It happened over night.
In barely twelve hours, her life had changed dramatically and in ways no one in the prison had seen coming.
The woman who had been first up every morning to make breakfast for everyone, was now bed ridden. Unable to move from the position she fell into under the sheets. The woman who always had a smile on her lips, gracing everyone with it no matter how hard the day, could now only grimace in pain. The woman who had always been the calming wave in the group, with her soft steady voice, now left those around her scrambling.
Her son had sought out Daryl Dixon the moment he found his mother's sickly body still in bed. The boy had burst into the redneck's cell at the end of the hall in a whirl of worry. It was rare of someone to show up to Daryl's cell, and that mixed with the look upon the boy's face told Daryl that something was wrong.
"She's burning up and she can't move."
At first thought, Daryl questioned if she had gotten bit somehow. But as the boy shared with him her other symptoms on the way to her cell, it sounded as though she had caught some sort of illness over the course of the night.
The boy, who was no older than fifteen, rambled on as they drew closer to her cell. His voice was flooded with fear and worry as he explained his mother's condition to the redneck. And although some of his words came out in a way that made them hard to understand, Daryl listened to the teenager with his ears wide open.
As they reached the cell in which the boy's mother resided, Daryl inhaled a deep breath. He hid it from the boy; but Daryl was filled to the brim with fear and anxiety just like the kid.
"Mom?" The boy spoke softly as they entered the cell. Daryl stayed back a ways in the doorway, observing the boy as he neared his mother's bedside. And just like the boy had told him, she didn't look good.
Her skin was pale; a sickly shade of white. But Daryl had seen the color of her flesh just the day before, and it was as tanned as could be. Her hair stuck to the sides of her neck that shone with a sheet of sweat. Her blonde tangles looking more messy than her natural waves Daryl noticed. The sheets were pulled up high over her petite body, showing only her collarbone and the thin straps of the pale pink tank top she wore.
She looked older than she really was. The nestle of bedding and the sick look in her eyes made her look years ahead. She was young when she had her son, and she was still years younger than Daryl was. Many more so. But here, she looked like an older woman withering away in her bed. And the sight made Daryl's chest tight.
But her lips, the single sight of them now made Daryl's mouth go dry. Gone were the pale pink lips that once graced her smile, and left behind was a frown with blood collecting in the edges. She coughed blood up as though she had taken a drink of something that didn't sit well in her system. And the trails of blood around her mouth and down the sides of her face were the only sign of color on the poor woman's body now.
"Stay here," Daryl told the boy as he tried to keep his anxiety out of his voice. "I'm gonna go get Hershel."
The prison hallways had never felt longer to Daryl Dixon as they did that day. Each step felt like it would never bring him closer to his aimed destination. And as he walked by himself, he found his heart beating faster than appropriate. Daryl knew it was the fear of her condition that took his body hostage. That made his mind swirl with endless thoughts and his heart beat with troubling strength and emotion. But as he grew closer to Hershel's cell, he recalled something she had once told him.
"One step at a time. It's all we can do. One day... one step... one breath at a time."
And so, in a time he could imagine her giving this advice to him, he decided to take it. And as he walked briskly back to her cell with the old man hobbling along beside him, Daryl found himself breathing deeply and slowly as he repeated her words in his mind.
