him?”
It didn’t answer, it just kept moaning, begging for mercy. Clementine sighed as she quickly and quietly stuck her knife into their skull, releasing them from pain.
She continued down the hall, now hazy with smoke. Adjusting her scarf as she stifled a cough, she found herself at a cross-section of hallways. Unsure of which way to go, she stood and listened. Over the deafening roar of the flames consuming the building, she heard footsteps-- fast, and drawing closer. She crouched down in the fog and waited. A young, skinny man ran past her, and just as he did, she tripped him, bringing him down face-first onto the ash covered wooden floor. Clementine twisted an arm around his back and held a knife to his throat. It was done masterfully, swift and precise.
“Where are the kids?!” she yelled angrily into his ear.
He tried to catch his breath and answered her, finally, “St-straight that way,” he said shakily, gesturing with his head.
She lept off of him and started running, but he caught her ankle, tripping her. As she slammed against the floor, the man cried, “But I’m not letting you fuckers take them!”
Before she could react, he crawled onto her back and slammed her head into the floor. She screamed as her nose hit the floor hard, her eyes instantly tearing up. She rolled over onto her back hard, toppling the man off of her. Stunned, he stayed on his back as Clementine prepared to stab him. He rolled away at the last second, dodging her blade, and quickly rose to his feet.
Clementine was quicker. She threw her knife expertly into his foot and he hesitated with a scream. With one shot of her pistol, Lee’s pistol, it was over. She retrieved her knife and rushed down the hall, not sparing the man’s corpse a single glance.
It was at that point she could hear him. It’d been so, so long, but she knew that cry anywhere. It was AJ, her baby, her goofball. There was a doorway in front of her, and through it she could see a room completely on fire. She hoped she was wrong, but the crying was coming from within that room, growing more desperate and loud the closer she got, drowning out even the crackling of the fire raging all around them.
“AJ!” she cried, she could see him now, left on the floor, no one else around, in a room crumbling to smoldering coals around him. She was so close, so close to holding him again. Stretching her left arm out, her knife still in her right, she passed the threshold into the room, or so she thought she did; she thought she could.
The doorway collapsed, the screeches of overheated metal and burning wood filled her ears as an unbelievable pain shot up her arm. The collapsing building tore her arm open with a huge gash running from the back of her wrist to her elbow. Her clothes were completely alight, the plastic of her windbreaker sticking to her arm and continuing to burn. She screamed like she never had before, throwing herself on the floor in an attempt to put herself out, but to no avail. The wooden floors were starting to light as well.
She knew what she had to do. Her body was screaming, begging her to run, get out of the building, fight for her life, but her heart was shattered. AJ had been in that room. But it wasn’t a room anymore, just rubble, amorphous and smoldering. The crying had stopped.
The pain was too much for her to bear. She ran out of the building, passed the man she shot, passed the burned corpse, and passed the man with crushed legs. She hurled herself into the cold, dew-laden grass and rolled, putting herself out quickly, but the damage had already been done.
She looked down at herself, charred skin peeling away to reveal muscle, blood pouring out of the huge slash on her arm. The burning sensation was unbearable, even though the flame was out. Her brand from the New Frontier was nonexistent, torn to shreds by the flames.
Clementine looked up once more at the building, tears pouring down her face. It was completely on fire now; the frame of the building began to shift under its own weight as the front windows shattered from the heat.
Clementine sobbed.