GAME OF SURVIVAL ³ ━━━ the walking dead

13 | delta

13; DELTA
(season nine, episode nine)

[TRIGGER WARNING
self-harm, implied abuse, there's also a vomiting scene(does this need a tw?)]

FOUR YEARS AGO, Devin Cayuga died. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, the person she once was ebbed away from her consciousness.

She died when her skin was irreparably ripped open, when her knees hit the dirt and her vision was blinded by violent crimson jets of her own creation. She died when her pleas to every known deity in existence went ignored.

Devin Cayuga died when she chose to live.

Now, she was Delta. Alpha's fourth in command after Beta and Gamma. A trained killer. A guardian collector. A dead woman.

"I really can't tend to this wound unless you take off your shirt," The unfamiliar Doctor told her. He was freakishly clean, clad in a grey button-up with his hair tied back in a tight bun. "Now, if you'd prefer another woman, I can try and get Enid, but you need stitched up."

Delta kept her eyes focused locked onto her dirt-stained knees. She hadn't given her appearance any thought in a long time, but now, surrounded by all this white, self-consciousness was festering inside. When she stood up from the cot she'd been allocated, there would surely be a stain on the pristine sheets - crap, she wasn't supposed to think about stuff like that. Old world stuff.

That made five. Five mistakes she'd made today. That would be five strikes to the arm later. If she let it slide, her strength would suffer. There was no time for weakness.

"I've got her."

Delta flinched at the painfully familiar tone.

Six.

Rosita Espinosa stepped into the infirmary. Her hair was longer now, draped loosely down her back. Her eyes were crinkled slightly with age, they'd lost the sunken effect they used to bore - she was doing better now, that was clear. Had been doing better, at least. Her skin was unnaturally pale, beads of sweat were glistening on her forehead and she was unsteady on her feet.

"Are you sure?" The Doctor asked hesitantly. "In your-"

"I'm good," Rosita said firmly. "Let me do this."

He nodded reluctantly, passed his needle and thread to her, and promptly left the trailer.

Rosita squinted at the bloody arrow fragments the Doctor had placed into a chipped bowl. "Is that one of Daryl's?" She blew out a scoff. "He's making an awful habit of shooting people these days."