THINK ABOUT LIVING | Daryl Dixon

003 | The Hopeless vs The Hope

━━━━━━ CHAPTER THREE ━━━━━━
The Hopeless vs The Hope
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          IT WAS INEVITABLE FOR THE SIDE GLANCES and unfiltered doubts to arise when the two convicts were locked in their own prison block, planning on having them sent on their way on the road, yet Mallory, thanks to Daryl's relentless vouching and the way she had opened up about where she's been since the world ended, was welcomed in with them. T-Dog wasn't happy of neither the stigma against the convicts, nor the remaining inclination of man to listen to good references on reputation, rather than the goodness of their own heart. The only bright side to that slow cooking conflict was that currently everyone was too busy to have the time to care or think of such things.

Lori, Beth and Carl have been by Hershel's side and the old man started finally walking with the help of the crutches. Everyone else was mostly outside that morning anyway, moving their cars through the prison yard, piling the bodies of the Walkers they cleared out, preparing to burn them. Mallory heard Rick say he wanted the terrain clean for crops and to be fair, she was astonished: from all the people she's met in the end of times, none seemed to have an actual plan, not like this.

There was also the matter of 'Walkers' that amused her. She's never had a name for the dead before, and the one Daryl's friends used Mallory was certain it would stick with her too.

One thing she couldn't deny was that she still felt estranged to everyone, perhaps even Daryl himself. His theory was that she's spent too much time as the prisoner of others and that integrating into a group will take time. The true curse was that she agreed whilst also being bound to quietly ask herself, Should she really wish to integrate?

The wish was there: to pretend like the world hasn't gone mad, that she wasn't just then cooking soup in a prison kitchen, but in a normal home instead, that kindness was still possible and she belonged with other humans. However against each of those wishful strands appeared arguments in shape of thorns, painted red by her experience. These were good people, Daryl seemed at peace with them, did she want to risk ruining it all?

"Shit," Mallory cursed, the dull knife sliding a thin cut across her finger. "Don't lose another finger, please." The dull knives of the kitchen were all she was allowed around for now, being trusted yet with no other weapon. She didn't mind it. Given her bleeding was persistent and there were no kitchen towels around, Mallory stuck the bleeding finger in her mouth and sighed. After all, she couldn't have anticipated the sudden gunshots being fired outside, making her flinch and come dangerously close to biting way too hard on her finger.

Her skin covered in goosebumps instantly and with dull knife in hand Mallory left the kitchen in a hurried lightheaded-ness. The gunshots kept being fired outside, background sound that raised her pulse until it deafened her.

It's happening, the choir of worries sang in her mind over the ringing of her ears. Bad stuff is already happening.

By the time she reached for the main exit to the yard, the door already flung open from the outside and she saw Maggie, sight that otherwise froze her put. Immediately after her, Carl and Lori ran inside, then the door was slammed shut.

"What's going on?" Mallory muttered. Though less of a rapid fire, gunshots kept being fired outside, as a mocking tease to the lack of answer she was going to receive. Surely the groans of Walkers coming out of the prison's tunnels behind Mallory was not going to count as a proper answer.