CHAPTER SEVEN ,
hurt less

⠀My eyes bored into the dust permeated air, ignited by the morning sun that transpired through the high windows. I blinked frenziedly, squinting. I breathed slowly, pushing out a yawn.

⠀"Hey!" someone's fingers appeared in front of my eyes, snapping rapidly. "Wake up, sleepy." Daryl's voice was jaded, and fretful ― he was itching to get going. My eyes snapped towards him, as he glimpsed to me from the corner of his eyes. With one of his hands, he held something.

⠀Ooze dripped from the lustrous uniform adorning the table. It fell in heaps, slowly in strings and dollops. I resisted the impulse to retch.

⠀"We're supposed to wear that?" I catechized no one in particular, casting my pupils to the unkempt haul we had gathered on the cafeteria table. "As in... on us?"

⠀"No!" Daryl said in an insolent tone, thrusting the glove to the slab. He then seized a helmet, throwing it between his hands in satiety. "I ain't wearing this shit!" His mouth curled, and the liquids poured from the apparatus, sliding over the bench and to the concrete floor. It decorated the area around our shoes, and I stepped sideways in haste.

⠀Sticking my tongue from my mouth, I rose an eyebrow as if to agree ― definitely. "No thanks," I muttered, pushing the goo with the toe of my shoes.

⠀T-dog to my left, mounted another piece on the end of his forefinger. "We could boil them?" I wanted to know if he was joking, in the act of opening my mouth in inquest.

⠀"There's not enough firewood in the whole forest, no." He shook his head, moving the soiled costumes away from himself. Instead now, picking up a long stick, comparable to my lance that ranked at the end of my bed. He tossed it lightly in the air, passing it over my way and I only just caught it. "Besides, we got this far without them."

⠀He had a good point. We had been wagering our lives with vulnerability yet we were all still here. Yet, as I settled with my back to the gate, I couldn't help but yearn for the supplemental providence just within our reach. "But it doesn't hurt." The man beside me didn't seem anymore convinced that they would help. "Literally, it should hurt less."

⠀He nodded in concert, gifting me an apt response, but still seemed to push any old guard's uniform away from himself and towards us.

⠀"Hershel?" The voice drifted from the cell block, and the collection of us circulated towards Carol, who stood idly in the doorway. The man in question took half a step forward towards the woman.

⠀Rick looked towards her, overwrought with concern. "Everything alright?" He knew it was about his wife, I could tell by the way he held himself back. All these months it's been there ― the disquietude ― it just seemed to be behind frosted glass.

⠀"Nothing to worry about," she reassured, retroceding into the cell block where we had all slept the previous night. I watched Hershel vacate after her, my own perturbation swirling in the pit of my stomach at the ideation of troubles coming to the baby.

⠀Rick didn't look convinced, yet made no move after them. Instead, he stayed and handed over the most laundered pieces of armor that had once adorned the corpses outside. Maggie and Glenn had joined us in the cafeteria, adorning their chests in the hard, black plastic. We took turns in adjusting each others straps, making sure it pressed tightly to our ribs.

⠀I pulled on the edge of my shirt nervously, eyeing the doorway from which Hershel had still to come back from. The frayed pieces of strings that hung from my clothing twisted between my fingers and I took my bottom lip between my teeth for a moment in agitation.

⠀Not too long after that, Hershel arrived back and started to livery his own self. I felt a swirling nervousness every time I looked at anyone in those pieces of armor, and it didn't help when T-Dog graciously dropped one to my shoulders. It felt like a target had been painted on my skin despite the dark colour, that would surely synthesise with the shadowed corridors we were about to traverse.

⠀And to say the tombs set me on edge would be an understatement, as the turn of a key reverberated over the darkness it pushed us forward.

⠀Daryl and Rick stayed on point with their weapons raised along with the blinding torches we all held tightly. They were our lifelines along this road, our source and power above anything else. I gripped mine so tight I thought I would bleed. And with my lance in the other hand, I walked on my toes in silence to follow our leader.

