I'm Still Here | Glenn Rhee | TWD

[1] Choke

The squelching sound of his knife colliding with eye socket was nothing compared to the gasp he drew in seconds later and the suffering that followed; it felt like he'd swallowed a razor blade, and preoccupied by his coughing and violent heaving, he thanked every god he'd ever heard of that the walker hadn't bitten his wrist. That was a close call.

Falling to his knees, Glenn continued coughing hard and painfully. When going in for the kill, he'd grabbed onto the hair of the walker instead of the skull, and the hair had ripped loose. The damn thing had practically fallen on top of him, it could have ripped his skin to shreds if he hadn't responded as quickly as he did. His body bent down towards the earth, and he shook as he coughed. Trying his best to return to a state of stability, he drew slow, deep breaths, staring at the ground as if doing so would save his life.

Pulling arrows out of the motionless corpses that now lay in a circle around them, Daryl had more important things to draw his attention to than Glenn's current state of peril. Without so much as a glance in Glenn's direction, he mumbled,

"Can't lose any more of these things 'till we get home. Already lost enough in the last herd, probably won't have time to make any more from here on out."

Sighing, he wiped the handful of blood-soaked arrows he'd collected on his pant leg. "Shouldn't run into too many more on the way back anyways, but-"

"You never, know, I guess," Glenn finished Daryl's sentence in his own words, his throat dry and raspy from coughing. Daryl looked over his shoulder at Glenn, and Glenn looked back up at him, wincing bitterly.

"You gonna live?" Daryl questioned mockingly.

"Hopefully," Glenn wheezed, pushing himself back up onto his knees. Daryl turned, offering a hand to his crumpled friend.

"Sounds good enough for me."

Glenn accepted Daryl's help gratefully, managing to get himself standing again. He shook his head, laughing at himself as he asked,

"I was so surprised, I gasped so hard, I couldn't- have you ever done that? You ever gasped so hard, you choke on the air you're breathing?"

"Nothing surprises me anymore." Daryl grunted in reply.

Glenn scoffed.

"Cool Guy doesn't get surprised anymore. Got it."

Daryl began to work up a snide reply but stopped, distracted by Glenn, who was now turning in circles slowly and looking in all directions at the forest around them. Pointing, he asked,

"The road is... that way?"

Daryl snorted at what Glenn could only assume were his horrible navigation skills.

"Yep, dead on." Daryl told him, not able to cover up the sarcasm dripping from his voice. As Glenn rolled his eyes, Daryl turned, heading completely opposite the direction Glenn had pointed.

Sometimes, certain questions just don't need to be asked.
When Daryl had come knocking at Glenn and Maggie's door just before the sun came up that morning, Glenn didn't need to ask why Daryl was leaving. He didn't need to ask where he was going, either. He didn't even need to ask why he specifically had to go with Daryl; he knew that already. He told Daryl to wait at the gates, and that he'd be there before sunrise. He got up, got dressed, and bent back over the bed, kissing Maggie on the cheek and asking her to hold down the fort until he got back.

"I always do," She mumbled, still asleep for the most part. Eyes shut tight, she stretched out her arm to him, caressing his cheek sweetly. Though she didn't know where he was going, she knew she had to tell him, "Please be careful."

"You know I will be," He whispered to her, his cold hand reaching to join her warm one. As her breathing began to slow again, he brought her hand back to the pillow, taking the blankets he'd moved when he got out of bed and pulling them up around her. Watching her drift back to sleep, he knew that she probably wouldn't remember talking to him before he left, but he hoped that she'd find comfort in the warm blankets that had been pulled back over her while he wasn't there to comfort her himself.

Glenn thought about this as they began to head back. Leaving Maggie wasn't the easiest thing to do, but sometimes Daryl felt cluttered up and trapped within the walls of Alexandria, and Glenn understood that; sometimes his surroundings would press in on him too, and the two of them recognized that in each other. When Daryl first started asking Glenn to tag along on his ventures outside the walls, Glenn was more than willing to join him, but he felt guilty for leaving Maggie behind. While he was out all day, far away from the Alexandrian crowd who always had something to be upset about, Maggie was most likely the one to be thrown in the middle of all that, the one Rick would look to to solve the problem if he was too busy to handle it himself.

Glenn always felt guilty upon leaving, but nevertheless he left. He had to.

Emerging from the woods to cross the road, Glenn asked Daryl,

"You gonna drive, or should I?"

"Pffft. I think we both know the answer to that, don't we?" Daryl chuckled, heading for the driver's side. Glenn sighed, pulling the passenger's door open dejectedly and climbing in.

☾

AN:
Wowza. It's been 3000 years since I told y'all the first chapter would be coming "soon," and even then it had been quite a while since I'd first published the prologue. I swear to you, I was ready to upload this chapter so very long ago... I somehow managed to misplace the document that I had this chapter saved on, and I only just found it recently.

After blowing the dust off of it, and cutting it short by a bit because I'm not good at distinguishing the end of one chapter from the start of another, I finally have it ready for you! Technically this is only part 1 of chapter 1, but Part 2 / Chapter 2 will be published soon! (It really will be published soon this time, I promise.)

So, yeah! How are you feeling about this story so far? (Please) comment and let me know what ya think!