A War On Her World | TWD: D. Dixon

Ch. 26

One moment I was asleep, floating around in the infinite scenarios that my mind was able to conjure up when my body was startled. It was like my mind wasn't attached to my body; I was perfectly unaware of my surroundings until a clattering noise pierced through and reconnected my consciousness. I was jolted awake and for just a moment, I was completely lost.

Everything in me told me that I should've been in the cell where I left Benji to sleep; I should've been tucked into bed on the thin mattress holding my son, but the chill on the underside of my arm had me knowing that I was nowhere my body was telling me I should've been. When I lifted my head, it felt like my neck was attached to my body by rusted hinges, creaking painfully with every movement. In that moment, all I did was stare down at the metal table in confusion as I tried to figure out where I was before I had fallen asleep. My hazy mindstate lasted a few seconds longer when another noise resounded from behind me, causing me to blink and twist my head around groggily in an attempt to find the source.

Squinting, I called out, "Daryl?"

My eyes were blurred with sleep, but even so, I could still make out that it was him because of the all too familiar bulky object hanging from his shoulder. Shifting my focus lower, I noticed in his arms was an unknown person, laying limply against his chest- unconscious. It was a surprise and I had to blink twice to even make out distinct features, but when I could see properly, my eyes widened in shock. Removing my gaze from the man I turned to reface the table where I went to stand, placing what my mind told me was both of my hands onto the metal to push my body up, calling out to the man as I went.

"Is that Ca-!" I was caught off guard when everything seemed to turn in sync. The walls and floor tilting, molding into something that made my stomach sick.

One moment I was in the process of standing up and the next I ended up crashing down onto my right elbow due to the absence of my left arm for support. It was loud, sending a sharp jolt through the core of my elbow-forearm leaving my limb to feel like the static on TV.

"A- ah, ow ow ow ow." Breathing through the pain, I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to ignore it since I was unable to grip the tingling area like I normally would.

"Is that Carol?" I asked again, all of my movement much slower than they had been before as I walked towards Daryl. But he brushed off my question, meeting me half-way where it seemed that he inspected my entire being to see if I was hurt.

His eyes landed on the wrapped part of my left arm as it twitched with movement,

"You a'right?" His question was oddly gentle, but I shouldn't have been surprised; I had seen that side of Daryl on multiple occasions throughout winter and other parts of this morbid journey.

"I'm alright, Dare." I smiled at him before focusing on Carol's exhausted face completely missing the subtle upward twitch of Daryl's mouth at the nickname. Reaching up, I placed my hand on his left bicep, "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's jus' exhausted and dehydrated." He mumbled, shifting his gaze to my face, though unbeknownst to me.

"Then we should get her to lie down in one of the cell beds. Give her some water." I mumbled more to myself than him.

Looking up from where I was focused on the ground I made eye contact with Daryl once again as if I was looking for an answer. But before he could speak, I jumped in,

"I'll go get the water."

Hurrying off, I called out an order over my shoulder before he could protest, "You make her comfortable!"

Disappearing around a corner leading to the makeshift kitchen area, I eventually found myself standing in the entranceway, scanning over the semi-empty room. There were boxes holding different amounts of all prison food given by the prisoners. The general thought of having to live off of prison food was gross, but the thought that maybe some nights our children and ourselves would be able to go to bed with a full stomach was heaven. Moving from the food, I let my eyes fall to the small cutlery gathered from raids made along the way and then to the basin of filtered water.