⠀We scrutinised the darkness, marching over the broken glass and strewn paper. Maggie let out an airy gasp beside me, as she turned and collided with my shoulder. I reached a hand out to steady her as she caught her breath.

⠀I forced myself to focus, and for my heart to slow when my breaths caught tighter in my throat. They gripped my sanity tightly, staring back into the alluring darkness.

⠀It was called the tombs for a reason.

⠀As we tore through each and every turning with our weapons and eyes, Glenn took the spray painting the walls with arrows. If anyone got lost we could find our way back. However much I felt those arrows would lead me back to safety, I sensed a formidable unpredictability at every turn and corner.

⠀As we came to another one, the steady and quickened patter of our shoes struck through me ― but the cards were in our favor as the hallway only displayed the phantasm of what was once there, and I could settle my shoulders to slouch.

⠀Only then the smell made my stomach drop, and I ended up retreating backwards into someone who only nudged me forward. I brought the back of my hand to my nose, rubbing it gently with my fingers ― to try and adjust my lungs to the arenaceous stratosphere.

⠀Snarls filled our ears, and my panicked eyes turned to anyone close. Rick viewed my rigid stance, and the forthcoming roamers. They herded and stumbled, they growled and came right towards us. Only when it seemed that everyone else knew what was happening, did my voice rise just above a whisper. "Go back! Go back!" I ushered Hershel to step backwards, as my thighs burned under the strenuous work.

⠀The walls of cement blurred as we ran, and my nails fell across them in afflictive blemishes. I swallowed heavily when my lance slipped between my fingers, sliding across the abundant, nervous sweat upon my skin. But my fist tightened around it, when the groans licked at my heels and I felt the echoed breaths crawl down my neck. I turned on my heels, swinging aimlessly and catching one in the nose ― swiping it as if I were a magpie. It still lurked, had a mission structured in its eyes ― my weapon didn't do any good.

⠀So, with my lungs retracting dangerously, and my veins warm from the rush, I followed after the rest of the group.

⠀Over all the resounds and lethargy, I heard Daryl call out. "This way!" His hand commanded us over, and didn't waste time in looking. I only followed his words and his body, my legs carrying me lightly across the connecting hallway towards him. And I squeezed through the doorway into a aphotic ― what seemed to be ― closet, and just then did my heart seem to jump up my throat. I clenched my eyes shut, the panic only becoming infectious as we all chambered ourselves into the tight space. I was on my knees, elbows up against the wall in instruct.

⠀"We have to go back," Rick was the first to speak, and I turned heavily towards the men surrounding me.

⠀"Where's Glenn and Maggie?" was my first exerted question, glowering the missing silhouettes within the breadth between each one of us. I pressed myself against Daryl's shoulder, peering over towards our collective stance. Licking my lips nervously, I almost lost balance from just blinking.

⠀Daryl lifted his eyes, towards mine then at everyone else. "But which way?" The torch in his hand provided the blinding fulgor, and it lit our eyes like cats.

⠀Determined to detect our wayward companies, Rick quickly pressed his ear to the door ― rattles of past hands seemed to vibrate across the metal, and he waited few seconds before costively pushing it open.

⠀Wolfing down my distress, I followed second after his obscurity, askancing against the dust. Straining our ears, eyes turning wide and alarmed ― I took each detail in, hands trembling.

⠀"Maggie?" Hershel's voice was a sharp stab to my ears, contrasting to the light groans. I promptly circulated. He had turned away from us, persistent, rightfully so.

⠀I tilted my head at his actions, all but about to step towards him in his aid.

⠀My lips parted just as his, when he lumbered to the ground as a walker- stuck in their stasis ― clamped their teeth into his calf. And his gut-wrenching wail reverberated off the walls. It was only followed by my own, the repetition sending a shiver down my spine. I scurried towards the walker, taking its face between my palms and away from Hershel's appendage ― the wall was its maker as I hammered the pliable bones into the concrete.

