45 Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

Death isn't something you think about often, even in the world we live in now. You know it's there, surrounding you, but the only thought that is constant on your mind is living, surviving. You don't even really think about death until it has already happened. That millisecond between what was and then what is. Before you can even grasp the thought of it, it's already too late. That one millisecond is all it takes for you or someone else to cease to be on this earth, and then, it's all you can think about.

-3 hours earlier-

Daryl and I had been walking for about twenty minutes now in complete silence, what would have been an uncomfortable situation before for me now put me at ease. Coming to know Daryl, when there was a peaceful silence between us it only meant that he was comfortable. We had been tracking Merle and Michonne's trail, Daryl caught onto it pretty quick. Although it wasn't hard as it seemed that Merle had her tied up and the steps seemed to be quite uneven. They only had a thirty-minute jump on us which made it likely that we'd be able to catch up in time. It also helped that we knew where the exchange was happening, the Governor would be waiting at the dairy farm to see if Rick would show up with his prisoner. We just had to get to Merle before that could happen.

We were currently walking through an old main street of a tiny town, the place appeared to be deserted. "Why'd you wanna come with me?" Daryl finally broke the silence like the question had been pondering on his mind for quite a while.

"I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders. He looked at me like he didn't believe me. He walked only a few steps ahead, looking back at me, studying my face.

"Yer' aware that we might be seeing the Governor today?" he questioned, not in a way that I didn't have any sense to realize what could happen today, but he wanted to know the real reason as to why I pushed so hard to come.

"I know," I responded, giving him dry answers.

"You ain't worried?"

I stopped walking, taking in a deep breath. Usually, it was me pestering him for information, not the other way around. "I'm not scared of the Governor. I was scared of sitting in the prison without you, knowing that you're out here and I'm twiddling my thumbs, praying that you'd come back," I said. He stopped walking when I did, turning around to look at me. I walked up closer to him. "I talked to Merle before he left. I told him that he was holding you back when you're constantly having to fix his mistakes and here you are again running after your brother to undo what he's done."

He squinted his eyes at me, silent. He wanted the truth, well he got it. Although, I wasn't sure how much of it was really settling in with him.

"Nobody asked you to go with me," he said like he was angry with my answer. He was tired of everyone belittling his brother.

I scoffed, "You still don't get it, do you?"

Our heads both whipped to our right when the sounds of gurgles came out from behind one of the buildings, walking up the alleyway. It started with four walkers limping around the corner before six more followed. Daryl immediately raised his crossbow, running up to them. There were too many to just pick up our pace and leave them behind, we had to take them out now if we wanted to keep moving.

I gripped my crowbar tight in my hand, making sure I had a good handle on it as I followed him. He shot the closest walker in the head, dropping it to the ground as I ran to gain momentum, piercing my crowbar through another walker's temple. We had a good rhythm going, these walkers were seasoned, they had been dead a long time which made it easier for me to get my weapon in and out with ease. There were four left, but just as I thought we had a handle on things everything went south.

While I had one walker pinned up against the alleyway wall, yanking my crowbar out from the bottom of its jaw, another grabbed onto my shoulders throwing its body weight on top of me. I purposefully fell to my right to avoid it biting the back of my neck, but that resulted in the walker stumbling down on top of me. My crowbar slipped out my hands and bounced on the ground above my head and out of my reach. Without a second thought, I flung my arms out and onto the walker's shoulders, holding it back.

From there it felt like time had been moving in slow motion. With my back pressed against the pavement, holding a walker that screeched and chomped at the air to grab onto any part of my body, my head rolled over on the ground to my left. Daryl had somehow ended up in the exact same position as I. He laid on the ground, his hands pressed against a walker's face trying to hold it off. The walker that had him pinned was much more rotted. I watched as its skin slowly began to peel back in Daryl's grip, inching closer and closer to him.

