Tragic Coincidence | Daryl Dixon

Chapter two

I had to think quick to save this mans life, he had an arrow sticking through his abdomen....through his fourth and fifth rib it appeared. He had blood smeared across his face, and his brown pants were stained. He was unconscious but breathing, and that was a good thing....I was a tiny girl, a short five foot two, and moving the man out of the water was going to prove to be a challenge for me. 

I quickly scoped the surroundings making sure it was clear, before I opened my bag to begin helping him. I unbuttoned his long sleeve plaid shirt, gently removing it and tying it around the straps on my bag. He was very buff, his arms were very large, and had he been sleeping and not unconscious I would have taken more time to admire them. 

I tried my hardest to drag him out of the water to avoid infection, but I was too weak. I did manage to roll him on his uninjured side to look at his wound. "Im sorry" I whispered, before quickly yanking the arrow out of his side. He cried out in pain, and tried to swat me away...but I continued my work, pouring small amounts of alcohol on his wound after cleaning the blood off with the ravine water. He seemed to had passed out again, which helped when I needed to stitch him up...and fast too...his yelling was sure to bring attention to us.

I had a small stitching kit in my bag and tried my best to close his wound with what little I had, but the growls of dangerous visitors drew me away from my work. I looked up and saw a tall dark skinned infected man and a shorter one behind him quickly making their way towards us. I quickly took out the shorter one that had made its way in front of the other one, but the taller one had avoided my arrow and sprinted towards the man on the ground that was lying in his own blood. I jumped up and right when the infected man lundged towards me I plunged one of knives up his jaw, killing him instantly. 

Ripping the knive back out and wiping the blood on his pants, I tucked it in my belt. After retrieving my arrow, I stuck that one and the smaller one that was ripped from the mans side in my quiver and got back to work...

It didn't take much longer for me to finish, because once I was happy with what I did I wrapped his side with white bandages and packed everything back in my bag. "Merle....We came back for you....Shut up man....I don't see nobody" I heard coming out of the mans mouth, and when I looked he had rolled back to his backside and was mumbling, his eyes slightly open. "Can you hear me?" I asked, bending over him slightly. He started blinking a bit but it looked like he was looking at me anyway...

"Im a doctor...can you hear me?" I asked him again. "I ain't never seen a doc look like that" He mumbled, looking me up and down. I snorted and held my hand out for him to take. He reached out with the arm on his bad side and immediately pulled it back wincing. "Yeah you hurt yourself pretty bad, be careful" i told him. He just grunted and jumped up holding his side. I would have thought he would have acknowledged the fact that I had just saved him, but he just wandered away.

"A thank you would be nice you know" I called out to him, he just ignored me and started fishing around in the water with a giant stick. "Or not!" I added and slung my bag over my shoulder, my bow in hand. 

The man finally found what he was looking for when he yanked a camo colored crossbow out of the deep part of the water. "thank ya for what?" He asked walking past me. I just rolled my eyes at his ignorance and paced behind him,watching as he attempted to climb up the steepest part of the hill. "Oh I don't know, maybe saving your life" I said leaning against the root of a tree, watching his failed attempt at climbing. 

"What are you talkin about women?" He asked finally giving up his attempt to climb. "See those two over there?" I asked pointing to the now dead infected men floating in the water. He nodded once after glancing at them. "You were a bit asleep when they were trying to eat you." I said slinging my bow over my shoulder and climbing up the hill where he failed to ascend. I pulled his arrow out of my quiver and tossed it to him, which he caught with his good side. "Oh and that was sticking through your side, missed your lungs by barely an inch to" I added while turning around and finishing ascending up the steep hill. 

I made it to the top easily being very light weight and stretched my limbs out on a nearby tree, when I heard grunts coming from the bottom of the ravine. I saw the man struggling to climb, and at this rate he would rip open the stitches I had just sewn into his side. "Need help?" I called down to him, as he was now using a rather large stick as leverage to lift him up. I only got a rather unintelligible grunt for a response from him. "Suit yourself" I said and sat Indian style at the top of the hill, watching the entertainment of this unknown man making this rather hard climb. 

I took enjoyment of watching this rude man fail at climbing for about five minutes, until I really couldn't take it anymore and needed to help him. I slid down to the bottom just as he was about to try to climb for the fifteenth time. "Don't be a stubborn ass, and just let me help you" I said softly while glancing to make sure he didn't pop his stitches open. When I looked back up at his face, he was chewing on his thumb nail and looked like he was contemplating accepting my offer. I received a slight nod, and quickly tossed his left arm over my short shoulders.

It took us around five minutes to both get to the top of the hill, going as slow as possible so we didn't loose our footing and go tumbling back down to the bottom. "You ok?" I asked him as he tried to catch his breath against a tree. "Hello?" I asked him trying to get his attention. He just started walking in circles and mumbling incoherent things to himself. The end of the world must have done a number of this mans sanity...and quite frankly I know it was working at mine....

"Wooo!" I heard him yell as he started punching the air, dragging his crossbow behind him. It was like I wasn't even here, like the past couple of hours of me stitching him up, killing the infected that were trying to eat him, and helping he climb just didn't happen. "Wait!" I called out and tried grabbing his arm, which he just yanked out of my grasp. "Go away Merle" He called back at me. "Merle?" i muttered to myself, stopping for a second. 

This guy was obviously not in the right frame of mind, and his mumbling stopped and his speed slowed down, but I continuously followed a distance behind me to make sure he was ok. Soon enough we came to the forest's edge, and what looked like a farmhouse appeared in the distance. Maybe this man had  group, and I wouldn't be alone after all...

But that thought was shaken from my head as a loud shot of a gun rang out, and the man collapsed onto the ground...the first person I have seen in months and someone had the audacity to shoot him...