It was quite foreign for me to be holding a steering wheel. I was shaking, holding the rubber of the wheel tightly, it squeaking under my grasp. My scarred hands made it a weird sensation to add onto that.

I hadn't driven since before my parents were taken, and I never planned to be driving again.

Those pills were supposed to be helping, but all they did was heighten every sense like all I could see was through a kaleidoscope. Whilst everything was clear, it was like a jigsaw puzzle made up with mismatching pieces. Everything was in the wrong place.

It made me constantly dizzy, and slightly out of it. It probably wasn't the best state I could have been in to drive a car, but I felt too awkward to say something.

I wanted to go out there and help with finding Sophia, and all I could do was visit somewhere she probably hadn't been. There was no sense in my mind that told me I was going to find Sophia. I was not going to be the one to find her.

The adamance in my code truly showed itself as I refused to be treated like a porcelain doll even when I found it painful to breathe.

And I had no control over my drive.

I had arrived at the highway, the place feeling familiar due to there being a large space where the RV once was. A dusty car had painted words scribed onto the front screen. "Sophia stay here we will come every day" it read, the messy words becoming an important message.

After calling out her name and searching high and low throughout the abandoned cars, it appeared to me that Sophia was not there. Unlike what Rick had said, she didn't come back, and instead she would have been nearer to the house Daryl found.

Getting back in the car, looking at the tiny watch Glenn had given me a while back but had never gotten to use, I was going to time how long I was going to be here. Although a sense of guilt washed over me at the possibility that she could somehow, miraculously come back mere seconds after I left. I was going to leave as soon as I could.

I didn't like being alone for too long now.

Being alone used to be a private, and self-worth thing. You could get more things done, relax, do what you please. But in this new world, alone was dangerous.

Alone was a walker lurking around the corner and not turning in time.

Alone was a human taking your supplies.

Alone was doing things no one stopped you from doing.

Alone was no longer what it used to be and I hated that.

The seat felt uncomfortable, stiff. It smelt of smoke, and it creaked under slight movements. The floor was covered in leaves and dirt that soon covered my already dirty boots.

Looking back down to my watch, I still had fifteen minutes left.

I soon turned catatonic as I had nothing to do. My vision became foggy and my brain had sparks running through it that resembled a migraine.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I scrunched up my face in annoyance and pain.

With no book to look through, or person to talk to, I couldn't help but turn to myself.

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

I knew who was talking and I didn't even question why I was hearing his voice. Why I had that prickly feeling on my skin that told me someone was sitting right next to me. His words sent my hairs on end like they always did when he laced each syllable with such poison.

But the way he said it now was different to before... it was calmer, almost soft.

"They do say that guilt can have a physical effect, as well as mentally."

Again, that voice. And now I had that sickly warm feeling that I was surrounded. But I knew I was surrounded by no one. It was an odd feeling to know that you were going slightly crazy rather than denying it.

"A lot of guilt is on your little head, my Ariel."

I dared to peek sideways, spotting the dark suit he wore when he died. Biting my lip, I bravely but most certainly, stupidly took his whole appearance in.

His jacket torn on one shoulder, his eyes still as dark as before. A gaping hole on the right side of his head that had once gushed out blood and had now dried, becoming congealed and sticky. Shining under the allotment of the sun from the window, and his face slightly sunken and drained of life. Gray and dusty, seeming to crumble like an old building.

The arm I had supporting my head started to involuntarily shake, knowing he was there. And although I could not see his chest rise and fall, showing that he couldn't possibly be there, he felt so real. My body reacted like he was there, but it couldn't possibly be happening.

Wanting to not look at him, I tore my eyes upwards and towards the rear view mirror, but was met with something much worse.

Being in a similar state to the person beside me, three eyes stared back at me. Blank and most certainly dead. Brown, Green, and blue eyes stared back at me.

I couldn't help but wince, closing my eyes as tightly as could. I hoped that what I was seeing would certainly fade away soon enough.

Opening them back up, they were still there. But, unlike the person beside me, they did not say a word, instead they held their gaze on me like they were waiting for me to do something.

Gripping the steering wheel once again, grinding my teeth together painfully... I wanted to scream. That knocking in my head was a consistent noise that got louder, and I wished then that the radio still worked so that I could drown out the noise.

"How are you doing?... since you stuck a bullet in my brain," Jimmy accused, sitting back to be more level with me. He straightened out the ends of his jacket, acting like this was just another day. Like seeing your dead boyfriend was normal.

