—🏹—

Glenn ain't lyin' about the walkers in the barn I could smell the decaying flesh in there, Shane was the first to investigate when he came up to his friend. " You cannot tell me you're all right with this." He tells Rick.

"No I'm not, but we're guests here. This isn't our land." Rick says.

"This is our lives!"

"Lower your voice." Glenn seethes in a hushed tone.

"We can't just sweep this under the rug." Andrea spoke up.

Shane continues on, "It ain't right. Not remotely. Okay, we've either got to go in there, we've got to make things right or we've just got to go—Now we have been talking about fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't go." Rick tells him.

"Why, Rick? Why!?"

"Because my daughter is still out there." Carol responds.

"Okay." Shane breaths out while enclosing his hands around his face. Judging by his body language, he's done with this search for this little girl. " Okay, I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility."

"Shane, we're not leaving Sophia behind." Rick told him.

Daryl joins in, "I'm close to finding this girl—I just found her damn doll two days ago."

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll." Shane tells him. A doll that is a lead!

Daryl steps closer and fling his arm around, " You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"

Shane then begins to rant, "Let me tell you something else, man. If she was alive out there and saw you coming all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction!"

It takes enough for all the men to begin shouting as Shane and Daryl we're each other's throats while the females try to pry them off of each other, "Keep your hands off me." Shane tells Lori who had her hands on his chest.

"Now just let me talk to Hershel." Rick tells him. " Let me figure it out."

"What are you gonna figure out?!" Shane shouts. Lori quickly gets in between the crazed former policeman and her husband.

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land." Rick replies.

Now I'm on Rick's side; Yes, this is Hershel's land, we need his permission to clear out this barn from these undead.

Dale then steps in, " Hershel sees those things in there as people—Sick people... His wife, his stepson."

"You knew?" Rick asks.

"Yesterday I talked to Hershel." Dale replies.

"And you waited the night?" Shane steps in, his voice still filled with anger.

"I thought we could survive one more night." Dale defends. "We did—I was waiting till this morning to say something. But Glenn wanted to be the one." Make sense.

"The man is crazy, Rick," Shane said. "if Hershel thinks those things are alive or no!" Before another argument starts—The sound of the chain rattles when the walkers push upon the barn doors. Everyone took a step back while I stood in between Daryl's leg with a growl billing in my throat.

Well, another problem added to the list.

◤──•❉🏹❉•──◥

An hour later I was with Daryl in the stable trying to go out to find Sophia yet again, even though Hershe specifically told him not to. If anything I have known living with this man, is that he never listens to anyone.

I let out a whine at him, "Quit worryin'." He murmurs. "I'll be fine." I pin my ears back at his irritation in his voice.

Carol then walks in and sees the situation, " You can't." She tells him. Standing beside me.

"'M fine." He assures her while limping with a bridle in hand.

"Hershel said you need to heal." Carol told him. She was right.

"Yeah, I don't care." He opens the horse's stall door to reveal the horse that could've killed him. Nervous Friggin' Nellie.

"Well, I do." She tells him. " Rick's going out later to follow the trail."

"Yeah well, I ain't gonna sit around and do nothin'." He places the bridle on the horse's muzzle.

Carol crosses her arms, "No, you're gonna go out there and get yourself hurt even worse." He simply ignores her. "We don't know if we're gonna find her, Daryl." I stood up and looked at her in confusement. Now she's given up on finding her child.
Daryl turns to look at her, " We don't." She glances up at him. "I don't."

He steps towards her, I can tell he looks slightly hurt by that. "What?"

"Can't lose you too." She blurted out with tears rolling down her face. Daryl sets down the saddle and strutting off, I looked at her with apologetic eyes before following him into our tent. He flopped down onto our makeshift bed, I gave him a bit of distance seeing that he's still hurt from earlier.

I decided to close my eyes to take a power nap.

◤──•❉🏹❉•──◥

Turns out a power nap lasted longer than I thought, when I woke up to see Daryl was missing—Probably left to get some air. I step out of the tent with a yawn, I walk over towards a large bowl of water and lap it up.

"Nyla." I heard my name being cooed out. I turned my head to look at Beth who held something delicious in her left hand, I could smell it. "Come here, girly."

What's she plotting?

Out of curiosity, I walk over towards her—She opens her palm to show off a piece of cooked meat, "Here, have it." I grabbed it and chewed it up greedily. I stiffen it when her hand met my head, but I softened up when she clawed her hand through my fur.

"Wanna help me around the farm? Come on." She said while patting her leg. I like her, she's a sweetheart. So I follow her.

◤──•❉🏹❉•──◥

An hour later all of us sat on the porch, I was getting all the pats and praise from Beth, Patricia and Carl—Snowy would often lick my face while I playfully nip at his ears. Suddenly, Andrea and T-dog start to walk up towards the house. "Do you know what's going on?" T-dog asks.

"Where is everyone?" Andrea asks us.

"You haven't seen Rick?" Glenn questions them.

"He went off with Hershel. We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago." Andrea responds. Leave? Already?

I saw Daryl with Carol walking up to us, I got up and trotted up to my friend. "Yeah you were. What the hell?" He patted my rump.

"Rick told us he was going out." Carol replies from behind Daryl.

