endnote.

Chapter Five - immunity

Chapter Five

"We are weightless...We are invincible.."

~

The floor rushed up to meet her as legs turned to jelly collapsing under her own weight, the hunting knife, Daryl had pressed into her palm only minutes before, slipped from her blood soaked hand and clattered to the ground just as strong arms embraced her, they folded around her small frame staggering slightly under her sheer dead weight. Together they sank to their knees, the ache in her chest burned boldly as the poison flooded her circulatory system. Drowning her from the inside out her frail crimson stained hands clutched his sleeves as the red dyed dust flew around them like a tornado sweeping through the massacre that lay before them.

The wound on her neck had missed her carotid artery by mere inches but as the feeling of acid burned it's way through her veins everything she had in her wished it hadn't. His fingers surveyed the injury; his eyes refusing to look at hers and Beth forced back a pitiful sob as the world spun around her. Cold liquid was splashed onto broken skin, it's sharp cooling cleanliness made it sting; she shuddered feeling drunk in her own stupor. When she'd tried to speak she was hushed in a low whispering voice. It didn't feel like it had before when she was bitten a year previously. It felt all wrong, she had a reason to stick around this time...

He had looked at her then.

His face featured the pain that the rest of her body could not, as if looking at the wounded deer he'd just shot with one of his bolts; a sincerely apologetic rise of emotions when he cupped her face and, without hesitation, wiped a tear from her cheek. She hadn't realised she was crying; all but the aching inside her was numb, the same fear that flooded her the first time enveloped her again, tugging at her heartstrings as she realised the tears were for him. She looked at him now; looked at his red eyes and watched his every movement in painfully slow detail. She saw him pick up her hunting knife, saw him pull it towards him and hide it from her sight. He was ever thoughtful despite Beth already knowing what would come next. She had denied herself all the emotions she could possibly feel for him until now, the substitute protector was gone, what lay before her now was only a man. Only a human being about to become a lone traveller in their never-ending landscape of hell. She hurt for him more than she hurt for herself and a part of her wondered how she could have done it differently; dragging her eyes away from his she peered into the darkness as she forced her mind to go back, to remember what had happened...

Blood trickled down the back of her neck and she ached for a drink to ease the dryness of her throat. The hair on her arms prickled to attention and the devil's fingers stroked her spine, shivering under the touch Beth had pressed herself to him as they had danced back to back surveying their surroundings, round and round and round. There was no escaping this unscathed, she gripped the knife tighter as her other hand searched for his meeting it in the in-between as he also searched for hers; it was a brief contact, nothing more than fingers intertwining for a few seconds before all hell broke loose

His red rag slid from her grip floating in slow motion towards the ground surrounded by chaos unleashed.

Once one squeezed through a tiny gap in the fence, so more followed and it wasn't long before there were too many to count, every one that Beth stuck with her knife was replaced by another and another and another, she threw them against each other and they'd toppled but kept on coming, her yellow top was a dark orange colour dripping with death and the stench was another thing entirely. The sound of a bolt shattering skull right next to her ear had her whipping round just in time to see a walker drop like a stone a fingerbreadth from her, it's rancid breath engulfed her escaping it's lungs as it crumpled. It was a close call and a stark reminder to her to pay attention. They fell like dominoes after that, Beth had a new found strength rising in her as the knife slipped so easily into every walker that came towards her; so much so that it was becoming harder to grip the hilt with so much blood covering her hands.

Minutes had passed and the walker herd lessened, till she was tripping over body parts and the blade of her knife eased into the throat of one of the last, going for gold the hilt hitting bone as the serrated tip burst through the brain stem and it fell away from her, landing awkwardly at her feet. Mentally exhausted Beth turned to face Daryl her unworried eyes watching as he felled more of them with a combination of bolt, knife and handgun. Chest heaving, she lifted a hand to run it through her hair but it had barely made contact when there was a bump to the middle of her back and a piercing burn in the crick of her neck just above her collar bone.

In an instant Daryl's crossbow was pointed at her, releasing a bolt that sped towards her and whizzed blindingly fast into the face of the walker that bit her. She didn't move, her shirt becoming an even darker shade of reddish orange. She could hear the sound of herself breathing, the sound of the air as it gushed into her lungs and she choked it out as it rushed back out of her body, as if it was trying to escape the uncertainty of her slow demise. Daryl was a blur as he'd run towards her. She'd felt herself pitch forwards unable to stop and the fear surrounding hitting the floor was with her all the way; but arms had reached her before the floor had and together they had fallen, the ground unforgiving on their knees.

Daryl had dropped his crossbow the moment she started falling; shock spread across her face and the wound bled profusely as panic rose in his throat. He'd caught her. He'd landed hard and his knees screamed at him for it. The salt stung his eyes as he furiously blinked the water away, fingers gently inspecting the bite noticing the beat of her heart faintly under the skin as a tear kissed his hand. Swallowing hard he brushed it away before turning her face to his; her lips moved silently as if trying to speak, he hushed her softly whilst reaching for her knife – her eyes followed him albeit wandering away to stare into the distance. Her breathing laboured and the heartbeat in her neck grew fainter though the wound had stopped bleeding..

"Beth.."

He whispered, but she didn't respond just gazed blindly into the darkness.

"Beth.."

He said again, this time a little louder, his sentence forgotten when she looked directly at him, tears glistening in her eyes, smiling slightly – the hand that reached for him never made contact and perching on the edge of all that she had ever known, breathlessly her chapped lips formed only one word before she passed out in Daryl's arms...

"Immune.."

~

"You said you'd always be fine.. You said forever was unkind"

(Lyric Credits: "Weightless" by Layla & "Immunity" by Jon Hopkins)