Starting Over... |Daryl Dixon| |The Walking Dead|

Chapter 13: Another Day, Another Casualty

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"Mom?... Dad?..."

My voice echoed through my family's dark, empty house. I traveled from room to room upstairs, feeling like I was floating... I couldn't sense my feet touching the floor.

Each room was empty; The three bedrooms, the bathroom, the den... So I felt my body drift down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Hello...?"

Still, I couldn't find my family. There was no one in the kitchen, the living room, in the downstairs bathroom, or on the back porch. There was only one place left: the basement.

Suddenly, I was standing right in front of the basement door. It slowly creaked open on its own, and I could see both my parents standing at the bottom of the staircase. Their backs were turned to me, and a sudden shiver of fear shook my spine... Something wasn't right.

"...Mom...?" My voice croaked... it sounded so far away.

Slowly, my mom turned around while my dad stood eerily still. My heart pounded faster and faster until she finally faced me. I tried to scream, but my voice was gone. For some reason, I couldn't remember how to use my voicebox.

I was stuck in that spot at the top of the staircase, forced to stare into my mothers white, foggy eyes and the yellowing, decaying skin falling from her face, exposing the skull beneath. Thick, bloody slobber hung from her chin and stained the front of her night shirt.

On her neck, I could see a huge, open wound... A bite mark.

The thing that used to be my mother opened its jaws, staring me straight in the eyes and piercing my soul. But instead of the horrible scream I thought I was going to hear come from its mouth, I heard.... Gun fire...

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I sat straight up in my sleeping bag, the sound of mixed voices shouting and bullets firing ringing in my ears. I instinctively jumped out of my bunk,  still a little disoriented, and scrambled to lace my converse high tops onto my feet.

"EVERYONE WAKE UP!!" Rick's scream echoed from downstairs, "WE'VE BEEN BREACHED!! WALKERS!! COME ON, GET UP!!!"

Now I was awake. I rushed to Jessie, who was amazingly still asleep on the top bunk. I put both hands on her shoulders and violently shook her.

"Jess!" I said urgently, "JESSIE!!"

She woke with a start, and I didn't waste any time. I grabbed her shoes from the floor and tossed them at her.

"Hurry!!" I shouted while I armed myself with my weapons in record time.

In a split second, Jessie was by my side grabbing her baseball bat and her gun. By now she had caught on to the screaming downstairs.

"What's going on?!" She cried out as we dashed out of the cell, heading straight for the stairwell.

"I don't know," I yelled over the sound of everyone frantically scrambling through the cafeteria. Carol rushed into a cell with baby Judith in one arm and a machine gun in the other, "Rick said walkers breached the fence..."

Glenn dashed right in front of us, gun in hand, screaming at us to come outside and help. Without waiting for a response, he busted through the door and disappeared outside... I could hear Rick and Hershel calling to each other, and I caught a glimpse of a group of three walkers chasing T-Dog across the lot.

"Jessie!! Kayla!!" Tina's terrified shriek caught my attention, and as I turned toward the direction it came from I saw her heading toward us with Maggie and Beth at her side. Each of them was armed with a handgun.