@katierpblogg
The farm was burning.
Daryl had seen it as far back as the forest. Orange flames licking up like a beacon, smoke billowing up in dark plumes against the moonlit sky. The dead were everywhere, too many to make it back to the house. To his bike. To the cars peeling off. A walker lurched for his shoulder and he spat a low curse, slamming the butt of his bow into its skull.
The farm was burning. His group was lost.
He turned back to the forest.
--
Hours passed, too many to count, the day sprinting past dawn and still running. The forest was familiar enough after days of digging through them in search of Sophia, but every way Daryl turned seemed to just dredge up a fresh flood of undead. They were slowing down, miles past the farm, but Daryl was slowing down too. Every other step felt like it might pull the ground up to meet him and his bow felt like enough of an anchor that he was considering dropping it just to keep moving.
The road was close. He could see the steep incline leading up to it. Gleam of sunlight off guardrails. A lone corpse stumbled into view and Daryl tripped into a clumsy roll, grabbed a rock, and threw it at the damn thing’s head. It missed by about a barn’s breadth but the sound of it slamming into the earth was enough to distract the walker long enough for Daryl to shove himself back to his feet, pull out his knife, and stab it through the base of the skull.
His clumsy fingers lost track of the knife as it fell and he didn’t bother ducking to grab it, the road his only thought as he wobbled, turned, and started stumbling up the incline. He was a mess of sweat, dirt, and blood, his arms scraped from falls and shoving through underbrush through the long night. The hours of running and fighting had drained him past exhaustion, and only sheer damn stubbornness and adrenaline kept him pushing at this point. He cleared the guardrail, slammed shoulder-first straight into a broken-down sedan, and caught a shadow of movement out of the corner of his eye.
Fearing more dead, hoping against hope for his group, Daryl spun toward it and lifted his bow tiredly, aiming it straight at––
A stranger.
