Barely Alive // TWD // Daryl Dixon

Chapter 27 -- Hard Times

"It's hard at times, but it makes a kid strong in ways that most people can't understand. Teaches them that even though people are left behind, new ones will inevitable take their place;

that every place has something good and bad to offer.

It makes a kid grow up fast."

– Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One

Cecilia's POV

The four of us hadn't had it easy since we had to leave that house in such a hurry because of that group of men that chose the same house to use it, we had such bad luck.

"I'm cold," Carl muttered as he got even closer to me, I ran my hand up and down his arm to warm him up but it was barely working.

It had been around a week and we had spent all the time outside, mostly on the woods with the exception of one night, where we allowed ourselves to stay in a nice but messy cottage, where we found more food.

We had run into several groups of walkers making us go around mostly in circles, so we had been pretty much in the same area all this time, and maybe because of that we hadn't seen any other person, including the people from the prison.

At the moment Michonne and Rick were discussing things like the adults they are, Michonne wanted to head west while Rick wanted to go east, Michonne wanted to spend the night inside a store we passed by before dusk but Rick said it was too risky and now we are freezing out here.

"They seem like an old married couple, don't they?" I commented as I stared at the pair, who believed Carl and I had fallen asleep.

"Yeah, but with weapons," Carl said with a nod as he looked at Michonne's katana, which was in her hand. Rick had his big gun on his hand as well and anyone that didn't know them would be terrified because they would believe they would kill each other but they were just being their usual selves, none of them was in any kind of danger.

Rick and Michonne don't argue often and their arguments aren't ugly but when they happen they are long, they just keep going in circles, both are stubborn and the two of them want the best for Carl and me and both are right in their own ways.

"Do you think we will ever find a nice place to stay, like not temporarily?" he asked, looking right into my eyes. "I know, it's been only two or three weeks top but I guess I got used to have... a home, you know? I actually miss having to clean the pigs' pen and the farming stuff, much better than having to sleep on the ground and being cold."

"I know," I said sadly. "I miss it too but we had the prison and just because it's gone now it doesn't mean we won't find another place to stay."

"The thing is find it before walkers get us, before people get us." Carl whispered the last part but I heard it clearly.

"Don't talk like that. It has been rough, I know, but we can't think like that. How much time passed until you found the prison? You just stumbled upon it, something like that will happen again. There has to be somewhere else that is safe."

"I hope so and I hope we find it fast because I don't think we can last another eight months living like this," Carl told me. "We barely made it then and things weren't as bad as now and we were more than fifteen people, now it's just the four of us against the whole world."

"Well, we are hell of a team. We got the Grimes boys, the last samurai," I said with a chuckle remembering what Daryl called her when he first met her.

"And Cecilia Peletier, the female archer" Carl said with a smile. "You are right, we are the best team ever."

Fortunately the gloomy mood didn't last long and I managed to make Carl smile again, we talked about nice stuff for around an hour until the two of us fell asleep, his head resting on my shoulder and mine on top of his.