In The End | Daryl Dixon

Chapter 26

"This girl is on fire."

Erica

So, this is ass. 

Sophia's been nabbed and while I could go Wendigo hunting all by my lonesome, that also sounds like ass and like a not very smart idea. Which means I'm going to need to bring some fellas into the fold. Which also doesn't seem like the smartest idea in the world, but you know what? The world has literally ended and the shits I have left to give are not as plentiful as I make them out to be.

"Dixie Cup, Glenn, I need you to listen to me right quick and not interrupt." I breathed out once Shane and Rick had fanned out with intent to search for Sophia. Poor guys aren't going to find jack shit. Well, hopefully-- we all know it wouldn't end well if they did. "I know why Sophia's trail ends so abruptly. I know what took her."

There. I've dropped the other shoe, and now they're just going to have to cope. There's no going back. I know telling them makes sense. The whole secrecy thing is just... so deeply ingrained in me that it sorta hurts, you know? Letting people live in ignorant bliss is kind of our memo if at all possible. This totally goes against my internal bro-code. 

Daryl's nose wrinkled, but Glenn looked properly scared by my ominous statement. Probably because I sound dead serious right now which like, literally never happens. I'm being legit right now. Considering I was still cracking jokes when Sam didn't have a soul and kinda tried to kill me in cold blood, that's saying something. 

"What's that supposed t' mean? You sayin' somethin' snatched er up?" Daryl asked, a little skeptical and a lot incredulous. I pointed upwards again with a grimace on my face. How am I going to explain any of this to them? Is Glenn even built for this kind of stress? Hell, are any of the chumps back at camp? BOB could totally handle it, but he doesn't have opposable thumbs.

Daryl craned his head and Glenn did as well. Despite not being a tracker, it didn't take the former pizza man long to realize just what I was trying to draw their attention to. Even in low light, the broken branches and harsh, jagged claw marks were obvious. Something has torn through here, and it had done it fast.

Poor Dixie cup looked like he was having a... moment. He seemed utterly bewildered, clearly trying to figure what had made the marks. I could see the cogs in his head turning, trying to rationalize the unnaturalness of what he was seeing. It happened to everyone who had their rose tinted glasses forcibly taken off.

Unfortunately, they're going to need to hurry their processing the fuck up, because we've got kids to find and creatures to burn. I tightly wrangled the ball of panic swelling in the pit of my stomach, going over what I knew about Wendigos. The loved to store live food, and it had just taken Sophia. So long as he had another meal before her at some point recently, she must still be alive.

But how the hell are we supposed to find its den? And in the dark, no less, which is just about the worst damn time to hunt one of these things. If these two deem me crazy we could be in deeper shit than we're already wading in. Glenn is open minded enough to maybe just go along with it. He's also kind of a pussy, which helps. He'll likely just fold under my demands.

Daryl-- he's stubborn as they come, but his Chupacabra story makes me think he may be more open-minded than most would assume. I'd love to sit here and talk them through it in excruciating detail. Give them the whole nine yards, with a power point that had cute little animations and pictures that spun onto the screen artfully. 

But Sophia can't wait that long. Calling Cas is still an option, but there's still no guarantee he'll be able to find her. Not with walkers still registering as people due to the souls still trapped in them, and not with angel radio on the fritz. Not to mention I'd have to scream at the top of my actual lungs to get him to maybe hear me, and I don't fancy doing that so soon after a herd just passed.