RIDE OR DIE | DARYL DIXON

fire and forgiveness

IT SOUNDED LIKE A CLAP OF THUNDER, but there were no clouds and no rain. There was a bright light where it entered. It was a ball of fire that left trails of smoke behind it as it came crashing down into their atmosphere. It rumbled as it soared through the air, and the ground quaked after its brutal landing not too far from Oceanside.

Eugene was immediately on the radio, and his voice rang through like a child on Christmas Day. He rambled about coming to gather information on what he assumed was a satellite that had crashed down, all while the rest were panicking. 

They could already smell the smoke, and they could see it too. It was a large, dark cloud - the only cloud- that hung in the air and continued to bellow and climb upwards.

They were frantic in gathering equipment that they'd need to put out the fire it created, though when they got to it, it was much larger than they anticipated. It had already spread along the ground, catching the grass on fire, as well as a dozen trees and bushes.

"We start on the outside, push in." Cyndie directed all of them.

Half of them split and began to dig a long ditch around the perimeter to prevent the fire from spreading even more while the other half began to pump water out of canisters to combat the flames that had already began to engulf the earth. There were four runners that grabbed buckets and filled them with sand, and they began to toss it onto the fire, but they weren't even making a dent.

They fought the fire all through the night and well into the next morning, and exhaustion began to set in. People began to drop like flies from smoke inhalation and burns. Thankfully, more of the crew from Alexandria had shown up, including Siddiq and a new doctor, Dante, that they had recently taken in. The two of them dragged out anyone that looked even remotely close to collapsing and took care of them as well as they could on the sidelines.

Willow had been passing buckets of sand for nearly two hours, and Ezekiel had been dumping them just as long.

"Yo, boss?" Jerry took the empty bucket from Ezekiel and tossed it back to the sand collector.

Ezekiel pulled down the black bandana that covered his nose and mouth, grabbing another bucket of sand Willow had for him. "Not your boss, Jerry."

"Pace yourself maybe? It's gonna take a minute."

Willow could see why Jerry was worried. Ezekiel had been fighting for a decent breath for a while, but he kept his face over the flames and continued dumping sand despite the deep and unsettling coughs that came tearing out of his throat.

"Fire was the beginning of the end for the Kingdom. We're not letting that happen to Oceanside." He grunted as he tossed more, but he keeled over shortly after, bracing his hands on his knees, gasping.

"We'll take point on this round. You need to take a break." Willow helped him away from the flames and the smoke before returning and helping Jerry again, tying up a bandana around her face. The smoke still seeped in through the cloth and irritated her nose and throat, but she tried to take short and shallow breaths as she worked against the flames beneath her.

Another hour passed, and the fire was slowly coming into their control, but a few trees were on the cusp of tumbling down, a risk of spreading more flames if they didn't work fast enough.

Walkers for miles had to have been alerted from the large vessel's landing, because they started to trickle out of the woods, dozens upon dozens of them. 

Willow tossed another bucket of sand, keeping an eye on the walkers as they drew in closer. Too many people were focused on the fires and not the dead that were about to invade them.