[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 297 - You're Really Letting Me Go?

T-Dog's black face was filled with the bewildered expression of "Who am I, where am I."

He even picked at his ear, wondering if he'd been too much gunfire lately and was having auditory hallucinations.

Open the gate?

Let her go?

What kind of international joke was this?

This woman, with that look in her eyes just now, that posture, she was clearly a wild wolf that could never be tamed!

If they let her out, what if she turned around and led The Governor's pack of mad dogs straight back here?

Merle's face practically had the words "Are you fucking insane" written all over it.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but the moment he saw Leon's expression, more serious than a fucking surgeon as he peeled that apple, he forcibly swallowed his words back down.

Arguing with this bald guy was just asking for trouble.

Leon wasn't the wishy-washy type. He definitely had his own plan.

Only Shawn, looking at Leon, then at the black woman already standing by the door with her whole body tensed, had a flicker of complexity pass through his eyes.

He couldn't understand.

But damn it, he just felt that Leon must have his reasons for doing this.

This man never made a losing deal.

He'd already been played for a fool by Leon before, that damned Traditional Chinese Medicine incident was a sore spot he'd never get over in his life!

Michonne's hand was already on the door handle, her back drawn tight like a fully pulled bow.

Every muscle in her body was in a state ready to explode at any moment.

She was waiting.

Waiting for this bald guy to reveal the dagger hidden behind his smile.

She was willing to bet that the moment she turned the lock, there'd be ten guns waiting for her outside.

Give you hope first, then drive you to despair, that was every dictator's favorite game to play.

Yet, outside the door was quiet.

No footsteps, no sound of bolts being pulled back on rifles.

Only the "shhh-shhh" sound of Leon's small knife slicing through the apple peel.

Michonne's heart sank.

She slowly turned around and looked at the man sitting in the chair, too lazy to even lift his eyelids.

"You're not stopping me?"

Leon finally finished peeling off the last bit of skin. He tossed the entire unbroken strip of apple peel into the trash, then stabbed the knife tip into the apple and took a huge bite.

"Crunch."

"Why would I stop you?" Leon chewed on the apple, speaking indistinctly.

"You think we run some kind of forced-sale operation here?"

"You want to leave, then leave. Take care, no need to see you out."

With that, he waved impatiently at T-Dog, who was still standing there dumbfounded.

"What are you standing around like an idiot for? Didn't you hear what I said? Go open the gate!"

"Oh... oh!"

T-Dog snapped out of it as if waking from a dream and hurriedly ran toward the door.

Michonne's mind was completely scrambled.

She couldn't understand.

She truly couldn't understand this man.

What exactly did he want?

She tightened her grip on the katana handle behind her back and walked out of the meeting room without another word.

She wanted to see with her own eyes what kind of game this man was really playing.

When she stepped out of that small building and onto the prison yard, her footsteps instinctively slowed.

When they'd brought her here, to keep her from seeing the prison's interior, T-Dog had taped her eyes shut.

This was the first time she'd seen what this place was really like.

The afternoon sun spilled down warmly. On the yard, several half-grown kids were chasing a soccer ball wrapped together from rags and tape, their laughter crisp as wind chimes.

Not far away, in a patch of cultivated vegetable fields, a few women wearing straw hats were humming tuneless songs, watering the thriving tomatoes and corn.

In one corner, several men with bare torsos were reinforcing a section of chain-link fence, cracking crude jokes at each other as they worked.

She even saw a burly man with a face full of thuggish muscle squatting on the ground, clumsily bandaging the leg of a lame puppy.

Well, if he weren't threatening the thing to stay still while bandaging it, it would actually have been rather kind...

Everything felt so... unreal.

There was none of Woodbury's whitewashed hypocrisy, none of that tension where everyone feared for their own safety.

Here there was a kind of... a kind of damned, lived-in feeling full of the hustle and bustle of life.

Michonne's brow furrowed even tighter.

A bunch of fools.

A bunch of fools penned in by high walls, who'd forgotten just how cruel the world outside was.

They had no idea that this pastoral peace was like a bubble under the sun, one poke and it would burst.

That man named Leon, just how had he brainwashed these people?

Made them willingly stay inside this comfortable-looking cage?

She quickened her pace, wanting only to leave this place that made her so uneasy as fast as possible.

The prison gate was right before her eyes.

The heavy iron gate was covered in rust and scratches.

T-Dog stood at the entrance, signaling to the guard on the watchtower.

"Hey! Buddy, open the gate!"

"Open the gate? T-Dog, you crazy? It's afternoon, it's not time to go out yet!" An annoyed voice came from the watchtower.

"It's the boss's order!" T-Dog yelled back at the top of his lungs.

"Let this lady out!"

"Oh, alright then. The boss said so — never mind then."

"Creeeak, clang —"

A grating screech of friction rang out.

That heavy iron gate, before Michonne's incredulous gaze, slowly swung outward, opening a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Sunlight streamed in through the gap, making her eyes blur.

It... it just opened like that?

T-Dog lifted his chin at Michonne, his expression a bit impatient, a bit nervous.

"The gate's open. Go on."

As he spoke, he kept a vigilant watch on the movements outside the gate, his hand resting on the holster at his waist the whole time.

Michonne stood in place, unmoving.

She still didn't believe it.

It was too simple.

So simple it felt like a clumsy trap.

"Hey! What are you standing there for?" T-Dog grew anxious seeing her not move.

"Hurry up and go! What, you need us to give you a car and stuff the trunk full of canned goods before you'll budge?"

"I fucking don't want a bunch of those stinking things getting in here because of you!"

Michonne glanced at T-Dog.

There was no trace of acting on this big black guy's face.

He was simply worried that walkers might take the chance to slip in.

She took a deep breath, no longer hesitating, and stepped forward, squeezing out through that gap.

The moment she was fully outside the prison, she heard the heavy sound of the iron gate closing again behind her.

"Clang —!"

The world fell silent once more.

Only the sound of the wind remained, and the faint, intermittent snarls of walkers in the distance.

She was free.

Just like that?

Michonne stood on the empty highway, feeling like someone who'd just woken from a bizarre and surreal dream.

She slowly walked forward.

With every step, she instinctively glanced back.

She imagined a pickup truck chasing after her from behind, the window rolling down to reveal Leon's face with that mocking smile.

Or, on some hillside, a sniper with a cold scope locked onto the back of her head.

She'd even prepared herself, at the slightest sign of trouble, she would immediately draw her blade and bolt into the woods by the roadside.

But nothing happened.

She walked a hundred meters.

The road behind her was completely empty.

She walked a kilometer.

On the highway, only her own shadow stretched longer and longer.

She kept walking, and walking, until the sun was about to set, until the outline of that town called Macon appeared on the edge of the horizon.

She stopped walking.

She turned around one last time, looking back toward the direction she'd come from.

That road was empty, like an abandoned gray ribbon, winding into the distance.

The prison was completely out of sight now.

No one was chasing her.

No one was watching her.

That man had really just let her go.

Why?

Michonne stood in the evening breeze, feeling lost for the very first time.

This feeling left her more at a loss than the first time she'd been surrounded by dozens of walkers.

Her hand, gripping the katana handle, unconsciously tightened.

➤ Next: A Brother and Sister