"I didn't-"

"No," he interrupted, getting a little bit louder. "It was that new boyfriend of yours, what was his name?"

He looked to my face, but I refused to meet those dark eyes again. They held too many memories within them that I wasn't very fond of reliving.

"Asshole was his name?"

I shook my head gently. "Daryl," I confirmed, trying to put a more stern tone into my words.

"Ah, you see you didn't tell me he wasn't your boyfriend."

Looking back up to the mirror, they were still there.

"You see our guests," he cheered, giving a breathy laugh at the end. "Mommy and Daddy aren't happy with what you've done... and dear old Otis is here too. It's like a damn party in here!"

He was shouting now, and I would have told him to keep it down, but I knew better than to play along with the games my mind played. To play chess with nothing but a phantom... a ghost. No matter how real it felt.

Jimmy reached out to touch my jaw, but all he did was hover it close. The nothingness there freaking me out as I kept still under his empty gaze. I heard him click his tongue, and pull his hand away, obviously disappointed that he couldn't lay his hands on me.

"I wish I could touch you, Ariel," he said, almost trying to make me pity him.

This time, I did look at him, furrowing my eyebrows together angrily. A feeling I had never really felt in his presence. I guess, this counted as being in his presence.

"My name is Marley," I retorted, gripping the steering wheel with all the built up fire I had inside of me.

He scoffed in response, similar to when he used to drink, coming home and saying that he wasn't happy that I wasn't naked and waiting for him.

"We're both technically wrong there," he lifted up his eyebrows, pulling one side of his face upwards into a manic smirk. He lifted a grey finger to point it towards me. "Your actual name is Marlene."

"You're fucking crazy."

"I'm not the one who's talking to her dead boyfriend," his words became similar to the hiss of a snake, and I swore I felt him spit on me. "If I'm as crazy as you think I am, then what the fuck are you?"

"Alive."

He laughed, his whole demeanour seeming amused at the situation. He didn't falter his gaze like I thought he would.

His much braver girlfriend must have been a fun challenge for him, and I was adamant to win.

"You shouldn't be," he started calmly, but as he spoke more, his words became faster and more venomous. "See, without me, there's no one to keep you still. No one to stop you."

"I was doing the whole world a favour when I pinned you down. Because, you, Marley, are more dangerous than those people you watched on TV."

"No one can come out of what you did without being cracked in a few places, and my dear, you're fucking broken. You're that shit people call 'Modern Art'"

"Without me, you are alive. Do you want to know what would have happened if I lived?"

Suddenly the thumping in my forehead turned into a large blow to my brain, and I truly thought that someone had shot me. My head felt like it was splitting in two, the electricity that came with it travelling down my spinal cord and spiralling throughout all the nerves in my body.

I put my hand into my tangled hair, pulling at the roots. I was sure I had actually pulled some of it out.

Blood started to trickle down my forehead, catching in my eye and turning the whites of them red. I blinked it away and took the rear-view mirror in my shaking hands turning it towards me to see a wound similar to Jimmy's.

His cold finger pointed towards me again. "That's what would have happened, and it would have saved lives too."

"You cannot live without others dying, you are a curse I was willing to keep at bay, and you didn't even know it. People should have thanked me for the control I had over you. I kept you weak, and that's how it should have stayed."

He lowered his hand, showing his teeth as he uttered more words that paired dangerously well with the blackness of his eyes. "Because right now, my dear. You are more dead inside than I will ever be."

I tear rolled down my cheek, mixing with the blood that was already there. My hands shook more violently and I pulled my sleeves down my arms to wipe the liquid from my face. My sleeve showing nothing.

"No one cares about you like I did," he whispered.

"Yes, they do," I wanted to win so badly, but my gameplay was as weak as he used to keep me.

"Who?" he laughed, slicking back the hair on the side of his head where there was no blood, looking out the window to the cars in front of us. "Your boyfriend, Daryl?"

"Yes."

"See, again. You don't deny he's not your boyfriend, and I love that!" he shook his hands in fake excitement. He sighed like a teenage girl in love. "Do you care about him?"

Without faltering, but a small break in my voice as I still tried to wipe the stuff off my face, "Yes."

I felt confident about that, and I had stopped denying it at that moment. A surge of good feelings swept over my warm skin but was quickly diminished as the moment ran on.

