3 Chapter 3

'Time to give you a reality check, kid…' he chuckled internally.

Daryl slowly moved towards his prey, barely making any sound. He was making plenty of noise while moving, but no one would notice with the background sound of the wind and the chirping of birds. It was quite early in the morning, so the little fuckers wouldn't shut up.

When he was close enough, however, it seemed to tip his prey off, as he suddenly froze. Daryl didn't give him much time to react, however.

"Make one move and I'll blow your fucking head off, kid." Daryl was right behind him, which gave him plenty of advantage. He couldn't tell if the kid had any guns on him, but it wouldn't matter even if he did. It would be quite noticeable if he drew anything out, not to mention it would take him a few seconds regardless of how fast he is, as he wasn't entirely sure where he was. Daryl was even extra careful, taking cover behind a tree in case he missed his first arrow. Things weren't looking good for his prey.

- Xenon -

'FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!' not even three hours in, and I've already royally screwed up. I was too lost remembering what happened in the original show and making general plans about how to survive in this shit hole of a world. Too engrossed in fact, I forgot about surroundings. I didn't check if I was followed, which was a solid possibility, however less probable it is. And now, I'm paying the price of my idiocy.

"D-don't shoot, man!" I was scared shitless. "I'm not looking for trouble."

"Well I am looking for fucking trouble!" answered the person holding me at gun point. I was at checkmate right now, no amount of luck would save me. The moment my captor decided to kill me, I would be dead. I didn't have a high enough LUK stat to hope for him to be completely blind to miss me at this distance, assuming he's holding a handgun to my back. If I'm even less lucky and he has a shotgun or an automatic rifle, I'm fucked with a capital F.

"Throw your weapons on the fucking ground. NOW." I hesitated. Throwing my weapons would make me effictively defenseless. Not that having them on hand changes anything in my situation, but losing them only worsens it. "Are you fucking deaf? I said throw your goddamn weapons, asshole!" I didn't want to test his patience. If he was after whatever I had, he could technically loot it after I'm dead, which gave me some relief that he was hesitating to kill me. Scratch that, it had me downright terrified about how helpless my situation is. There are worse things than death that could happen to me after all.

I complied with his order, throwing away my bat.

"The knife now, hurry." Gritting my teeth, I complied again, throwing the knife but not far away. If it turned out he was bluffing, I'd reach it before he could react. I took deep breaths, to calm my adrenaline filled system. I needed to think rationally about my next moves, as they might be my last.

"Turn around now, slowly." As I slowly turned to look at the 1m80 man aiming his crossbow at me, I found myself dumbfounded at the sight, as I froze in shock, which my captive misunderstood.

"You like this baby? It's got enough firepower to drill a hole through your fucking head, so don't get any ideas, kid." He threatened, but my thoughts were somewhere else…

'DARYL? THE DARYL DIXON?! And why the FUCK does he look like the one from the show…' I was confused as hell, because I could tell at first glance whom he was. I was suddenly glad he misunderstood me, because I have no way to justify me recognizing him.

"You've got any guns on you?" Noticing that I was unresponsive, he pressed on. "Answer the motherfucking question!"

"No." I shook my head. I was suddenly relieved that I wasn't in any real danger, which is, in hindsight, pretty dumb on my part, as I've assumed he is one of the 'good guys'. This is the real world, and I couldn't base my facts off a TV show…

"You alone out here? You got lost or somethin'?" he asked again, to which I nodded.

"I'm alone, and I haven't a clue where I am." I answered truthfully. "I was heading to Atlanta. The town where I'm from is overrun by zombies." He seemed to think of something before he nodded.

"Alright. If I were you though, I'd run as far away from Atlanta as possible. Wherever you came from, it can't be worse than Atlanta." He explained.

"Can I pick my stuff up now?" I asked. "I promise I won't do anything stupid." I raised my hands in surrender, to which he chuckled.

"Who were you with before?"

"I wasn't with anybody. To be honest with you, I think everyone is dead where I came from. Been there for a while, didn't see a single living soul."

"Hm." He nodded in agreement. "You should come with me, we've got a little group a few miles away. Kids shouldn't be by themselves in these times."

"Thanks, I'll take you up on that offer."

"Is that a geek's blood on your bat?" he asked curiously. Right, even in the show, they called them geeks in this early.

"Yeah. Little bastard was gonna pounce on me. He did not see it coming." He smiled at that.

"It's nice to have someone with some brains out here. I swear I've met some idiots, they still think they're alive, that the government is gonna cure them out of it." He scoffed.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen." I confirmed. "It's happening all over the world man, at this point, we should assume there is no government anymore." He nodded in agreement.