GENESIS | THE WALKING DEAD • OC X OC | ON HOLD

✥Eighteen✥

Genesis' View

Sierra was sitting on top of the RV with Dale and me, watching the moon.

"Back before everything went bad, my dad would never let me stay up past 8:30, even on a weekend to just watch the moon," Sierra said. "But now, he's too worried to even care about me."

"Don't say that, hon. He cares about you. He just doesn't want you or your brother to get hurt." I rubbed her back.

Daryl and Andrea walked out of the RV, and up at me.

"We're gonna walk the road. Gen, you comin'?" Daryl called up to me.

"Yeah. I'm in." I said and stood up from my spot.

"Be safe, please?" Sierra said. I nodded and met Daryl and Andrea on the ground.

"You think that's a good idea right now?" He asked.

"Dale." That was all Andrea said, and he understood. I patted my leg for my knives and gun, to realize one knife was still missing. "You missing something?"

"Yeah, one of my knives. I gave it to Shane back at the church and forgot to take it back before we split." I sighed.

We walked slightly into the woods, me trailing behind Daryl and Andrea.

"You really think we're gonna find Sophia?" Andrea asked.

He shined the flashlight towards her and scoffed. "You got that look on your face same as everybody else." He said and turned towards me, shining the light in my eyes. "Almost, everybody else. What the hell is wrong with you people? We just started looking."

"Well, do you?"

"It ain't the mountains of Tibet. It's Georgia. She could be holed up in a farmhouse somewhere. People get lost and they survive. It happens all the time." Daryl explained.

"She's only twelve," Andrea remarked.

"I tried to run away from home at her age. I got lost for about four days." I spoke up.

"Hell, I was younger than her and I got lost. Nine days in the woods eating berries, wiping my ass with poison oak."

"They found you? Both of you?" She asked.

"My old man was off on a bender with some waitress. Merle was doing another stint on juvie. Didn't even know I was gone. I made my way back though. Went straight into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. No worse for wear. Except my ass itched something awful." Daryl explained, and Andrea laughed.

"Sorry. That's a terrible story." They both laughed. "What about you, Gen. Did they find you?"

"Uh, they didn't realize I was gone until I missed a social security check that my father cashes in. I guess instead of calling in for a missing person case, they just called Shane to come and find me."

"So what happened?" Daryl asked.

"Shane found me in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, running from a chihuahua trying to bite my ankles off for stealing its owner's edible arrangements order from the porch," I explained, making the both of them chuckle.

"You traveled into another state? When you were twelve?" Andrea asked.

"I would've kept going. All the way to Pine Bluff, Arkansas too." I explained.

"What was in Pine Buff?" Daryl asked.

"My mom. After my brother graduated high school, she just upped and left." I said. "Can we get back to talking about Daryl's itchy ass?" I changed the subject.

"Only difference with Sophia and I, is she got people looking for her. I call that an advantage." Daryl explained.

"Gen, why did you run away?" Shane got out of his car and walked over to me. I was sitting on the steps of a diner in Tuscaloosa.

"I can't stay in that house, Shane." I cried.

"What happened, kid?" He knelt. I shook my head, and he wrapped his arms around me. "You'll be okay." He rubbed my back. "Let's get back to Georgia."

Rustling brought me out of my trance, and I gripped my knife in my hand, while Daryl pointed his crossbow towards it. We followed the noise, to come across a tent. The branches moved, and I shined Andrea's flashlight to reveal a geek handing by a rope.

"Got bit. Fever hit. World went to shit. Might as well quit." Daryl read.

"Oh, what a lovely poem. Thanks, Edgar Allen Poe." I sighed and looked at his legs.

"Dumbass didn't know well enough to shoot himself in the head. Instead, he turned himself into a bag of swinging piece of bait." Daryl said. "And a mess."

Andrea leaned over and put her hand over her mouth. I rubbed her back in comfort.

"You alright?" Daryl asked her.

"Trying not to puke." She answered.

"Go ahead if you gotta."

"No, I'm fine. Let's just talk about something else for a minute." She said. "How'd you learn to shoot?"

"Gotta eat. That's one thing these Walker's and us have in common." Daryl looked up at the geek.

"I guess it's the closest he's been to food since he turned." I joined in.

"Look at him, hanging up there like a big pinata. And the other geeks came in and are all the flesh off his legs." Daryl said, and that's what set Andrea off.

"Nice job." I looked at him.

"I thought we were changing the subject." She coughed.

"Call that payback for laughing about my itchy ass." Daryl let out a small smile.

"There wasn't a lot that came up." Andrea wiped her hand on her jeans.

"Let's head back," Daryl said as we started to leave the geek hanging there.

"Aren't you gonna..." Andrea asked.

"No. He ain't hurting nobody. Ain't gonna waste an arrow either. He made his choice. He opted out. Let him hang." Daryl said, but Andrea walked closer to the geek. "You wanna live now, or not? It's just a question."

"An answer for an arrow." She bargained. "Fair?" Daryl nodded. "I don't know if I want to live or if I have to or it's just a habit."

"Not much of an answer." He held his crossbow up to the geek and pulled the trigger. "Waste of an arrow." He said, and I nudged his shoulder.

I undid my knives and gun holsters and handed them to Daryl.

"I think it's only fair that since she didn't give much of an answer, you get your arrow back," I said and climbed up the lower branches. I reached over to where the geek was hanging and pulled the arrow out of its skull, blood coming along with it.

I jumped down from the tree and handed it back to Daryl, who died the blood on his pants, and gave me my weapons.

The three of us ventured back, to see Carol and Dale on top of the RV.

"Sierra's in your truck," Dale said, and I nodded.

I walked over to it, to see Sierra sitting in the passenger's seat playing her teddy bear.

"Anything?"

"I'm sorry, hon. Hopefully, we'll have better luck in the morning." I sighed.

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From: Season 2 Episode 3: Save the Last One

Words: 1174