A Broken World

Twenty-Five

The Search Continued

After he found it, he set it down on the sandy, muddy shore, pulled his knife out  and began to cut off the sleeves of his flannel. “We need to get you back to Hershel,” I told him, taking the water soaked sleeves he had tied together. “I can do it myself!” I swatted his hand away and proceeded to wrap it around his waist. “This is going to hurt.” I pulled the makeshift  tourniquet tight around his waist, making Daryl grunted in pain.

He took a deep breath and stood up, grabbing his crossbow along the way. I looked up the steep bank, trying to figure out how we were going to get up it with him being injured. I was about to say something when a rustling from the bushes across the way rustled. Daryl and I made eye contact and stayed silent for a few minutes. Then we began to climb, and I was ahead of him, trying to find the easiest way to go. Daryl still had the branch, using it as a crutch to pull himself up. I kept looking back and making sure to wait until he got closer to me to move further up.

After a while, he threw the branch he was using down. “Grab hold of this tree here,” I told him, pointing to a small tree. He reached up, wrapping his hand around it to pull himself up, but when he tried, his foot slipped out from under him, and he went rolling back down the incline. “Shit! Daryl!” I started back down, slipping and sliding, grabbing a hold of tree roots and trunks to help slow myself. Unfortunately, that didn't work all that well and I ended up losing my footing and slid down to the bottom of my ass, scraping the palms of my hands while trying to slow myself with them and trying to dip my heels into the loose dirt.

“Had a shitty day, bro.”

I heard Daryl talking…well more like mumbling, but he was talking to someone who wasn't here. “Daryl? Daryl, hey, look at me.” I put my hands on his cheeks, turning his head so he could see me. “Don't move. Hey! Open your eyes!”

“Shut up, man.you don't know shit,” he mumbled. He was looking at something only he could see over my shoulder. “Who the fuck are you talking to?” His eyes started to close and he mumbled something incoherent. “Daryl. Hey! Open your fucking eyes!” I tapped on his face, patting his cheek. Rustling in the bushes behind us made me pat his cheek harder and faster. “Daryl, I need you to wake the fuck up! Now!” This time I just out right slapped him. His eyes popped open and his hand tightly grabbed my wrist. “You need to get up!”

Daryl

I must have hit my damn head pretty hard. Merle was standin’ over me, throwing insults like he always does. I could faintly hear yn voice trying to rouse me from my daze. “You need to get up!” She sounded so far away but she was hovering over me. I could see the worry in her e/c eyes.

“Do as your little girlfriend says. Beat ya haven't even felt how tight that cunt is.” He had a smile on his face that pissed me off. “Shut up, man, you don't know shit!” Merle laughed and racked his eyes over yn body. “So you have been inside that pussy. Well, damn little brother, why didn't ya tell me?” Yn looked behind her and her muffled voice said something to me that I couldn't understand. My eyes rolled back and closed. My eyes shot open when a hard slap left a stinging on my cheek. “You need to get up!” Yn said  standing up and walking away.

Yn

I stood up, pulling my knife and walking towards the walkers that were coming out from behind the bushes across from where we were. I stabbed the first one, then the second one with no problem, and headed back towards Daryl; he was slowly waking. I was so focused on him that I didn't hear a walker coming up behind me. It knocked me off balance and I fell with it coming down on top of me. My knife went flying out of my hand and out of reach.

I reached up to holded away from me with one hand while the other desperately searched for something, anything, to hit it in the head with. “Daryl!” I was struggling to keep Its rotting teeth from biting into the flesh on my face. “Daryl! Daryl, damnit wake the fuck up!” I brought my other arm up and pressed it against its throat. The walker was a lot bigger than me and heavier. My arms were starting to shake from the pressure it was putting in them. Its teeth snapped inches from my face.

I closed my eyes getting ready for the white hot pain of my flesh being ripped from my body. But it never happened. The walker was pulled off of me and Daryl was standing over me, crossbow in one hand, the arrow missing from his side, and his free hand outstretched towards me. I let out a sigh of relief and took his hand, letting him help me up. “Ya alright? Didn't bite ya did it?” I shook my head and looked down at the walker. “Thanks.” I brushed myself off then pointed to his side. “You shouldn't have taken that out, but I understand why you had to.”

I walked closer to him and reached my hand out towards his shirt, but didn't touch him. “May I look at it?” I asked. “I just want to see how bad it is.” He chewed on his bottom lip and lightly nodded his head. With shaky hands I grabbed the bottom of his soaked flannel and lifted it until I saw the wound. “Definitely gonna need stitches. We need to keep pressure on it until we get back to the farm.” I looked at the exit wound on his back but didn't lift his shirt up past that. I knew about the scars and I know how uncomfortable they made Daryl feel when people saw them. So I just took a quick look and let his shirt fall back down.

After making sure that we had something wrapped around his wound And he ate a raw squirrel, we made our way up the steep embankment again. It was rough and took us a while but we finally made it. When we got to the top Daryl yelled something to someone that wasn't even there. “Are you okay? I know you hit your head but I didn't think it was that hard.” mad grumbled something under his breath and we continued our way back to the farm.

“Finally!” I sighed as we came out of the woods. At this point Daryl was dragging his crossbow and I was a few feet behind him. We were both so exhausted we could barely keep going. The farm was in view though and that made me fucking happy because fuck that horse and fuck those woods.

I could see people running towards us and then a gunshot went off. Daryl fell to the ground and something pierced my shoulder, knocking me back. “Fuck! What the fuck!” I screamed, pressing my hand to my shoulder. Someone just fucking shot me! “No! No!” Rick screamed where he was by Darylal"Who the fuck just shot me?!” I yelled. Glenn was rushing over to me and helped me up.

We headed across the farm and Andrea came running towards us. “Oh, my God is he okay?” She asked. “He's fine. We need to get him to Hershel, same with yn,”  Rick told her. She looked at me, her eyes wide. “oh  God, yn, i'm so sorry.” She gasped and stumbled back when my right fist met her left cheekbone. “Fucking bitch!”

“Hey, isn't this Sophia's?” We turned to see T-dog holding up Sophia's doll.