Yeah? [ There's an edge in his voice, something angry. More than just for the argument, or frustration. It's something more personal, and Thomas starts shrugging his jacket off in jerked movements, tshirt under it it still blood stained and carbon smudged. stepping closer to daryl, he shoves out his arms, showing him scabs and scars from where human nails had scraped along his arms, new and old. ] Then how come I've had them bite me, claw me, bleed, breathe and drool on me, slam my shuck head against walls and I'm still the same as I ever was?

[ 'why the hell am I still alive and healthy when better people aren't' is what echos in his mind, still too acutely aware of Newt here, and everything Newt doesn't know yet about his future. ]

Have you ever even seen a Crank, man? They talk, even the shanks way past the Gone. How the hell do you think they form words if they can't think? If they were dead, they wouldn't be moving. At all. [ he thinks about newt, how he'd begged thomas to shoot him. how heavy his body had been when he collapsed, lifeless. the Cranks that broke the dorm windows, and how they'd been screaming 'kill me' through the bars, hair all ripped out, faces covered in festering sores. ]

Death's a mercy for them.