The Prisoner Of Woodbury

Chapter 17

The meeting point was a bust.

No sign of Merle.

Only the dead he left in his wake. Head shots. All of them. Daryl smirks - for an asshole, Merle could be surprisingly decent at times.

It doesn't relieve him of that sinking feeling however. Not even Michonne telling him that Merle had let her go had done that, and the closer he comes to Woodbury, the worse it gets.

The burnt out truck should have had him rejoicing. It had his brother written all over it, yet somehow he can't allow himself that much. Life has shat on him too many times. He's never had the luxury of believing all will be well.

The disarray that allows him to enter the town unnoticed is merely another example. There is something about it that makes him very afraid indeed. He can't put his finger on what, but there is definitely more at work here than a hole in Woodbury's defences. These people are in shock. He can read the panic on their faces. That might be because of the walkers wandering around unchallenged and unhindered, but then again it might be something else.

As it is, Daryl doesn't get chance to think any more of it.

Because a trail of gore leads to a sight, he will never unsee the rest of his days...

The sight of his brother... gorging upon flesh.

Panic takes hold, hitting him with an intensity he thinks will end him. It is accompanied by an appalling dread that has him unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to look away... and where he once might have claimed to be well acquainted with pain, it's clear he never had a clue, because no pain he's ever experienced comes anywhere close to this.

As if to protect him from the crushing grief he's about to feel, a consoling voice from deep within him rises up to assert that this isn't real, but that voice soon falters because the scene before him does not change, no matter how long he stares at it.

This is not a mistake.

This is not somebody else.

His eyes are not playing tricks upon him.

It is Merle.

And by the grace of God, Daryl thinks he will let him kill him.

Because what does he have left now? How will he go on?

Merle stumbles towards him – gory and grotesque in all the ways Daryl had been able to block out when it came to the dead but now has no choice but to contemplate – and he curls into himself like a scared little boy, confronted by a hell of his worst imaginings.

Then the sadness comes, threatening to grind every fibre of him into the dirt... and for a brief moment he feels himself on the cusp of letting the darkness take him – have it do with him what it will - tear him apart and reduce him to the infinite nothingness that surely comes before and after the absurdity that is being alive in this f*cked up world...

But then, as so often in situations where he thought he was done for, the survival instinct kicks in and Daryl pushes his brother away - again and again, like this was some stupid game they played when they were kids and Merle was as stubborn as he'd always been – never able to back down or call it quits when he should...

Finally, the red mist comes down and brings with it an all-consuming rage.

That Merle had done this to him. That he had to go and be the hero. That he had to go and break his heart in a way that only Merle ever could... and all the pent up anger for all the stupid things his brother ever said and did drive him forward - have him slide his knife into the rotting flesh, topple him to the ground and finish it in what can only be described as an orgy of overkill – utterly destroying what was left of his brother's face, before giving in to the terrible sadness once more and collapsing in a heap of purest misery nearby.