A War On Her World | TWD: D. Dixon

Ch. 41

I... have to get Benji.

The pain on the side of my head was almost unbearable. It may have been a non-life-threatening shot, but a bullet was a bullet and a good chunk of my ear was now missing. None of that meant anything in comparison to the loss I was feeling in my heart.

Standing with shaky legs, I gripped onto a small hole in my shirt and ripped off half the sleeve. I didn't want to ruin my clothes more than they already were, but I had to stop the bleeding before I could do anything else.

I awkwardly folded the small, torn piece of fabric and hesitated as I placed it just away from where my ear should have been. My hand beginning to shake more as I recalled the searing pain from the last time I touched it.

"Come on," I demanded, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to get myself to actually make the contact.

It seemed I just loved losing parts of myself.

Holding the fabric to my ear with my left arm, I pushed forward, further into the woods. I tried to recall every time I had left the prison confines to go on runs or particularly quiet days to enjoy a change in scenery. I tried to imagine my positioning if I were to see the surrounding area on a map.

The bus had left, following the main road heading east. It was unlikely that I would be able to catch up with the rest of the group this way, but I would have been damned if I let my son be taken from me in this manner.

Thank god Grace is with him.

Once I had been able to figure out where I was, it was only a matter of time before I was going in the right direction. And I wasn't stopping for no one.

The sun was setting in the sky and everything around me began to disappear into the dimness of the night. My body was exhausted, I was exhausted, but I refused to stop. My legs threatened to give out on me, but I couldn't stop.

My ear had stopped bleeding hours ago, the side of my face crusting over in dried blood. I found the road not long after and I was heading east along the treeline to stay out of sight.

Even as I was panting like I had run a marathon for the first time or coughing up the last signs of the illness I had recently suffered from, I refused to stop. Nothing was going to keep me from finding my son.

As the night progressed, I had been lucky enough to only run into a few walkers here and there. My guess? They must have all been gathered at the prison. I was stumbling around in the dark like a newborn deer, I was in dire need of a rest, but I kept walking. I walked until the darkness looked ever so slightly lighter than before.

I walked until I couldn't.

I ended up collapsing sometime in the early morning before the sun had been able to rise fully. My legs vibrated so violently, at first, nothing but physically holding them straight made the movement cease even a little. And it was at this moment I felt the burning dehydration in my throat.

I was lucky enough to have eaten something right before the big fall, but I was going to have to find food and water if I was going to be able to continue the way I was. Unsurprisingly, though, I was not all that famished as I was sick with worry and too focused on the pounding headache.

At that time, against what my brain was telling me to do, I had no choice but to stay seated as I wouldn't have been able to lift myself to my feet if I wanted to. All I could do was wait for some strength to come back to me before I started on the road again. Only, without even realising it, my eyes began to droop and my body began to slump against the tree I rested against.

Before I knew it, I had slipped into a deep exhaustion-induced sleep.

●

Daryl wasn't able to let Beth walk away on her own, not into the woods in the middle of the night. They had lost so many people that there was no saying whether they were the only two left. He felt responsible for her and, as such, would do his damndest to keep her safe. If that meant searching and tracking potentially dead ends all night, so be it.