PREY ◌ DARYL DIXON

one.

CHAPTER ONE

"Long time no see, Morgan?"

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Ryan

A wise man once told me before this damn thing started that hope would get you killed and I stupidly didn't believe him. I believed that life would always perfect that my kids will grow up and give me grand kids, that me and husband would grow old together and live in our dream house together, with the picket white fence and the beautiful marigold flowers.

Hope made me weak and took everything away from me.

When I lost everything, I was dead inside. I was reckless. I didn't care about anything, not my life, not anyone else's life, nothing.

I did anything and everything to fill the void that their deaths left and in the process I lost myself.

But the kingdom found me and saved me, saved me from myself.

I was Ryan Carter, one of King Ezekiel's trusted guards and I will die to protect my new found family. I failed to my first family and now that the fates gave me a second chance, I refuse to fail them this time.

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I was helping some of the people with the crops when I saw Morgan, an old friend of ours pulling up with some woman in the car. I went up to Morgan's car waiting for him to get out.

"Long time no see, Morgie." I told him as I gave him a huge hug. he chuckled.

"Ryan, you know how much I hate that name."

"That's why I said it, Morgie."

"Where's Ezekiel?" He asked and I had one of the people lead him and the strange woman to the king.

I went back to work and I spent the hours thinking about mindless things and what happened for Morgan to come back with some strange woman. 

Me and Morgan went way back, way before the apocalypse. We were childhood buddies, we used to spend years in the hood and the slums of the town, wishing for the good life. We worked so hard to get the jobs and family we had. He worked for so many years to be a police. I, worked my butt off to be a part of the army. I wanted more than anything to train young people to be hard working warriors for the country.

We were able to achieve our dreams and have our dream families but in a instance it was destroyed.

Me and Morgan have been separated several times but when we found each other last time, he led me to King Ezekiel and the kingdom and I've never left again. I was content here although I hated giving away our things to the saviours.

"Carter?"I heard from behind me and I turned towards the sound. It was a little kid, Sam. He was giving me something. I went to him and bent down. "What do you have for me, Sammy?" I asked and he put it in my hand. It was a cookie. A cookie that his mother found while she was scavenging for food. I gave him a hug and I finished up my work and headed to my room to rest.

I put my hair in a bun and slipped off my work chothes, putting on a plain white tee and shorts. I laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

Dream~

"Ryan!" I heard my husbands strong deep voice scream out and I turn around. He was holding our kids hands, panic written on all of their faces. They were surrounded by monsters.

I tried to run..

Save them somehow.

But I couldn't for I was surrounded by a circle of fire.

"Mom! Mom!" My kids screams becomimg increasingly louder. I felt a flood of tears falling down my face.

"Momma's sorry. Momma loves you!" I screamed to my kids as they looked me with tear stained faces. They didn't say anything. They couldn't. They were gone just like that.

The most important people in my life gone just like that. I fell to my knees in dispair.

The dream quickly changed and I was in a bar, staring into the eyes of a dead zombie version of my husband. I was drinking myself in a stupor. I was traveling with a group of useless people.

I felt an emotion different from sadness when I stare in a zombie that my drunken eyes envisioned was my husband.

"Derek. Oh Derek. You ruined everything. You fucking ruined everything. You killed our kids. You killed them."

The zombie stared back at me with a blank face and I got angrier. The anger was steaming out of my ears.

"You had hope. You had hope that we were gonna survive this together and I believed. I shouldn't have but I did and now you and my kids are dead and I'm alone. So freaking alone, I want to die. Hope kills and destroys everything. Hope gets you killed and I hope you pay for your sins as I will for believing in your lies." I got up and took out my gun and pointed it to the zombies that in my drunken state thought was my husband and shot him in the head. I walked out of there and went to the car got in and told the rest of the asshats to hurry up and go. I needed to leave before I break down.

Dreams over~

I woke up and I lighted my candle. I looked up at my mirror and I stared at my tear filled face. I cried and had the nightmare again. You would think the amount of times I had this nightmare,  I would get used to it and stop crying but it always creeps up on me. I got up and went to a bookcase and grabbed a book, The Pursuit of Nothing by an anonymous author and read it for the twentieth time and I stayed up for the rest of the night, distracting my self from thinking about the dream.

And it worked. For a short period of time