Jessamine Dixon lives in the apocalypse

Nebraska

He shot her and nobody moved. Nobody said anything. 

Daryl pulled Carol up to her feet and she ran back towards the house.

Beth ran towards one of the bodies even though Rick told her to wait and be quiet. She either went to her step-mother or step-brother, I wasn't sure. Beth knelt down beside it and started to, what looked like, tried to wake her up. 

Except the walker wasn't dead and it grabbed at Beth's hair. She screamed and they had to pull her away before killing the walker. Because walker's are dangerous and they would have killed her.

I went from pained to angered as Daryl put his hand on my shoulder. I stood up with a grunt and looked at Hershal who was holding his daughters.

"You knew." I whispered under my breath and stormed away. I went to the edge of the woods and sat against a tree.

I had been sitting there for well over an hour. I was starting to get hungry and thirsty. The sun kept beaming down. The tree wasn't exactly the best one for heat protection. Maybe I could just slowly die against this tree.

I heard a noise and slowly looked over to see Lori walking over our direction. I sighed and rolled my head back the other direction.

"You shouldn't be out here." She was the one telling me this? 

"Neither should you." I told her. There was just a little bit of annoyance in my voice.

"I get that. But, can you please just come back?" She asked me and I sighed.

"I don't want to." I told her. She was really putting a kink in my whole slowly dying situation.

"Everybody's worried about you." She told me. Yeah, I'm sure they were so worried about little ole' Jess sitting by the tree.

"Sure." That was said in a sassy tone, because I didn't believe one word of it.

"We just lost one little girl, we don't-"

"All of us put our lives out there. Some more than others. He knew who were were looking for." I said exasperated.

"He had nothing to do with it. He had family in there, too." She told me as if that made up for this whole thing.

"Yeah, but maybe me and Glenn should have looked while we were up there instead of just running away."

"At least come into Dale's eyesight." She told me and I was a bit taken a back.

"You guy's can't see me from the R.V, well that sucks." I told her and looked the other direction again.

"We can't even see your head, could you at least-just a little clo-" I stood up and we walked closer to the R.V. Now I knew that they could see me so I stopped and sat against another tree of my choosing, I tried to make it with lots of sun. But then Lori stopped when I sat down.

"What are you doing?" She asked me.

"Sitting?" Now it was a crime to sit down.

"But the ceremony is starting soon." She told me. That was the first that I heard of this. It would have been good to know, way back when the conversation started.

"How come you didn't start with that?" I asked and stood back up. We walked over to where the graves were.

"Is Carol coming?" I asked Lori.

"I don't think so." I nodded and saw Daryl. I stood on the opposite side of him.

"Where were you?" He asked and I continued to look at the grave.

"Trying to give myself a heat stroke by the edge of the woods." I knew that he snapped his head in my direction.

"Jess, you can't beat yourself up." It was funny that he said that, seeing's as almost every single piece of this is my fault, and will always be my fault.

"Why not?" I asked him. I want to know what possibly couldn't be my fault. Or why I shouldn't think like that. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

"Because it's not your fault." How could he say that? How could he say that this wasn't my fault?

"I could've stayed with her and we both came back." There were a thousand possibilities that ran through my mind every time yet that was the one that kept coming back.

"Or we would have lost you both." Daryl told me. Not that anybody would have cared. They would have been more sad about Sophia.

"I...I tried." I whispered.

"We all know you tried, Jess, nobody blames you so don't blame yourself." It seemed like such an easy thing to say yet the most impossible to actually do.

The ceremony started and everybody was there to mourn, everybody except Carol. One grave already, three more today, two families. 

I walked back into the house after the ceremony. But when I walked in all I saw was the aftermath of Beth collapsing in shock in the kitchen. That was when everybody found out that Hershal had gone missing.

Glenn and Rick were gonna go find him. But Maggie told us that the most likely he was going to be at the bar in town. Before they left I went up to Glenn.

"Bad timing, but I know the decision is going to happen. But if the rest of us left would you stay, if you could?" I asked him.

"I mean, I-I just haven't thought about it." I looked down at the floor.

"I just want you to be happy." I took a deep breath after I said the sentence.

"Just come back safe." I told him. Glenn hugged me. His breaths seemed shakier than usual.

"Hey, are you okay?" It seemed like he was the only one that asked that question. I had no idea what the answer was. I didn't know what was going on in my own head. But Glenn would need an answer that would get him to leave without worrying about me.

"Yeah, Glenn, I'm good." I felt Glenn shake his head.

"That was total bs." Glenn and I stayed like that for awhile before he took a deep breath. 

"I'll see you when I get back." He told me and I nodded my hand. Glenn backed up and kept his hands on my shoulder. Glenn nodded and walked away. With that Rick and Glenn were gone.

I walked outside to go back to the R.V. I sat on top and picked at my shoes. It didn't feel right to be there, on top of the R.V. 

I looked into the distance and saw that Daryl had set up his own camp by the edge of the woods. I got halfway through the field when I stopped. I stood there for a minute and realized that he might want to be by himself for a while. 

I saw that Lori was walking back and she didn't look exactly happy. That was definitely a sign that he needed his space, so that's what I would give him.

I turned around and walked back to the R.V, I started to pick at my shoe again. Something was off, everything was off.

I looked up for just a second to see the smoke of the bodies burning in the distance.

I heard a door shut, a car door. I jumped off the R.V and saw Lori in the driver seat. She saw me and stopped. She had a gun and a map. I knew exactly what she was doing, but she shouldn't do it by herself.

"You don't want me to help?" I asked.

"If there's anybody that I trust with my boy, it's you. If there's one person still left here to protect camp, it's you. Beth needs you. They all need you. I'll be back with Rick, Glenn, and Hershal." I nodded my head.

"I'll check on Carl...But you have to try and keep the promise that you'll make it back."