| the future is bright cuz it's filled with fire | daryl dixon |

|3. danger in numbers|

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she ran as fast as she could, determination keeping her on her bleeding feet. her thoughts were turned off. what she was doing seemed like a natural instinct of her kind heart. she wasn't thinking straight, but she still stopped briefly when she realized she had no weapon. so she broke off a branch of a young tree. it wasn't sharp, but it was something. anything. she ran and the screams and gunshots got louder and louder. must be a lot of poeple there, she thought. her head was pounding and the source of the sounds was confusing, because of the echo of the mountains, but the fire showed her the way. she finally had reached the camp and the first thing she saw was an undead female reaching her hands towards a little boy standing behind a woman, that was propably his mother. covering them there was a man, the boys father maybe, who was shooting the dead ones in front of him. he didn't see the ones behind him. none of them have.
the second the woman saw this she took her stick and stabbed the starving monster in the head within a heartbeat. she caught the body and held it so it wouldn't fall on the kid. she almost fell because of the weight. she let the dead one fall to the side and then she pulled the stick off of it's body with a struggle. that's when the boy and his mother turned, just now acknowledging the women.
"oh my god! thank you! thank you!" the woman said to her. both her and her son had tears in their eyes.
"what's going on back there?!" said the men with the gun turning his head slightly and then immediately getting back to killing those creatures that were still coming towards all of these people. there was quite a bit of them. men, women, children. she thought about the hunter for a split second, wondering if he was here, if it was indeed his camp.
but she put those pointless thoughts to the back of her head and started fighting off the dead people with her stick. that was until the mother of the boy took her knife out of her belt.
"take that!" she yelled.
girl took the knife immediately and threw her previous weapon to the side. "why the hell did she took the knife out just now?! she has a son to protect!" she thought to herself in fury and panic. she slashed and stabbed the undead as much as she could, but she kept looking at the little boy to make sure he was safe.
there was even more gunshots when other people arrived - four men that immediately started shooting the monsters. she looked at them and saw a white man in a sheriff's uniform, an asian boy, a black man and...
the hunter. "it's really his camp... he didn't lie to me" she thought to herself in a hopeful manner. maybe she would find comfort in this group. but there was too much screaming and pain here for happy thoughts and she had to keep moving. she backed some people away from the shooting range and let the men kill all the dead. the boy ran towards the man in the sheriff's uniform screaming. he was his father.
then everything died down. it got real quiet. nothing but some panicked whispers and crying. no more gunshots. bodies everywhere. both people and monsters.
the atmosphere was heavy as fractured families and friends hugged each other. there were people kneeling next to the bodies of their loved ones. sobbing loudly. the ones who survived were safe, but they were in a mental agony. the woman couldn't bare looking at the pain of these people. she closed her eyes shut and she let out a deep breath. she felt the shock from everything that happened to her leave her body and mind. she started to feel intense pain, hunger and thirst all at once. her knees in a matter of seconds became weak and she felt light. too light to stand on her own. the darkness surrounded her and the dehydrated and starving young woman fell to the ground.

"chrissy! i found your wallet!" the woman yelled to her roommate.
she heard christine running up towards her.
"thank god! where was it?"
"it was were you said it wasn't, that being your messy desk of course" the young woman said in an accusatory tone.
"well i didn't see it there, okay?" christine groaned and took her wallet out of her roommate's hand.
"thanks, meadow. you're the best" the woman said to herself to annoy her friend. christine looked at her angry at first, but then her expression softened.
"yeah, alright. thanks" she said and smiled. "come here" she demanded while spreading her arms. the two women hugged. "you are the best, meadow" chris said into her ear. "and you are the worst chrissy, but i love you" meadow replied, getting a laugh out of the other woman.
"okay i'm leaving your room now, cause it smells like something died in here"
"yeah, me inside" chrissy replied.
meadow rolled her eyes at her and exited the room covered in dirt, dust, empty bottles, underwear and all sorts of weird things.

lori kneeled next to the woman calling for help. shane took the woman in his arms and brought her closer to the cars.
"take her to the rv!" yelled dale.
shane quickly took her there placing her on the bed at the back of the vehicle.
"who is that?" few people said.
"don't know. she came out of nowhere" shane responded while shrugging his arms.
"she saved carl and me from a walker" lori said more to her husband than anybody else.
"let me check on her" dale offered and went into his rv. he returned after a second. "no bites, thank god" he turned to lori "would you come here for a second lori?"
"of course, carl stay close to your dad, okay?" she told her son and ruffled his hair. he nodded and went to hug his father.
lori followed dale into the rv, looking at the woman. she was covered in bruises, her body was black and blue. lori felt so bad for the girl. she looked so young.
"what do you think happened to her?"
"nothing good" said dale "we need to clean those wounds, but first look" he lifted her her white shirt just a little bit. her black underwear was ripped, then tied back together in a knot.
"jesus" lori whispered "you don't think-"
"i hope not"

there was a lot of things that this group had to deal with. andrea who wouldn't leave her dead sisters side or the mysterious woman who was barely alive laying in the rv.
daryl was making sure the walkers wouldn't wake up. he only heard about the girl, but he didn't see her yet. from the description he wondered whether it could be the woman he saw in the forest. "i mean propably" he thought. "it ain't like there is a lot of half naked girls covered head to toe in bruises running around" if there was a lot of those, he would propably know that. he remembered how scared and alone she was. one moment she stood completely still, the next her whole dangerously skinny body was trembling with no control. she seemed wild. like he was approaching a scared stray dog who was beaten by his previous owner. he know exactly what that felt like. he knew what it's like to be in that state. daryl tried to keep himself occupied with the work that had to be done. he thought about checking on the girl after, so he knew whether it was her or no. all just to stop thinking about his brother. "i won't ever see him again and now im stuck with these people" he was grieving and he didn't even know whether his brother was alive or not. he thought he hated t-dog and rick for what happened, but he really didn't. what was he supposed to do now that merle was gone? all he ever did for almost 25 years was whatever his brother told him to do. he didn't really have a life of his own. maybe he was scared because he didn't know what's next? what else could he do now except stay with this group?

what else could she do?

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hello. i hate this chapter, but please leave a like and comment if you enjoyed it. it would seriously mean a lot.