⠀It took my body a second to adjust ― shakingly pressing my fingers to the overflowing wound ― but my throat cleared itself of tears, enough to shout for help. In a fearful and pleading screech, I shouted their name; "Daryl!"

⠀Maggie appeared, eyes instantaneously hysterical with tears ― her knees seemed to fall weak and drop as she too rose her hands out to her father. Her keening sent sickness to my abdomen.

⠀My hands became red ― red, red, red ― nothing more, nothing less.

⠀In time, the rest of us found our way to each other, in turn letting Glenn and Rick hook their arms under Hershel. My grasp left his leg, and I was left kneeling with arms dripping. I breathed inward, heavily, unable to do it right ― panicking.

⠀Ineffectual, and unable to stand for myself, Daryl's hand became my savior as he yanked me from the ground and practically dragged my heaving body along the corridors. My mind was hastening, sending dizzy spells up my spine and to my brain ― cooperation was a must, and my body just didn't want to give it. It was because I could still hear his scream, and I could remember my falter to help.

⠀I should have been faster.

⠀I should have been faster.

⠀I should have been faster.

⠀Lights, and obstructions, followed by two heavy doors held together by rusted hinges. I was pushed through them, the grip on my hand leaving.

⠀And now I could hear Hershel's small whimpers, and I vaguely registered the sound of metal on metal as the doors were closed shut. Yet all this time, I had just stood there as we suffered in the pained sounds and smell of blood.

⠀So I ducked downwards, eyeing Rick briefly as his eyes swam with plans, ideas and scarce solution.

⠀The sounds were sure to resurface when I felt more guilty. Yet it bedded in my skin, my hands curling with frustration against the ground. I ducked my head, hanging down and growling ― I needed to do something.

⠀"There's only one way to keep you alive," and the snap of a belt. It took everything inside me just to not hurt. The wounds becoming evident on my stomach as if they were bleeding once more. And I heard the echoes of Rick, in my self-consuming brain― "I'm sorry!" His teary yells, bouncing in my skull... the very clear recollection fresh as the scent of blood that now placed itself in the air.

⠀He looped the item around Hershel's leg, just below the knee, tightening it quickly. And I only watched, in awe or maybe clouded abhorrence ― I didn't know - but my stained fingertips were itching to save the man.

⠀The hatchet that was once hanging from our leaders belt, now balanced between his digits. And if he hadn't had hesitated for half a second, my mind wouldn't have acted so fast and taken it from his hands. And I wouldn't have brought it down on Hershel's leg, hacking away at bone for seconds on end with sheer determination and all my energy and willpower combined, ultimately just wanting to save him when he had done the same to me.

⠀As the meat split, and the liquid poured to the scuffed ground, a clang rang out when the hatchet timbered to the ground amongst it all.

⠀Daryl didn't blink, and I didn't notice him appear beside me moments before ― he had held Hershel down as I mercilessly hacked.

⠀A wretch crawled up my throat, and I shuffled backwards on my knees in dogmatism against the smell and the sounds. But Hershel had passed out, and Rick voiced the fact of the blood.

⠀Suddenly, a calloused hand brushed my bicep, and I turned to my right in scepticism. "Duck," he whispered, and adhered with my chest pressed to the ground.

⠀He rose swiftly, crossbow in hand ― eyes deadly, against the strangers set behind wired bars. Grasping their hands towards us, one voiced out; "Holy shit!" He seemed shocked more than scared, but my attention was taken away from them when liquid crawled its way across the back of my hand. It was dipped in Hershel's blood, swimming against the current when I crudely pressed my fingers to the wound.

⠀Tears stung my eyes and my ears refused to listen, even as Rick pried my hands from the jagged bones.

⠀This reminded me too much of what happened to me. Too much about how I died ― and that meant Hershel was in the red zone.

━━━━━━━━━━

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ note.
me starting this chapter: don't make marley cut off hershel's leg it's cliche

me by the end: CHOP CHOP TIME HOE

follow me on insta @darylsespinosa bc i've been committing to it
( edited ✓ )