The Space We Keep

The prison was supposed to be a shelter. Concrete walls, locked gates, a place where the dead stayed outside, and the living could finally breathe.

It doesn't work that way.

As the group settles behind the fences, survival becomes less about fighting walkers and more about enduring the closeness. The way fear lingers in the corners. The way grief takes up room. The way silence can stretch until it bruises.

Tess Holloway keeps to herself, carrying a past that doesn't ask permission before resurfacing. Daryl Dixon keeps watch, crossbow steady, eyes sharper than he lets on. Neither of them are good at filling the quiet. Both understand the danger of letting someone too close in a world that takes without warning.

In a place built to confine, they learn that safety is not measured in walls or bars, but in the fragile distance people leave between each other-and the spaces they choose to protect.

Because sometimes survival isn't about who you fight.

It's about the space you keep.