Mushaboom • Daryl Dixon

1

Daryl

The world went to shit.. But not much had really changed for Merle and me. It had always been- well, it had been just us for a long while. Hell if anything, this new world was easier. Ya had to depend on yourself, and keep the people you trust close. And me and Merle knew how to survive. We would make it on our own no problem. It was the rest of em who'd have to either learn to survive or die. Plain and simple. Most people wouldn't make it. But we would. We were supposed to..

Almost right at the start, Jess put my old man down. In the time since then, we got separated from Jess trying to get into the city, and it was just Merle and I like it had been. We three ended up heading towards Atlanta when it got ugly back home, and we figured we'd all meet up once we found a secured place. We never found him..

We found a group. Merle said we was gonna take what we needed once they had let their guard down. It was only a matter of days before we'd be robbing them blind, but as fate would have it, Merle got himself stuck up on some roof in the city, cut off his own damn hand and was just gone. I didn't know what to do, or where else I could go.. so I stuck around with the group, even when shit hit the fan.

Officer Friendly had us go down to the CDC, in hopes for some answers. And while I thought he led us to a death trap, Rick made the right move by taking us there. We got some answers I mean. The bastard who ran the place ended up blowing it to hell, literally. We were then back at square one.

We must've been three months in since the start. We were back on the road again, and as things couldn't have gotten any worse, Carol's little girl was chased off by a walker. We weren't able to find her.

Then we were hit with another shit storm, the sheriff's boy was shot by some man in some freak hunting accident. While he recovered, we set up camp at the farm he came from; it belonged to a old man named Hershel and his family.

We had organized some search groups for Carol's girl, and somehow they were looking to me for any kind of lead. It's kinda funny how you can be an outcast until others need you. Even then, they still danced around me. But I wasn't doing them any favors. I had nothing better to do than search for the girl, and I knew I'd be the one to find her.

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Everyone was too busy being caught up in their own lame shit and I started losing patience, I felt restless. I headed out on my own to look for Sophia, took one of Hershel's horses.

I wasn't out there too long when I found our first real lead in days, Sophia's doll. A rush hit me and I felt hopeful. I called out for her but something must've spooked the horse. It started crying out and the damn thing bucked me off, and next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of the creek.

I was soaked as hell, and got hit with a sharp ass pain. I felt over to my side and lifted my head up the best I could, I huffed once I saw my arrow sticking out of my side. I laid there for a beat, then started dragging my sorry ass over to the shore.

Before I could even begin my climb, I heard rustling coming from the bushes. Of course, with my luck, it was probably them biters. I hurried back to the water until I found my bow. Once I got it, I started my climb up the hill I'd fallen from, and not even halfway up, I ended up falling back down and blacked out.

I started to come to, everything was blurry and my body felt like I'd just taken the beating of a lifetime. My eyes started to focus again, only to find Merle standing over me. It freaked me the hell out at first, but when I heard his voice, a weird sense of comfort hit me, "Why don't you pull that arrow out, dummy? You could bind your wound better."