That was enough for me to fight back, I screamed out, digging my nails into the walker's torn apart shirt and throwing it off of me. I rolled over on top of it, its arms still swinging around to grab at something. I placed both my hands on the bottom of its jaw, shutting it and pushing with so much force that eventually the ligaments in its neck tore and the head went rolling off. I got to my feet before throwing myself at the walker on top of Daryl, tackling it to the ground beside him. I rolled with it a couple of feet before I ended up on top of it again, shouting as I picked up Daryl's abandoned crossbow and smashing the walker's skull to smithereens.

I fell to the side of it, breathing heavily as I placed my back against the wall. I closed my eyes as I tried to calm myself, steadying my pants for air. A shadow then loomed over me, blocking the sunlight from my eyes. I looked up at Daryl standing over me.

"I get it now," he said as he reached out his hand to help me up.

I huffed one last time before placing my hand in his and getting back to my feet. We grabbed our weapons before continuing on. I followed him out the back of the alleyway until he took off in a jog. I looked up to see Michonne walking towards us in the field behind the town. Upon reaching her she was piercing her sword through the lonesome head of a walker in the grass.

"Hey!" Daryl called out. She looked up at us, remaining silent. Merle was nowhere in sight. "Where's ma brother? You kill him?" he asked.

She shook her head, "He let me go. Went after the Governor," she responded.

It was to my surprise that Merle had done that. In Merle's own messed-up way he was finally trying to make things right.

Daryl looked at me, "You really with me?"

I nodded my head, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't let anyone come after us," he said to Michonne before brushing past her.

The remaining walk to the farm only took about thirty minutes with us in a light job the entire time. My stomach churned at the thought of what laid ahead of us. I knew that coming face to face with the Governor today was a possibility, but now it was actually happening. I pulled my Glock out as we jogged up the road approaching the barn.

We slowed our pace, creeping up the side of one of the barns, scoping out the place. From the front, we couldn't identify any of the cars to be the Governors. I walked up to one of the windows, peering in through the side while trying to keep myself as hidden as possible. There was no one in there. I gave a nod to Daryl as he looked back at me. It didn't seem like the Governor and his men were here anymore. I followed Daryl as we rounded the backside of the barn. Our eyes landed on two walker's tearing apart the bodies of people that had been freshly killed. We continued walking as the walkers were too consumed in their lunch to notice us.

There were people dead on the floor everywhere, most of them shot in the torso, meaning that they were killed recently and hadn't turned yet. I stepped over chunks of body parts, holding my breath from the smell. We reached the silos by the barn that Rick and the Governor had their meeting in. Daryl shot his arrow through the skull of a walker with its back to us, silencing its gurgles as it shoved its mouth with flesh. He went to go pull out another arrow to load before he stopped dead in his tracks.

I looked at the walker he studied so hard, its head buried in the stomach of another person. It raised its head to look at its surroundings and my heart sank. Merle stared back up at his brother, blood dripping down his mouth as an organ hung out from it. I looked over at Daryl and his shoulders dropped, his crossbow hitting the grass. He began choking on his tears as Merle stood up, tripping over the body he was just feasting on. He was badly beaten, but the gunshot to the chest is what killed him.

I didn't know what to do, Daryl's body shrunk into itself like he was scared of his brother. Merle limped towards us and Daryl cried out, pushing him back by the shoulders.

"No!" he cried harder, continuously pushing him away. Merle just spun from the push before coming right back at him. With one last run at Daryl, Daryl pulled out his knife and stabbed it into Merle's neck. Daryl fell on top of him, crying as he jabbed the knife into Merle's head repeatedly.

I held my hand over my mouth, choking on the tears that escaped me. Daryl fell off of his brother, hyperventilating as he sobbed. I walked over to him, crouching down and holding onto him. I wrapped my arms around the front of his body from behind. His hand grabbed onto my arm and he leant his head back into my shoulder, bawling.

That's the thing about death, it's never a thought in your mind until it's already too late to undo.