A Broken World

Seventy-Nine

The first few days on the road settled into a routine neither of us talked about.

Walk.

Stop.

Listen.

Keep walking.

We stayed off the roads whenever we could. If we had to cross one, Daryl went first. He'd crouch near the tree line, study the ground, scan the area with his binoculars, then wave me across.

Every abandoned car got checked.

Every house got watched before we went inside.

Every noise mattered.

By the third day, we'd fallen into our roles without discussing them.

Daryl handled tracking.

I handled supplies.

If I found canned food, batteries, bandages, or clean clothes, they went into our packs.

If Daryl found footprints, broken branches, campfires, or tire tracks, we followed them until they disappeared or became too dangerous.

Neither of us mentioned the prison.

Not because we'd forgotten.

Because neither of us was ready.

---

Around noon on the fourth day, we found an old gas station.

Most of the windows had been broken years ago.

The shelves inside were almost empty.

Daryl checked the back room while I searched behind the counter.

"Got anything?" he called.

"Couple candy bars."

"They good?"

I checked the dates.

"Barely."

"They're food."

I laughed quietly.

"Your standards are really low."

"Ain't dead yet."

I tucked them into my backpack.

"There are still some bottled waters."

"Take 'em."

As I bent down to grab them, something caught my eye.

A photograph.

It had fallen behind the counter.

A family of four.

Two little girls smiling at the camera.

Their parents standing behind them.

Normal.

Just... normal.

I stared at it for a few seconds before setting it back where I'd found it.

Daryl came around the corner.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

I wasn't.

But I didn't know how to explain why seeing strangers who used to have ordinary lives hurt so much.

He looked down at the picture.

Then back at me.

Without saying anything, he gently laid it face down before we left.