"Damn it. Isn't anybody taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail." Daryl curses, throwing an arm up, "Oh, here we go." I turn to see Shane walking up, carrying a bag of guns. Well this isn't good.

"What's all this?" Daryl gesturing at the guns.

"You with me, man?" Shane handed him a shotgun.

"Yeah." Daryl says taking the shotgun from Shane.

What is going on?

"Time to grow up!" The crazed man begins. "You already got yours?" He asked Andrea.

"Yeah. Where's Dale?" Andrea asks. Oh shit where is Dale?

"He's on his way." Shane responds while handing T-Dog a gun.

T-Dog held the gun with an unsure look on his face, "Thought we couldn't carry." He said.

"We can and we have to." And that's how we'll get kicked out. "Look, it was one thing sitting around picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't." Shane carries a shotgun in each hand with the bag around his shoulders, he walks up to Glenn offering a shotgun, "How about you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Glenn looks to Maggie before taking the shotgun.

He looks over at Maggie, "Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop? You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight." She shot back.

Young Carl steps down on the steps while wearing his father's hat that suits him, " We have to stay, Shane." He says just when his mother approaches.

"We ain't going anywhere, okay?" Shane said. Now look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand. Okay? He— well, he's gonna have to. Now we need to find Sofia. Am I right?" What the hell does he mean? He never give a shit about finding Sophia!

Shane crouches down in front of Carl with a small revolver in hand, "Now I want you to take this—You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."

Lori puts a hand on Carl's chest and pushes him behind her, getting in between Shane and him, "Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make." Lori seethes. For once I agree with the brunette bitch.

"Oh shit." We all turned to look at T-Dog and 'Oh shit' was right. There was Rick, wrangling two walkers with the help of Jimmy and Hershel who had his own.

"What is that?" Shane asks before sprinting in the direction of Rick. Everyone follows behind him, I run ahead with Snowy beside me— The others make it to Rick shortly after I do, us all meeting up near the barn full of walkers, "What the hell are you doing?!" Shane booms.

Chaos began to ensue, " Shane, just back off." Rick told him. Dude you have a walker on a snare!

"Why do your people have guns?" Hershel yells over the chaos.

"Are you kidding me? You see? You see what they're holding onto?" Shane asks while circling Rick and Hershel like a shark or a predator.

"I see who I'm holding onto." Hershel tries to correct. Does the old man not know that these aren't human? I stood under Daryl with his shotgun trained on the walkers.

"No, man, you don't." Shane denies him.

"Shane, just let us do this and then we can talk." Rick tried to tell his friend.

"What you want to talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill!" Shane boomed. "These things right here, they're the things that kill Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us!"

"Shane, shut up!" Rick shouts while trying to wrangle the walker.

"Hey, Hershel man, let me ask you something." Shane pulls out his handgun. "Could a living breathing person, could they walk away from this?" He aims the gun at Hershel's walker and shoots it three times in the chest.
Rick tries to get him to stop but he doesn't, "That's three rounds in the chest. Could someone who's alive, could they just take that?! Why is it still coming?" He asks pointing at it with his finger before pointing it at it again. He shoots its hearts and lungs, "That's it's heart, it's lungs. Why is it still coming?" Hershel watches in horror. Shane shoots more again.

I just stood there in shock under Daryl's legs, my eyes glance over at Snowy who stood there with his teeth bared, ready to attack.

"Shane, enough!" Rick yells out again.

"Yeah, you're right, man." Shane stalks towards Hershel's walker, "That is enough." He aims the gun at the walker and shoots it in the head, without a second. Hershel collapses onto the floor beside the walker he once knew, everyone stares in shock. Minus Daryl and Shane.
But I knew this was gonna happen, well except for Shane gone insane.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" Shane shouts. I look over at Carol who's eyes start to water. "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you got to fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now."

There was a tear within the group; The people who are for what Rick thinks and says like Lori and Carl. The people who are for what Shane thinks and says like Andrea—Then there's people who want no part in it all like Daryl and Carol along with myself.

Shane takes off running towards the barn while Rick begins to panic. Rick hurriedly asks Hershel to take the snare pole from him, but Hershel seems to be in a shock. Shane grabs a pickaxe and starts to hack at the lock of the barn. Most of the people start to beg and plead for him to stop. The lock comes off. Hell awaits.

Like before; Hell breaks loose when a herd of walkers come out looking for a feast—All those with a gun start shooting the undead, including the one walker Rick was holding. I won't lie, this was scary, especially when a child was seeing this.

But soon the shots seize, once all that remains is the dead walkers. It's over. A heavy weight rested over everyone's shoulders, most having different reasons though. Dale then came along with a shotgun in hand. . A small growl comes from the barn, everyone's attention going to the opening. I see the small feet and ankles first. I slowly brought my gaze up and what I saw made my heart shatter in millions of pieces.

There, coming out of the barn...was Sophia.

On her shoulder was a clear display of a bite mark. She looks at the group and starts to growl. Carol ran up towards her, calling her child's name but Daryl held her back as they crumbled to the floor while Carol sobs.

The tiny walker starts to shuffle towards us, wanting to have a piece of one of us. Tears are shed amongst the group.

Rick steps forwards, pointing his revolver and puts out the young girl's misery.

I shakily sat down beside Daryl as I tried to reel in what just happened.