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Depending on how closely you follow AMC’s The Walking Dead, you’ve probably stumbled across a fair share of fan theories that stipulate the arc of Robert Kirkman’s post-apocalyptic world. How did this global pandemic start? Is there a patient zero? And, perhaps most enticingly, how will the story of Rick Grimes and co. end?

As you’d imagine, it’s the latter topic that gains the most traction across fan forums, with many people subscribing to the idea that Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes is, in fact, still in his coma. However, Kirkman took to Twitter to formally debunk the suggestion, stating that The Walking Dead and the events of the last five seasons are very real indeed.

Going on record to answer this: Rick is NOT still in a coma. The events of TWD are definitely happening.

— Robert Kirkman (@RobertKirkman) October 24, 2014

At five seasons in, it’s rather reliving to hear that Kirkman and the creative team behind the show aren’t planning on pulling the rug from under us in such a spectacular fashion. Besides, if the events of The Walking Dead did take place in Rick’s head and were just the result of a coma-induced dream, it would surely result in a pretty underwhelming finale — hasn’t anybody learned from Lost?

Either way, Kirkman did indicate that he has an ending in mind for The Walking Dead, though his arc will stretch far beyond the run of AMC’s show.

“I have an end in mind for the comic, and I actually wrote the final scene the other day. I know what I want the final dialogue to be. It may change but the interesting thing to me is that I can never tell anyone involved in this show what the ending that I have in mind is because the comic book most likely will outlive the show. I can’t have any nugget of what I have planned making it into the show, because if the show ends on season 12 but the comic doesn’t end for, eight, 10 or 20 more years, my ending will be spoiled. That would piss me off.”

The Walking Dead returned on Sunday night with the third episode of the new season, “Four Walls and a Roof.” You can check out our detailed review of the episode here before Rick and co. return next week with Slabtown.