Barely Alive // TWD // Daryl Dixon

Chapter 46 - South Carolina

Most of the group wanted to just have a couple of days to recover their strength and not be on runs and they were dreading being in a car for so long, so we voted and we decided to stay four more days in Atlanta.

Some people went on runs to gather more supplies but they would rest the following day and other people would go on more runs, except for Maggie, who stayed every single day. Tyresse had also stayed most of the time to look after Judith.

But we were getting restless, even I who didn't want to leave Georgia was starting to get a bit frustrated. So, on the sixth day after the group got me from the hospital, we packed everything and got ready to leave.

It wasn't easy but we made it. In the last row of the SUV we could fit Rosita, Joshua, Heather and Carl, then in the middle row was Carol with Mika and next to her was Tyreese. Abraham was driving and Rick was next to her with Judith in his arms.

Tara, Gabriel and Maggie were in the back row of the pick-up. Eugene, who was reading the map, was in the passenger seat and Daryl was driving, at least for now. Sasha, Glenn, Noah, Michonne and I were in the back of the pick-up, we had two umbrellas to cover ourselves from the sun.

Every two hours we made some changes, like different people drove and some went all the way in the back instead of the front and we made stops to go to the bathroom often and we also stopped for meals.

After lunch I sat next to Daryl inside the pick-up and Michonne drove. With all the stops we made, which included all those breaks for comfort, bathroom and meals plus some random runs if we saw places like convenience stores or gas stations or even some houses and since we didn't drive an hour or two before it got dark it took us about three days to get to South Carolina and some weird nostalgic feeling got over me.

I knew we could be back after we reached Virginia but what if we didn't? What if we never go back to Georgia? I felt sad. I might have made New York my new home when I was seventeen but Georgia was the place where I was born, it was where I had many good memories. My cousins lived there, my grandparents too. My friends. I had many good memories with Sophia there.

Maybe I felt like this because in the last two years I had lived in Georgia and despite the people we've lost, I had never been happier. I had a best friend, Glenn, I had a person who took care of me as if I was his daughter and his son loved me as his sister. I also found the love of my life.

Once in South Carolina we made yet another stop of about two hours, tried to get gas from abandoned cars and even a gas station. We managed to fill several containers with extra gas.

We got in the cars again and tried to find an okayish place to stay before dark. We avoided big cities so all we found was a normal-sized house out of the main city. We parked one car a few houses away, just in case and the SUV in front of the house.

This house had three rooms, there was a bunk bed in one room. Abraham, Rosita and Eugene got that room. Sasha, Glenn and Gabriel were on watch first. One was on the second floor, and the others were downstairs.

Heather, Noah and Tyreese shared the second room and Joshua, Tara and Maggie slept in the living room downstairs. Rick, Carl, Michonne and Judith slept in the living room upstairs. Judith was in a laundry basket next to Rick.

This time Daryl, my mother, Mika and I shared the master bedroom. Daryl didn't want to complicate things so he let us sleep on the big bed and he grabbed a pillow and lay on the floor, alone.

I couldn't sleep with two other people in the bed, and Mika kicked a lot, so I got out of the bed and lay down next to Daryl. He protested at first but I silenced him with a kiss on the lips.