Jimmy turned in his seat, to the tree people in the back. "Let's see if Mom and Dad approve."

I couldn't help but watch him as he looked back to the three people in the back. All of their wounds being how they died.

Looking in the mirror, I saw them fully.

Otis's skin looked to be peeling off his neck, bite marks scattering his body. My mother had a single shard of glass stuck through her chest and coming out the other side making her have to sit forward. My father had so many bruises, it looked like his skin was naturally a mixture of purple and green, there was no start and no beginning of them.

The tears fell freely down, making a small salty puddle on my collar bones.

"Hey, Violet, Neil, what do you think of your daughter dating a stupid redneck murderer who rides a motorbike?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Of course not," he shrieked, getting closer to my face with a frightening look in his eyes. "I know what you're fucking like, who wants to even care about Marlene Martin Fucking Van Allen!?"

"Stop it!" I yelled, my voice breaking, shaking my fists near my bruised and stained face. "Just stop it! Stop it!"

Images of memories swam across my eyes. Otis screaming for us to die and the snow that fell when my parents died.

Jimmy started laughing manically. My ears erupted with the echoes of his voice. His loud cackles bouncing off the walls in my head. I couldn't help but think of what he said as true.

'Who wants to even care about Marlene Martin Fucking Allan?'

The answer?... Not even me.

As his laughter became a thunderous crackling in my ears, I grasped the wheel tightly and took a sharp intake of breath.

I screamed.

Jimmy, Otis, Violet, and Robert vanished, the desperate sound coming from my lungs squeezing the organs tight and making my brain light up with violent electricity.

The sound I made would surely shatter the window around me, and make wolves whimper from fear. It injected fear even unto myself, a shot of sick adrenaline ran through me. 

I screamed hoping that it would navigate me out of this world that I never called hell.

because hell was a club for the sinners, and the earth was a cocktail of everyone you could ever think of.

Earth was worse.

Because I was sure that I will always stay here. Almost in a state between living and dying. Stuck in a constant loop. Never belonging, yet, being a necessary... something.

+

When I came down from my really unexplainable episode, I noticed that I was 20 minutes late leaving, meaning that I had a paranoid Dale rush up to me when I came back. His eyes wide, grabbing my shoulders which I really didn't want him doing.

For a moment I thought he would be eyeing the blood that I once felt on my forehead, but that being a figment of my own illusion, he wasn't. Instead, he was looking me in the eyes, whilst I tried to revert mine.

"D'you run into something?" he asked kindly. I knew that he was trying his hardest to look after me, but truthfully I didn't want any of it.

"No... I just," pointing my thumb over my shoulder, I was slightly frazzled. "Fell asleep," I lied expertly.

"Well, you must have needed it," he smiled, taking his hands away from my shoulder, brushing them down my arms in the process. "Uh, Lori and Carol are making dinner for everyone tonight."

"That sounds nice," I was actually uninterested in Lori and Carol making dinner. "I think I'll just keep watch with Andrea." I spotted Andrea looking down at me briefly, a straw hat on her head, sniper aimed forwards in front of her. 

I took the gun from the waistband of my jeans, handing it to him shakingly. I almost held onto it for too long, my mind clinging to it desperately

He nodded, hauling the water canister he had from the ground and continuing to where he was going. He patted my shoulder briefly.

I decided first to go to the bathroom, just in the RV. I was not going anywhere near that house. Not in it, not on the porch if I could help it.

Climbing the steps, there was no one there, thankfully. 

The knife from earlier was staring me down, keeping itself just at the corner of my eye. Like inanimate objects could think.

Walking past it as fast as I could, I made it to the toilet. I didn't need to do anything but look at myself. I didn't trust the rearview mirror from the car, and I needed a bigger one to fully see myself.

Normally, looking in the mirror was an everyday thing, now it was a luxury. I would go days forgetting what my face looked like. What exact shade my eyes were? How many of my barely noticeable freckles had appeared due to the amount of sun I must have absorbed?

None of that mattered anymore.

Looking at my face now... it was all just a part of me. It was like the bruise on my eye belonged there. The grazes were put there for a reason. All my injuries just matched what was inside.

I thought that this was what ghosts felt like all the time; internalising everything because there was no way for them to externalise anything. Every injury they had endured didn't create pain. More like ache.

"You stupid bitch," I muttered, grinding my teeth together. "You stupid bitch."

I slammed my palm into the mirror, repeating what I said.

