Little Sprout | Daryl Dixon | The Walking Dead

Before: Prolouge

"Its okay baby just go back to sleep" Marcus Hudson says to his daughter as he opened the door to the old hunting cabin. He felt it was safer then being in the city. Dread had filled his chest when he heard the news on the radio. People eating eachother. Horrifying. And then he witnessed it first hand.

Melissa, his elderly neighbor, a kind woman who would watch his 5 year old daughter every day from 6 am to 3 pm when he came home from work. Her grey curls a mess and dark red blood staining her nightgown. Something. Someone had taken a bite out of her neck. He found her in front of their apartment building. She wasn't herself. She was eating a man in the middle of the street for heavens sake. The man's stomach was ripped open and she dug her claw like hands in and out eating his insides. He felt sick at the scene and then realization hit. Where is his daughter? Melissa was supposed to be watching her.

He made his way around the woman and ran the rest of the way up the steps, taking them two at a time. Melissa noticed him then and turned, chasing him. He slammed the door in her face, locking it with shaking hands. The old women he adored as almost a grandparent to his child banged on the old wood, trying to reach him. "Melissa.." he breathed but decided he didnt have time to deal with this. He ran down the hall to the woman's door and fumbled with the keys to unlocked the door. He had a spare key to the apartment since they were over so often. A blur of blond hair made his heart studder as the young girl hugged him the best she could.

"Daddy!" Jade. His daughter, the light of his life cried. "D-Daddy! Grammy Mel! S-she" she sobbed into his arms.

"I know. I know baby. Its okay" he comforted her the best he could.

"S-she got hurt and and then said she was gunna go get help" she hiccuped.

After that he packed a few bags from their apartment and escaped through the back door to his truck before making his way to the woods. They couldn't stay there obviously. What ever this was it wasnt safe in the city.

He turned on the lamp in the hallway, dropping the duffel bag to the floor and locking the door behind them. The cabin wasn't much, passed down to him when his own father passed. A small kitchenette connected to a living area and one bedroom with a double bed and a small day bed set up against the wall. He brought Jade there every summer after she was born. He knew how to hunt, sure since his father taught him everything he knew but they mostly used it as a summer get-away. He laid the sleepy girl down in the daybed, decorated with a pink and white quilt, made by her late mother, Jackie. She died in child birth, giving life to their daughter. He was a mess after her death but he kept it together for their little girl and he will have to continue to do so in this situation.

"Daddy? What happened to Grammy Mel?" Jade asked, looking up at him with her large blue eyes. So innocent and scared.

"She... she went to the hospital sweetie" he lied unable to bring himself to tell her the truth. Not yet.

"Will she be okay?"

"I... I don't know sweetheart" he say brushing her hair out of her face.

"Why did we have to leave?" She asked, getting comfortable in the bed.

"It wasnt safe there.. We'll stay here for a while until it is. You like the cabin right? Tomorrow, we will go down to the country store for some snacks and supplies and we can even get some ice cream." He says trying to distract the young girl.

"Ice cream? Really?"

"Really, Really. Now get some sleep" he says tucking her in nice and snug in the quilt before making his way to the livingroom and turning on the little radio to the news station on the side table and finally dropping into the chair, unsure if he could even get any sleep that night.