• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Fear the Walking Dead."
• Alicia has been dealing with the fallout from a "mysterious illness" across season seven.
• Showrunner Ian Goldberg told Insider it could be the lingering effects of a bite or a secondary infection.

"Fear the Walking Dead's" heroine Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has been in a precarious situation this season. 

After sustaining a zombie bite and amputating her arm on season seven, episode eight, Alicia has continued to suffer from unexplainable on-and-off again fevers for months. Is Alicia slowly dying from a walker infection or some other infection? Is she a potential cure to the zombie virus? Is it something else entirely?

The show's official synopsis for the latter half of season seven described Alicia as being "plagued by a mysterious illness," but, with two episodes left to go in the season, viewers frustratingly haven't learned much about the main character's predicament and it's unclear whether or not we ever will learn the source of her affliction. 

In April, Insider asked "Fear TWD" showrunners to explain what's going on with Alicia and whether or not fans will get a concrete answer one way or the other by the season's end on her ailment. In short: Your guess is as good as ours.

We didn't learn a whole lot, but here's what we were told.

"I think to speak to it from Alicia's perspective, she's not sure what's going on with her, nor does anyone else around her, because it's sort of an unprecedented thing," coshowrunner Ian Goldberg told Insider. 

"She was bit, she amputated her own arm, but she fears she may not have got it in time," Goldberg said of Alicia's actions on season seven, episode eight. "Now, whether that means she's suffering from lingering after effects of the bite or a secondary infection, the answer almost, for the time being, it doesn't matter because the end result is the same — Alicia feels this sort of ticking clock on her life. She's in and out of fever dreams. She's having these physical symptoms that seem to be persisting and getting worse."

It seems unlikely that Alicia is still suffering from the after effects of a walker bite.

If you know the "TWD" universe rules of turning into the dead, it seems unlikely that Alicia is "suffering from lingering after effects" unless the spinoff is changing the rules of the dead all together this late in the game.

Usually, a person turns into one of the dead between three minutes and a few hours after getting bit or scratched. (Except if you're part of that new breed of faster zombies teased on "World Beyond.")

Goldberg told us that "what's most interesting" and what viewers should be paying attention to is that Alicia's sense of limited time is driving her forward to be a leader throughout the back-half of season seven.

"As we see in [season seven, episode nine], she's really coming into her own, listening to that inner voice inside of her, becoming someone who is going to have people follow her as opposed to her following someone or something else from now on," Goldberg said.

"She's got a war to win, a war against one of her closest friends, the person who's the closest thing to family she's got," Goldberg added of Alicia and Victor Strand's (Colman Domingo) ongoing (silly) spat. "So it's a very personal struggle for her and she's gonna have to navigate it with her own physical health deteriorating."

Will Alicia survive the show long enough to be reunited with her mother, Madison?

On Sunday's episode, season seven, episode 14, things go off the rails. (They have for these past few episodes.) As Victor and Alicia are finally reunited in his base, Wes (Colby Hollman) and others try and take control of the Tower from him.

As the episode progresses and Alicia and Victor are forced to work together, Alicia attempts to fight off another fever. She looks worse for wear every minute until she finally passes out 20 minutes into the episode.

After getting her to the infirmary and injecting her with adrenaline, Alicia was briefly back on her feet. By the episode's end, however, Alicia passes out once again. Unfortunately, there's now a burning fire raging feet below, threatening to consume the show's heroine.

On a bonus feature for the episode on AMC+, Goldberg notes that "there doesn't seem to be a cure for what's making her be sick" without providing any other details on Alicia's condition.

That's not great news if you're tuning into "Fear" hoping to see a reunion between Alicia and her long-missing mother, Madison Clark (Kim Dickens).

AMC previously announced in December that Madison, a fan-favorite who Alicia believes to have died back on season four, will return to "Fear" by the season's end.

Hopefully, Alicia doesn't succumb to her ailment before getting a chance to reunite with her mother. Such a fate wouldn't bode well with fans.

You can follow along with our "Walking Dead" universe coverage here.

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