Chasing Amy (Daryl Dixon/The Walking Dead)

Chapter 39 - Cell Block C

There seemed to be nothing here.

I stopped beside him as he glanced around the seemingly empty space on the other side.

Without thinking, I pushed against the bars, half-expecting the door to open. It instead made a loud creaking noise as I did so, before making a hollow clang, almost scaring the living daylights out of me.

Daryl turned to me, silently lifting a finger to his lips in an attempt to shut me up. I obliged, suddenly becoming very interested in the plastic handle of my knife.

Rick returned from the stairs with Maggie and T-Dog, holding a whole bunch of keys in his hand as he approached the locked barred door.

With a echoing click, the door was unlocked. Rick tried to be as quiet as possible as he pushed the greenish painted bar forward.

I couldn't stop myself as I walked past Daryl at a normal pace, as he was still looking about everywhere, his crossbow darting about as he stared intently through his sights. Nothing jumped out from the shadows like he'd anticipated, so I continued ahead.

In here looked to be where all the cells were kept, with a long row of small cells went down the side of the huge building, along with another storey of cells. It was huge, with enough cells for every person in the group and more.

As I walked past some cells, I crinkled my nose at the bodies that lay inside, blood splattered over the walls from where they'd possibly been shot.

I kept walking past the staircase, where the building became a little darker.

Footsteps sounded out as someone walked up the stairs behind me. I quickly glanced up as Rick's feet trekked the staircase, leaving me alone in the darker corner of the cell block.

There were only four more cells here, and as I slowly walked along them, I almost jumped out of my skin when a rotting face jolted from the last cell.

There was something strange about this roamer. It was hard to decipher at first, but as he limped towards me, his hands stretched out in what could be believed as hunger... I saw something in his large, dead eyes, even in the darkness.

Is there such thing as pain for these corpses? Could they feel their skin peeling away, their body decomposing? Could they remember their final, horrific moments? Did the hunger gnaw at their stomachs, only to find that there just weren't enough people left in the world to devour?

I could have sworn, as this small, thin man stumbled his way towards me, I saw the pain in his eyes.

To die in a prison... To die with no knowledge of what was going on outside the world, if his family was okay... It must have been a horrible way to go

I saw the devastation that he'd obviously been through, the deep dried tear just above his peeling forehead, the side of his stomach torn open, revealing even more red, bloated with dark, rotten blood. For once, I actually took in his wounds, the deathly paleness in his seemingly useless eyes, the almost purple tinge to his peeling, dirty skin.

For the first time, I actually paid attention to the details of his bloody face, only to find he actually looked a lot like Randall, with his dark, patchy hair. Surprisingly, as he slowly stumbled towards me, I found myself instead feeling determined, rather than sorrowful.

In this split second, I decided one thing; I was not going to leave a single roamer to live this death.

"Amy." A voice called from behind me. I quickly looked back to see Daryl, his crossbow raised. He began to slowly walk towards me, looking intently down his sights.