twd: the last silence

Chapter 93 – "The Truth You Seek"

Over the next few days, Maggie couldn't help it—she kept watching Axel.

Not because she thought he'd hurt someone.

Not even because she didn't trust him—though she didn't, not fully.

But because everything in her gut told her there was more to him. Something heavy. Something buried.

She watched him work. Watched him help build fences, lift supplies, play with Judith. Laugh with Daryl in his quiet, cigarette-sharing way. Joke with Rosita. Swing that katana like it was part of his body.

And then there were the other moments. The quiet ones. The way he sat alone sometimes, still as stone, like he was waiting for something—or someone.

That evening, the sun was barely hanging over the horizon, casting Alexandria in a soft orange glow.

Maggie saw him. Axel, sitting by himself near the side of a house, just after helping a few people patch a hole in the wall. His long, silver-black hair was tied loosely, his head tipped back as if he was listening to the wind.

She looked around. No one else was near.

Maybe now's the time, she thought.

But when she turned back—

He was gone.

Gone.

Just like that.

Maggie's eyes widened, scanning the area. There were no footsteps, no sound, not even the rustle of leaves.

Then a voice, low and soft, spoke behind her ear.

"What's up, love?"

Maggie jumped, spinning around, her heart slamming against her ribs. Axel stood behind her, smirking slightly.

"What the hell?!" she snapped.

He tilted his head, the smirk still on his face.

"What the hell, exactly." His tone shifted—playful, then calm. "You've been asking questions. Watching me. Following me around."

He stepped closer, just a few inches from her now. The air seemed to grow colder.

"Do you really want to know what I am?"

Maggie opened her mouth but found no words.

Axel leaned closer. His voice dropped, and all the warmth drained from his face.

"I can tell you..." he whispered. "But if I did—I'd have to kill you."

There was no joke in his tone.

Not a glint of humor in his eyes.

In that split second, Maggie didn't see a twenty-one-year-old.

She didn't see a young man, or even a warrior.

She saw death. Cold, ancient, merciless.

And it shattered something in her.

But then—

Axel grinned, his smirk curling back as he stepped away and laughed softly.

"Just kidding," he said, his usual sarcasm returning. "You looked like you saw a ghost. Damn."

Maggie blinked, her body still tense.

Axel lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke slowly.

"If you want... I'll tell you," he said, his voice softer now. "All of it."

And just like that, Maggie realized:

This wasn't a boy. This wasn't just some guy with a past.

This was someone forged in something darker. Someone running from something older than anyone in Alexandria could understand.

And for the first time… she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the truth.

---

Axel lit his cigarette with a calm hand, the flame casting a flicker of light across his face in the deepening dusk. He looked down at Maggie, still on the ground, and offered his hand.

She hesitated—then took it.

He pulled her up gently.

For a moment, they stood in silence. Then, Axel exhaled smoke and began to speak, his voice low and even, like he was telling a bedtime story soaked in blood.

"My father was a war general. Or... was. Spent his whole life on the battlefield before the world went to shit."

He paused, letting the cigarette dangle from his lips.

"When I was born, he didn't smile. Didn't celebrate. Just lit a cigarette and nodded to my mother. That was it. That was me entering the world—no joy, no tears, just smoke and silence."

Maggie watched him carefully. The way he spoke—it wasn't dramatic. It wasn't for attention. It was truth. Raw, simple, cold.

"I was five," Axel continued, "when he started training me. Woke me up at four a.m., made me run until I threw up. Made me fight kids older than me. Made me bleed until I learned how not to."

His eyes drifted toward the sky, clouds slowly crawling across the stars.

"I was ten when I killed for the first time."

Maggie felt a chill crawl down her arms.

"Before the world ended, he brought me to his base. Soldiers respected him—no, feared him. The kind of man who walked into a room and silence followed."

"He took me into this room. Dark, cold. Just me... and a war criminal, chained, beaten to hell. My father handed me a knife."

Axel paused, flicking ash from the tip of his cigarette.

"Then he told me: 'The winner leaves this place.'"

He let that hang in the air.

"You weren't wrong, Maggie," he said, voice soft and serious now. "If I died that day, he would've let that man out. Just walked away. No emotion. That was the test."

Maggie said nothing. Her heart was beating too loud in her ears.

Axel looked at her with a crooked smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I won, obviously. But a piece of me stayed in that room, you know? It never really left."

He stepped back, the cigarette burning low between his fingers.

"So when you ask what I am, or how a twenty-one-year-old like me became this?" He gestured at himself with a half-laugh.

"The answer's simple, love. I was never a kid."

He turned, walking away, smoke trailing behind him like a ghost.

And Maggie stood there, staring into the night, knowing she had just touched the edge of something vast, brutal, and broken.

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