In The End: A Daryl Dixon x OC Story

Sticking Around

Daryl seemed long gone by the time I arrived back at the pond. There was nothing more than his footprints in the spongy earth to show he had ever been there. However, the sun was much lower in the sky now, and I was sure that he'd gone off to do some more hunting now that I didn't seem to be in his way anymore. So much for my hopes of having him tolerate me.

I didn't let my mind dwell on him for too much longer, I would burn that bridge when I crossed it. For now, I needed to do what I came here to do. Without a second's hesitation, I pulled my shirt over my head, holding it out in front of me. The entire front was decorated in dark crimson stains, slowly drying brown in the green fabric. My pants had been spared from most of the evidence of my brush with death, and for that I was beyond grateful. That meant that all I had to do was wait for my shirt to dry most of the way and I could head back to our camp, maybe get the fire started.

Then, a thought crossed my mind. If we were going to drink this water, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to dunk a shirt soaked with the blood of a geek in it. This water was an uncontaminated as it could be for the time being, and if I was going to go back and boast about how I found it, I couldn't ruin it before I had a chance to tell anyone.

The next thought to cross my mind was to simply pour the water from my bottle over it, scrunch it up and scrub it against itself and rinse it. It wasn't going to get the stain out, this shirt would always be a reminder of the first geek I killed, but it would hopefully get out most of the smell and that thick sticky feeling.

I draped the soiled shirt over my arm and poured water over it until I was satisfied. Then, sitting the bottle aside, I balled the shirt up in my hands, and scrubbed it until it felt like my fingers were going to bleed. I rinsed it again, watching as the tainted water spilled down onto the ground.

Why did I come all the way out here again? I could have just done this back at the camp Daryl and I had set up...

I pushed the thought from my head and continued the very tedious process of washing my shirt with nothing but water and some elbow grease until the it rinsed clear. God, I missed my washing machine, and my dryer now that I was wringing out all of the water with the strength I had left. Breakfast felt like so long ago, and I figured it had to have been a while.

We walked about an hour into the woods, set up "camp", I set up four snares, walked even further to this pond, fought a geek, won, fought with Daryl, checked my snares, sat at "camp" for half an hour, and came all the way back out here to wash my shirt. Before all of this, my days consisted of packing lunch for Kathleen, getting her ready, getting ready myself, dropping her off, and going to work. We ate a lot of takeout for dinner.

Takeout wasn't an option, but I figured that it would be nice for once to actually eat something equally nutritious alongside our protein for the night, whatever that may be. So, after draping my shirt over a low hanging branch to dry, I decided to try and search for some more edible plants and hopefully make something akin to a salad that wouldn't kill us. It was about time that we got some vegetables and vitamins back into our diet, most of what we had been eating had come from what people brought with them and what Daryl could shoot. The cattails were a start, but I knew there was plenty more to be found out here.

Not to mention, I was getting tired of seeing Amy and Lori coming back from just beyond the trees with the smallest amount of mushrooms that they weren't even sure weren't poisonous. They were going to get one of us killed, but I hadn't really gotten around to talking enough to say that I knew this information. It would have been safer for me to just come forward with it, but Amy and Lori have managed fine up until recently, and now it was time for them to hand over the torch.

While my shirt began to dry, I shouldered my pack, and began to walk around the pond, seeing if anything more than a few cattails could be found in this area. I thought that I was going to be out of luck and have to trek further into the woods to find something until I came around to the dead tree. I hadn't seen the other side of it, but when I did, a feeling of almost excitement washed over me.