AND THEN I FOUND YOU » Daryl Dixon

17. BREATH OF AIR

Pain had consumed her entire being throughout the night, permeating every corner of her body. It had wound itself around each of her limbs, each muscle until every movement she made felt like an intense flame scorching away the tendons that were keeping her intact; it was not this anguish that woke her up. Instead, it was the faint cries of a gentle man who was sitting in the chair beside her.

Jasmin turned her head, peering through half-shut eyelids, and saw him hunched over his lap, shoulders shaking lightly with each cry that left his body.

"Hershel," she whispered.

Hershel sat up with a sniffle and wiped away the subtle tear on his cheek. "I didn't mean to wake you. You feeling okay?"

Ignoring his question, she asked, "What's wrong?"

His billowy sleeves -from lack of eating over the past few months, no doubt- had been rolled up to his elbows, revealing the hard-worked hands that were now stained blood-red.

"Caleb. I had to... I had to put him down." He looked back down at his hands.

Caleb and Hershel had often worked together, taking care of the sick and wounded. It was no surprise that the two had gotten so close in the time they spent together, which made it even harder when they were separated by the inevitable.

Jasmin didn't know him very well aside from the occasional check-up. Daryl had seemed to get along with him though, so he must've been a good guy.

"I'm just exhausted," he added.

He looked beyond the point of exhaustion. His face was riddled with fatigue, framed by locks of white, unkempt hair and his eyes were rimmed with shadows, sunken deep into a well of weariness.

"Anyone would be. You've helped so many people, Hershel. Caleb would be proud of you. Now you need to rest."

"I have been exposed to this virus more than anyone in the entire prison and yet I haven't gotten it," he said. "Every second I spend making sure everyone who is sick stays alive, I'm wondering 'why haven't I caught it?'. I know you aren't religious, but if you were, wouldn't you take it as a sign that God has given you the responsibility to take care of everyone?"

It was difficult for Jasmin to comprehend why Hershel still believed in a higher power despite the way the world had turned out. Weren't the teachings of God meant to be of love and mercy? Instead, life had become a thing composed of death, suffering, and violence. Nevertheless, she admired Hershel's unshakeable faith and was not about to discredit his beliefs.

"I think your god would want you to take care of yourself as much as you take care of everyone else," she said.

His head lifted, but his eyes remained forward, flickering back and forth as he pondered her response. She could almost see as her words burrowed into his mind, allowing a point of view he hadn't thought of to change his thinking.

Something about his demeanour had changed and he nodded slowly, reluctantly accepting that his importance was just as great as those around him. His eyes drifted from the floor and to the room outside the cell.

She followed his gaze. Either she had been asleep for ten minutes or a whole twenty-four hours because the familiar warm orange was lighting up the room outside again on schedule.

This time, she had slept through the night and day.

Disorientation hit her like a ton of bricks. Time seemed like it hadn't moved forward at all since her head hit the pillow. As if just a few minutes ago, Daryl had left for the run to the veterinary college, and she had just been told that Glenn had also gotten the sickness.