OUTLIVE.
❝The dead were never the enemy.
It was the living. ❞
THE WALKING DEAD.
DARYL DIXON.
BOOK TWO of the LANCASTER SAGA.
[ SEASONS 4 - 6 ]
*****
*I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I simply write to write. Astrid, any addi...
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[ v. keep him breathing ]
june 21st, 2012
➸➸➸
"STAY RIGHT HERE!" ASTRID instructed sharply, her hands guiding Bailey into the farthest corner of the small cell.
The young girl's voice trembled. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," Astrid admitted. A woman's scream suddenly crackled from beyond their hidden space, and before she could utter another word, another gunshot sounded. Astrid hurriedly withdrew her knife from her back pocket and placed it in Bailey's curled hand. "No matter what happens, you protect yourself and your brother," She told the child. "If I don't come back, do not open that door for anyone until it's absolutely safe. Do you understand?"
Bailey answered with a faint but determined nod. Her fingers clutched the knife tightly. "Y-Yes."
"Good. Be careful," Astrid said, before she slipped out of the cell, and quietly slid the cell door partially shut behind her—leaving it unlocked but secured enough to keep any lurkers at bay.
In her final glance back, Astrid saw Bailey's terrified expression and Finn's oblivious, sleeping body. The Lancaster woman wanted nothing more than to stay with them. But she would do them no good if she waited for the threat to reach them. She needed to face it herself. And so, with that, she plunged into the chaos.
The scene on the ground floor of the cell block was pure pandemonium. Her horrified gaze landed first on a man lying prone, a walker feasting on his flesh, a revolver slipping from lifeless fingers. Then she noticed a woman a few paces away, clutching her abdomen, where a gunshot wound seeped the life from her. Astrid's breath caught as she finally saw Hershel Greene, grappling with a walker atop him. She instinctively drew her gun up.
Lining her sights on the back of the walker's head, Astrid did not hesitate to squeeze the trigger. The gunshot boomed in her ears as she watched the walker drop dead. In the next breath, she pivoted swiftly and executed the nearby walker still feeding on the fallen man, before ultimately approaching Hershel, who rose slowly to his feet. "Are you alright?" She asked him.
Hershel nodded and attempted to brush away the bloodstains on his shirt. "Where are your kids?" He questioned.
"They're still in their cell," Astrid replied. The barrel of her weapon drifted to a writhing walker nearby, which she dispatched with cold precision.
Before Hershel could say more, a blood-curdling scream from above drew their attention. Astrid's eyes darted upward to the upper floor, where she spotted little Lizzie Samuels trapped beneath a reanimated Henry—the same Henry that they had been trying to save only yesterday. Instantly, Hershel raced up the stairs, and Astrid followed closely behind.
But as she ascended, a different sound suddenly caught her attention—the gurgled cries of Glenn Rhee, who currently lied on the threshold of his cell with blood oozing from his mouth.
