It's been almost three months now since we took down the prison.
Looking around now, I find it pretty hard to believe how different it looks compared to before.
If not for the familiar buildings, I would have thought it was a different location altogether.
We did some pretty serious overhauls and reinforcement around here after we cleared the place up and transported the corpses away for incineration to avoid sickness.
We further expanded the walls for starters, giving us more land to work with.
That proved to be a good call seeing all the new structures that we built up:
New dormitories for future survivors.
Greenhouses for sustainable food.
A building to act as a school for the kids that I equipped with a mini-library and a laptop filled to the brim with instructional videos, hooked up to a big screen in one of the rooms.
Workshops for necessities, such as a blacksmith workshop, a mechanic shop, etc.
Adding up to the cells that already exist, we won't be hurting for space for a very long time—if ever, depending on the situation.
The new walls were nothing new, just a repeat of the old trick we did with the containers minus the trench thing.
We retrieved some of the unused containers from the farmhouse—leaving behind those that we decided to turn into housing units—and went back with the armored trucks to the rail yard to retrieve the rest we needed.
We also jury-rigged a solar energy farm on the roofs of the buildings and added some other redundant power sources: a big diesel generator and a hand-cranked one.
The redundancy was a measure in case of the absence of enough sunlight to provide the necessary energy needed to run the place.
We spent a week on that alone—that should be telling.
Then we went around in groups scavenging for bedding, sheets, stools, and everything one needs for a barebones bedroom.
After that, we built a gym area and stocked it with scavenged equipment, a shooting range for both guns and bows and arrows, a martial arts area for unarmed combat, a library that we fully stocked with books on every profession out there and more, and a game room that finally put to use the game consoles I bought before the world went to shit.
All in all, we turned the place into something that's as close to a paradise as it can get nowadays.
Now, some of you might ask about what happened to the surviving inmates that were here. Where did they go?
Well, we did find them—or rather, I did find them—already dead and turned.
Turned out that one of them probably died or was killed, got up again as a walker, and finished the rest off, so we were late.
A bit of a loss, to be honest.
Aside from Tomas (the volatile, de facto leader who tried to kill Rick in canon) and Andrew (the cowardly fuck who survived after being locked out of the courtyard by Rick after he attacked him, only for him to return luring a walker inside which ultimately resulted in the deaths of Lori and T-Dog before Oscar shot him), the rest were decent—or as decent as they could come nowadays.
Big Tiny was a soft-spoken person despite his intimidating physical size; he avoided conflict and even showed sympathy for Hershel after he was bitten and had his leg amputated.
Although he was serving a 15-year prison sentence before the apocalypse, he showed no malicious or violent tendencies while interacting with Rick Grimes' group in canon.
Oscar proved to be honorable and trustworthy in canon; after killing Andrew to save Rick during the walker breach in canon, he even later joined Rick's group before being killed during the attack by Woodbury.
Axel was a genuinely good, kind-hearted person imprisoned for armed robbery with a toy gun.
He bonded with Carol, sharing stories about his past before he was shot and killed unexpectedly by the Governor.
He was also a mechanic, so having him was gonna be a boon.
Shaking my head, clearing my thoughts in the process, standing up here on top of the main guard tower, I watched the sunlight bounce off the solar panels on the roofs.
I took a deep breath of the cool morning air. The whole yard was alive with activity.
Rick was down near the gate, leaning against a post and going over watch schedules with T-Dog.
Over by the main greenhouse, Glenn and Shawn were carrying wooden crates of fresh tomatoes into the shade, laughing about something while Carl, Sophia, and the kids ran past them chasing Ghost.
Jim was working under the hood of one of the rigs.
We had moved some of the group from the farmhouse to here.
Rick was going to be overseeing operations here, so he had to have people to help him.
Lori followed him of course, as well as Carl, the Moraleses, and the Peletiers. Hershel was here along with Shawn to teach them how to oversee the greenhouses. The rest stayed back at the farmhouse.
Although the kids were reluctant to be separated, we promised them that they will get to see each other every day, since the distance between the farmhouse and the prison wasn't much and they were going to have to attend school in the prison after the teacher we requested from Woodbury arrives.
That at least lifted their spirits a bit, even though they weren't happy about going to school again.
Chuckling at the mental image of the kids pouting, I returned to inspecting the result of three months' work.
Everything here was running on cruise control. The walls were solid, the guards were trained, the food supply was locked down, and the trade routes with Woodbury were running like clockwork.
They didn't need me hovering over their shoulders every second of the day anymore.
I rested my forearms on the cold steel railing of the tower and looked west toward the open highway stretching out past the treeline.
Maybe it's time to hit the road, I thought to myself.
It was in the plans from the very beginning.
I had spent months building safe fortresses to ensure survival—not just for myself, but for Maggie, the kids, and everyone else—and I was finally finished.
But out there, beyond our borders, beyond our safe havens, the rest of the country was still a chaotic, bloody mess.
There were decent people hiding in basements, dying of starvation, or getting hunted down by psycho groups like the Governor's old crew—people who just needed a hand or a safe place to go.
Plus, I was never one to just sit around behind the safety of my walls.
I wanted to see what was left out there. I wanted to travel around, scout the nearby states, maybe save people and recruit some good talent—doctors, engineers, builders—and bring them back to integrate into our network.
The more I thought about that, the bigger the thrill I felt.
But maybe I need to run that by Maggie and the others first. Especially Maggie... after all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
(To be continued...)