Remember Me (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Everything Stopped

By the time my eyes began to flutter open, I knew that I was in serious trouble. Trouble that I had never been in before. I felt the warmth of a fire near me as I tried to move my hands. Doing this only let me know that I was bound once again.

Only this time there was no way for me to get out. There was no Daryl to save my life this time. There was no Rick to suddenly go crazy for us. There was nothing. There was only impending doom left for me. Before I even opened my eyes, I knew that this was when I would die.

"She's waking up," I heard a voice say as I slowly opened my eyes. I could see Gareth staring at me from the other side of the fire with a grin on his face. My eyes moved to people I had never seen before staring back at me. People that wanted me dead more than anything else.

"Good," Gareth replied coldly as he stood up from where he was sitting. He began walking over to me with a gun in his hand, ready to take me out. I heard another person grunt, causing both Gareth and I to look in the direction of it. Rage began bubbling inside me as I saw who it was coming from.

"Oh you son of a bitch," I growled as I saw Bob tied up. My eyes quickly moved to his legs before I noticed one was missing. They really are cannibals. The guy wasn't lying about that.

Gareth kneeled down in front of Bob as consciousness came flooding back to him. "Ah, you're back with us, huh?"
Bob's eyes slowly opened and he began staring Gareth in the eyes. I tried to break my hands free, but they were just too tight. "Good news is you're not dead yet. That's a relief, right?"

Bob slowly moved his eyes to me and he let out a sigh once he realized he had been taken with me. I began kicking my legs, trying to get them unbound at least. This also didn't work.

"But try not to read too much into the word yet there. It'll just drive you crazy, Bob."
Bob continued staring at me with sorrow in his eyes. I felt panic take over as I realized I would never see Daryl again. I would never see Maggie again. I would never be able to find Beth.
"I want to explain myself a little," Gareth said as he sighed. "You see, we didn't want to hurt you...before. We didn't want to pull you away from your group or scare you. These aren't things that we want to do. They're things we gotta do."

"Just fucking kill me," I begged as I slammed my head against the pole I was leaning against. "Anything so I don't have to hear your voice anymore."

"Shut up," a man growled at me as he threw a rock in my direction. I rolled my eyes at him before looking back to Gareth.

"You and your people took away our home. That's fair play. Now we're out here like everbody else trying to survive," Gareth said with irritation in his voice. "And in order to do that, we have to hunt. Didn't start that way," Gareth said as he shook his head. "Eating people. It evolved into that. We evolved. We had to."

"Sir," I said as I moved my attention to one of them men around the fire. He glared at me once he realized I was addressing him. "Please blow my brains out."

Gareth continued ignoring me as he kept his attention on Bob. "And now we've devolved into hunters. I told you. I said it. Can't go back, Bob."
Bob stared at Gareth with complete hate as Gareth cracked a smile at him. "I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal. Yeah, you put us in this situation and it is almost kind of a cosmic justice for it to be you, but we would have done this to anybody."

I began attempting to saw my ropes off with a sharp twig, but it wasn't working very well. But if I was going to get out, it had to be now.

"We will," Gareth said with a nod. "But at the end of the day, no matter how much we hate all this ugly business, a man's got to eat."

Bob moved his eyes down to his leg, now realizing what had happened to him. He began panting frantically as he pieced together everything. Bob began letting out cries as Gareth bought a piece of meat to his lips and took a bite. "If it makes you feel any better, you taste much better than we thought you would."

"Oh God," I said as I started panting along with him. "Daryl! Daryl!"
My screaming was so loud that Gareth suddenly pointed his gun at me. "Shut up. If you do that again, I'll kill you right here."

"Fuck you," I screamed as I tried to kick at him.

"Elizabeth," Bob begged as he stared over at me. I knew he wanted me to live even if he didn't, but I wasn't going to. We were both going to die no matter what we did, so what was the point?

"You know, Greg and Mike came so close to nabbing that grey-haired queen bitch that killed my mom," Gareth said as he shook his head. "She drove away with the archer. Greg saw them pull away."

"No," I cried out as I realized Daryl was gone. He was gone and there was no way he could possibly save me now. He was already gone.

"See? Nobody is gonna come for you," Gareth said as he shook his head at me. "Can't wait to try her. I like women better."

I quickly turned my head towards the woods when I heard a twig snap. I knew for a fact that somebody was out there, but I didn't know who. If Daryl and Carol were gone then nobody else would know where we were. They were my last chance, so who was this in the woods? I quickly turned back to the others when I heard Bob laughing like he had gone insane.

"He's finally lost it," a man said as he walked over to him.
"Lasted longer than I thought he would," a woman added.

I cocked my head as I saw Bob look up at Gareth, out of breath from laughing so hard. "You...you idiots." Bob let out another frantic laugh as he continued staring up at Gareth. I heard another twig snap and my heart began racing. Who was out there?

"Okay, keep it down," Gareth demanded as walkers began banging on the windows around us. I continued staring into the forest as I saw a shadow move through the trees. Who is this?

"I can shut him up," a man said as Bob continued laughing.

"I've been bitten you stupid pricks," Bob shouted, causing me to quickly look back in his direction. I watched him pull his shirt down to reveal a bit on his shoulder and I quickly let out a gasp.
"I'm tainted meat."

The members of Gareth's group began spitting everywhere and trying to force the meat to come back up.

"Let's just kill him now," a man said angrily as he ran up to Bob with a knife. "No, no. We need him," Gareth said as he pushed him back.
"You just killed yourselves," I growled at Gareth. I was trying to keep them all distracted from whoever was in the forest.

"Shut up," Gareth said as he pointed his gun back at me. I had to keep him focused on me in order to get out of this.
"You're so pathetic," I screamed as loud as I possibly could. This caused Gareth to bring his boot down hard across my face. My vision got blurry after this, but I wasn't going to stop. Gareth pulled me from the pole I was leaning against and forced me to kneel in front of him. With blood pouring down my lip, I smiled up at him. "He's going to kill you."

"Stop!" Bob shouted at me as Gareth cocked his gun. One of Gareth's men moved behind me with a crowbar in his hand, ready to take me out.

"Do it," I screamed at him even louder. "Just fucking do it! You're gonna die anyways."

I could sense that Gareth had enough of what I was saying. He looked at the man behind me and slowly nodded to him. I began laughing frantically when he did this. "Daryl is going to kill you."

The last thing I felt was a bullet go through my back and the crowbar crack my skull. The last thing I heard was Bob screaming my name, threatening to kill everybody. The last thing I saw was Bob trying his best to make his way to me. The last thing I thought of was Daryl.

That's when I welcomed death to consume me. I felt golden waves crash over me.
That's when everything stopped.