A Survivor's Diary of the Apocalypse (TWD/Daryl Dixon)

S5Pt7 - False Hope

~~~~~ 1 Month Later ~~~~~

We left Atlanta and hiked across Georgia to get Noah home. We arrived at a community in Peachtree City, but it was abandoned. We killed a few walkers upon arrival and searched the neighborhood, allowing Noah to go find his family.
Tyreese went with him and we spread out. The whole place was pretty much ransacked and we only scavenged a few bags of food and water.
It was only an hour later when Noah ran back to us panicking.
"Calm down. Calm down." I said and put my hands on his shoulders. "What happened?"
"Ty-He-Tyreese got bit." Noah said.
We all instantly followed Noah to where he said he Tyreese was. We ran inside a house and searched all the rooms, until we found Tyreese in the last one. There was a dead walker laying in the middle of the floor and Tyreese was leaning against the wall. He was clutching his arm, and his hand was covered in blood.
Rick ran over to him and saw he was covering a bite on his arm, and Tyreese was severely weak. Rick felt his forehead and he had a high fever.
"We need to get him out of here." Sasha said.
I grabbed a sheet from the bed and we laid Tyreese on it. Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Abraham picked him up and ran out of the house. We ran back to the cars with him, but we all knew it was too late. Once at the cars, Tyreese was still breathing but he was still, probably in shock from the bite and loss of blood.
"What do we do?" Sasha cried.
We all looked at each other and knew that he was too far gone. By this time, the virus spread throughout his entire body.
"We have to do something..." Sasha cried.
I held her in my arms and she cried into my chest. I rubbed her back and felt sorry for her.
"There's nothing we can do." I said. "I'm sorry."
I tried to hold back my tears and she ran away and hid behind the car. Then Rick pulled out his gun and Tyreese closed his eyes.
I couldn't bare to watch, so I turned my head at the sound of the single gunshot.

~~~~~ 2 Months Later ~~~~~

We decided to make our way to Washington D.C. If Eugene had a way to solve this plague, then this was the best chance we had of hope.
It's been a couple weeks on the road, and tensions were high. We ran out of gas so we've had to walk pretty much across all of Georgia for the past month. We had to ration food, but I was eating for two at this point. Half the time, Daryl would share his rations with me and live off of little food.
We were walking along side the road and following Rick who was reading a map.
"So, it looks like in 50 miles we'll be in South Carolina, and another 90 we'll be in North Carolina." Rick sighed.
I sighed too and held my stomach which was now bigger at this point. My back started to hurt and so did my feet, but I knew I had to push on through the pain.
"I don't know how Lori did this." I thought.
Then I thought about what Eugene told us about about his people in D.C that could help solve this plague. And thought that maybe they could help and send us vehicles, or food, or something to help us out. I looked at the walkie talkie that was on his belt and then at him.
"Hey, Eugene." I said.
He looked at me and nodded.
"Can't you radio your people, ask for some assistance to get you to D.C. or something?" I asked.
My question caught the attention of many and soon we stopped walking when Eugene didn't answer.
"Well?" I said and waited.
"Well..." He stuttered. "That's why I recruited you guys to help me get there. So they can focus on the making the cure." He said.
"But, don't they need you to make it? Since you said you're the only one who knows how." I said.
A few people nodded in agreement and caught onto what I was thinking. I reached for his walkie talkie and he pulled away from me. I quickly reached for it again and pulled it off his belt. He tried to take it back, but I was still fast and stronger than him.
I held it up and stared at Eugene who looked at me with panic and fear in his eyes. I flipped it around and opened the back of it, and everyone gasped at what they saw.
There were no batteries in it.
So there was no possible way it could work.
"What the fuck?" Abraham asked.
He took it out of my hands and threw it to the ground. He started pacing and stood face to face with Eugene.
"What the fuck is this?!" He yelled.
Abraham started to push Eugene, and Glenn hopped in the middle of it, trying to pull them apart. We all started yelling until Eugene yelled over us.
"I'm not a scientist!" He yelled. "Okay?"
We all stopped yelling and moving, and watched as he slowly backed away.
"No, you are a scientist. I've seen the things you do." Rosita said.
"I just know things." Eugene said.
"You.. just... know things?" Glenn repeated.
I shook my head in disbelief. "So you lied?"
"I know I'm smarter than most people. I know I'm a very good liar, and I know I needed to get to D.C." Eugene said.
We were all shocked and didn't know what to say. I took a deep breath to try and calm down. I held my stomach and tried my best not to cry.
"Why?" Maggie asked.
"Because I do believe that look out holds the strongest possibility for survival." Eugene said. "And I wanted to survive... I thought that if I could trick some people into getting me there, we'd reason then, and I'd be doing them a favor. Considering the peril less state of Houston, the state of everything."
Everyone was silent and I was still so confused, but it soon turned to sadness.
"People died... for you." I said.
"I know that." Eugene said. "And I'm sorry for the losses. But it was our best chance."
Nobody knew what to say, and I saw the disappointment in Daryl's eyes. We hoped for a little peace of mind, thinking that maybe things could be reversed. Then, maybe, just maybe, we'd have a shot at a normal life.
So, that was it. Another hope crushed by the cruelty of this world. I guess Dr. Jenner was right from the beginning. There's no cure and there will never be one.

~~~~~ 3 Months Later ~~~~~

We finally passed through the Carolina's and were only 45 miles from the Virginia border. We decided that even though there was no cure in D.C, we'd still go there. We'd walked this far and suffered so much, it was pointless to keep going on without a destination ahead. But, the days were getting tougher and the hope was slowly dying. We barely talked anymore, we barely showed any emotion, but we still walked together.
All we had left were each other.

~~~~~ 4 Months Later ~~~~~

We've been on the road for so long at this point. I couldn't keep track of the days anymore. I just knew that at sundown we rest and at sunrise we walk. It was an endless cycle of nothing. Food was scarce. Water was limited. Ammo was rare. There was nothing left out here. We were barely surviving.

~~~~~ 5 Months Later ~~~~~

We finally crossed the border into Virginia a couple weeks ago and were only a few days walk from D.C. It was a long road, but we all knew we didn't have much farther.
By this time, I was approximately 8 months pregnant, but I wasn't exactly sure. I just knew that I felt huge and was ready to have this baby. I couldn't handle being pregnant anymore. It wore me down, made me feel weak, and even brought me to my knees a couple times.
I saw the worry in Daryl's eyes, and felt like he already lost hope. I barely talked to him and he barely looked at me. And every time he looked at me, I didn't feel like his wife, just some person he was burdened with.
Yet, somehow, there was still an ounce of hope left it me. I felt like there had to be a place for us to call home again. But my hope was slipping away quickly. With everyday we were on the road and everyday we ran into a walker, I felt the hope disappear, and I noticed that everyone felt the same.
We believed there was nothing left in this world, and that there was nothing left in us.