Remember Me (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter Seventeen: Prison

 Eight months. That's how long we've been on the road.
Eight months since the farm. Eight months since we lost everything. Nobody counted the days, but I did. We had been on the road longer than I ever expected. Longer than we needed to. Over the course of all of those months, Daryl and I had grown closer. Not in the way that you think. Nothing romantic ever happened between us. We had grown closer in a friendly way.
In fact, I now considered Daryl my best friend.

He was now Rick's partner it seemed. He protected me at all costs. After seeing Shane and after all of those events, I had terrible night terrors. I often slept next to Daryl due to that. He was the only one that could calm me down and get me to sleep. Dad didn't really care. He knew that Daryl would protect me no matter what. He knew that Daryl was nothing more than a friend, a hero to me. I had also grown close to Lori. She was very close to giving birth, dad knew that.

Whenever I found food, I always gave it to her. She needed to eat more than the rest of us. At least that's how my mind thought.
After a while of walking, Rick had spotted an abandoned house. I can't tell you how many abandoned houses we came across. We would occasionally find food and supplies, but that was very rare. Rick was the first one to enter the house, whistling once he knew it was clear.

Then we all began entering. I stood in front of Lori, keeping a strong eye on her. Once we entered, we all sat down on the floor and the broken furniture. I was so exhausted. And I was also so hungry. I hadn't eaten in two days and I hadn't slept in what seemed like more. After a few moments, Daryl entered the room with an owl he had shot. It didn't look appealing, but I would probably eat anything at this point. I frowned as I saw Carl plop down on the floor with two cans of dog food. I sighed at how pitiful he looked. I knew that he was starving. Hell, we all were. The only thing I had in my bag was an orange. I had three, but I gave two of them to Lori the day before. Along with the crackers I had.

Daryl and I usually shared our food with each other, but I would sneak it to Lori and Carl. I was more concerned about them then myself. I watched as Daryl plucked the feathers out of the owl, handfuls at a time. I was so busy watching him that I didn't even notice Rick enter the room and take a can from Carl. The sound of the can hitting the wall brought me back into reality. The T-Dog whistled and we all knew it was time to go. This was how it always was. The whistle always told us that the walkers were coming. Everyone began sneaking out of the house, Daryl and I behind them.

Once they were in their vehicles, Daryl and I hopped on his motorcycle and we took off. I held onto him tightly, trying to stay awake by touching him. I was completely exhausted, and he had noticed I was. I laid my head on his shoulder and snuggled closer to him. It was still a little chilly from the previous winter. Being on his bike only made the chill stronger, so I had to snuggle up to him.

"Are we ever going to find a place?" I asked him loud enough for him to hear me.

His face was expressionless for a few moments, but he eventually replied to my question. "We will."

"Promise?" I asked, lifting my head up from his shoulder. I knew he couldn't promise something like that, but hearing him say it would make me feel a little bit better. "I promise," he replied. I knew that he was losing hope just as I was. I could tell by the sound of his voice.

Then again, we were all losing hope. After finding multiple places with nothing in them, you kind of lose any hope at all.
I had lost hope months ago. There was one place that we stayed in for a week. Just a week. We hadn't stayed anywhere longer than that. I suggested going back to the farm plenty of times, but I knew that place was long gone. The place that I called home now belonged to the dead.

This world now belonged to the dead it seemed. After a few moments, Rick honked his horn and signaled for us to stop. Once all the vehicles stopped, Daryl and I hopped off and began approaching the others. They were examining a map, finding other places to go. We had marked off everywhere we had been and it seemed like there wasn't much left.

My hope once again began to fade. "We have nowhere else to go," Maggie stated, running her fingers through her hair. She couldn't be right, there had to be somewhere we could go. It's not like we had traveled everywhere in Georgia. There had to be something. "We traveled in circles all winter," T-Dog stated. "If there was something, we would've seen it by now."

All of this talk was making me anxious and Daryl could see that. When he noticed, he turned to me and Rick with his crossbow raised. "Let's go huntin'. See if we can't find anything out there."I smiled at him and began walking with him towards the woods. Rick did the same. Once we were in the woods, we began talking through our options.

We didn't want to speak around the others. Everytime there was a problem the three of us worked to find the solution. And we had a big problem. Lori was about to give birth and we had no where safe for her. She would end up giving birth surrounded by walkers at this point. And we knew that the baby wouldn't be able to survive.

"We have to go back to the farm," I stated once we were away from the others. Rick chuckled at my words as if I had just told a joke. "That place doesn't belong to us anymore. Too many walkers."

"It's no different than whatever else we will face out there," I stated with a frown. All at once, they stopped moving and talking. I practically ran into Daryl at his abrupt stop. I noticed that they were both looking at something down a hill, so I joined in. When I looked down, a smile danced on my lips as I made out what it was. After all this time looking, we were finally going to make a home. We had finally found a place.
That place was a prison.

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We all stood in front of the large prison watching Rick cut the fence open. My excitement was almost too much to handle. The thought of having a steady place to stay over joyed me. I couldn't wait to get in there.
After Rick cut the fence open, we all began entering one-by-one. Once we were in, Daryl tied the fence together and I looked around. There were already walkers pressing themselves against the other fence, trying to get to us. It made me nervous, but I tried to ignore it. They were on the other side after all. After Daryl was done, he began pulling me down a walkway. I had gotten used to running, so it didn't bother me.

Once we were at the main prison gates, everyone turned to Rick. He was the leader, we were waiting for the plan. "We need to shut that gate," Rick stated as he pointed in the distance. I could make out a large gate in the distance that lead to the courtyard. Walkers were covering the courtyard, but we could manage. "We can pick off those walkers. We can take the field."

"How do we shut the gate?" Maggie asked as she looked over at the walkers. "I'll do it," I volunteered. "I'm pretty fast. If you can distract them, I can do it."

"Don't even think about it," Maggie replied to me. Of course Maggie wouldn't let me. Even though I had more freedom, she still watched over me like a treasure.

"She's right. I will do it," Rick stated as he scouted the place out. "You all need to get them to the fence, get rid of em that way. Elizabeth is good with the rifle, so she can have that job. I want her and Daryl doing the shooting. The rest of you just stab em through the fence."

His plan was good. If we all worked together, we would be able to do this. We all nodded and moved in our places. Everyone was lined up at the fence while I was holding the gun, ready to take down some walkers. I watched nervously as Lori opened the gate and Rick cautiously entered. I began taking down the walkers one-by-one. My aim was great if I do say so myself. I was very proud of how far I had come. Daryl followed me lead, popping every walker he could see.

The others were doing quite well at getting the walkers attention. After a few moments of this, I watched as Rick made it to the field and closed the gate. He did it. He actually did it. I let out a squeal of delight as I faced Daryl, a huge smile on my face. Daryl returned the smile to me after a moment. We had done it.

We were so much closer to having a place of our own.