Just as I was about to slam my hand down again, I heard someone open the RV door, walking in. Their footsteps stopped, and I heard the chairs creak.

Keeping silent, I waited for them to say something or at least leave.

Another person walked in, and a conversation ensued, telling me who was there.

"Sorry," Glenn stuttered. "Just returning your book."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry," Dale sighed. "I had known the world was ending, I'd have brought better books."

That brought a faint smile to my lips before I wiped it away.

There was an awkward silence for a few more moments, giving me to time to realise that I was listening in on someone's conversation from an RV toilet.

Glenn was the one to break the silence. "Dale, do you think Andrea's on her period?"

I didn't intend to, but I flinched at his question out of shock and confusion.

"I'm only asking 'cause it's like all the women are acting really weird," he continued. 

I had the right to go out there and slap him, but poor Glenn was just always assuming things.

"And I read somewhere that when women spend a lot of time together, their cycles line up and they all get super crazy hormonal at the same time."

That was it, I burst open the door almost sending Glenn to the floor as he was so shocked to see me. He stuttered and blubbered, looking for words to say, full of embarrassment.

I walked past him slowly, not making eye contact with him until I came to the door, turning towards him. "Just for the record... I'm not on my period."

+

"You look like shit."

"Thank you."

I couldn't agree more with Andrea. 

She let out a breathy laugh, crossing her legs in he arm-chair she had. I was parallel to her, facing the other way so that keeping watch was easier.

The wind blew through my hair, it brushing lightly against my neck, sending chills down my spine. I yawned, setting my eyes on Glenn who was walking away from the RV, obviously in a huff about something.

Andrea glanced at me from under her hat, "What's wrong with him?"

"He has a theory that we're all on our period"

"If you sa-"

I turned to her when she didn't finish her sentence, instead her arms became tense, jumping up from her seat.

"Walker! Walker!" she yelled.

Catching the attention of everyone around us,  halting in their positions. Whilst I jumped in my seat, almost falling over as I did a clumsy pirouette to turn around.

Andrea put her binoculars to her eyes. I didn't have the advantage, and all I could see was a dirty figure approaching from the treeline, looking to be dragging half it's limp body behind it.

I inhaled quickly, watching and listening as Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Glenn started to run off in the walker's direction. Andrea had been ordered not to shoot like she wanted to.

Her being Andrea... she wasn't going to follow that order.

When the men had gotten far enough, she lifted the gun to her shoulder, clicking it. Looking through the scope, she got ready to aim.

"Andrea, don't!" Dale begged from his position on the RV ladder.

I lifted a hand to shadow my eyes, not being able to see the situation unfold with much quality.

Andrea lay on her stomach, getting a better aim.

It seemed that all was silent before a single gunshot rang through the air, followed by Rick's desperate screams.

The gunshot made my back feel like a ton weight was put onto it, my ears stinging at the harsh sound at such close proximity.

"No!" the man repeated, and confusion set in my veins.

'What the hell was going on?'

Andrea and Dale ran off to investigate whilst I was left there dumbfounded.

'What the hell just happened?'

When they came closer, a limp body hung low as Shane and Rick carried it by the arms. Only when I spotted Glenn with a crossbow in his arms did I realise... that it was Daryl.

Daryl Dixon was like a stray rag doll, being pulled along my support from under his arms. His head swayed from side to side as he was obviously unconscious. Blood stained his face and body, most noticeably where he had tied a makeshift tourniquet with his own shirt.

Daryl was a survivor.

"Caring is dangerous," Jimmy said beside me, appearing again in his dusty suit. "Especially when you do it." He crossed his arms over one another, placing a smug smile on his dry lips.

I felt like I couldn't breathe, and it wasn't from the bruises.

"Why?" I asked in a hoarse voice.

"Because you care... too much."

My fingers clenched into a fist, turning my knuckles white.

"Fuck!" I screeched, clambering down the ladder as fast as I could.

Jimmy Blake, and I hated to say it, was absolutely right.

+

omg much profanity in this chapter

much italics

I was gonna update on sunday, but i have too much homework so i got this out of the way

and don't worry... i am still going to write about daryl falling down the cliff.

i was gonna put it in this chapter but i decided to do marley this chapter, and daryl the next.

Jimmy is such a lil bitch and i hate him... but at least he ships darley

(that's one good quality)

guyz... pls comment. pls.

see ya darlings

-sylar