ᴀɴɢᴜɪsʜ » ᴅᴀʀʏʟ ᴅɪxᴏɴ

{12} The Search For Sophia.

Rick moves forward, watching what Dixon had spotted before anyone else.

"What is it?" Carol whispers faintly from behind Jodie and me.

Rick swats his hand downward, signaling us to all crouch down. One by one, we squat down, holding our weapons in hand. Scooting forward,  a pale green tent comes to my view. Lonesome, and no doubt abandoned.

"She could be in there," Shane, who shuffled his way to the middle line, says.

"Could be a whole bunch of things in there," Daryl grunts back.

Daryl moves forward with ease. His feet move swift over the forest floor. Careful with his steps, light on his feet as if the ground is air. Compared to the rest of us, Daryl can blend in and be silent. Like he had been doing this his whole life.

Rick turns his attention to Shane and me, nodding his head towards Daryl's direction. Shane moves along after Rick, and then me. As we move closer to the tent, the objects surrounding the campsite comes into view. Clothes, a few pots, and pans, a single water cooler, anything that was for surviving sat out in the open. Untouched.

Daryl raises his hand yet again, and we freeze without hesitation. Dixon pulls his hunting knife from out of his hip holster.

With his knife nearly raised above his head, and his other hand ready to grasp anything that might wander out of the tent by surprise, he loudly toes around the tent. Peeking into every nook and cranny. His head tilts towards the three of us, shrugging his shoulders with confusion. If anything walker was in there, it would have tried it's best to escape the tent already.

"Carol," Rick says from beside me.

Carol moves forward, almost running into us with her palms pressed against her mouth. The worried mother, and once sheriff take a few steps to the tent. Daryl still stood in a crouching position, watching Carol and Rick with an eager expression.

"Call out softly, if she's in there, yours is the first voice she should hear," Rick whispers faintly.

Carol shook her head with understanding, removing her trembling hand away from her thin pink lips.

"S-Sophia, sweetie, are you in there?" Carol calls out, her voice calm and hopeful.

Nothing.

"Sophia, it's mommy." Carol's voice turns desperate and troublesome. She slightly kneels forward, watching the flap of the tent. "Sophia. We're all here baby. It's mommy."

No small innocent voice. No movement. Nothing.

Daryl slowly but surely unzips the flap of the tent. Rick and Shane huddle to his side for backup whilst I stay put. Keeping Carol's company. Even if I am the last person she wants for reassurance, she'd need someone. That someone is me.

Dixon opens the flap, but gasps and chokes into the back of his hand. Slightly turning away from the tent. Pulling himself together after a short while, and wiping away unsettling tears from the stench; Daryl moves into the tent alone. While Shane and Rick gaped and took a few steps back away from the deadly fumes.

The others move forward. Lori places a supporting hand onto Carol's shoulder, just as she did before.

Whatever must be in there been dead for weeks.

"Daryl," I call out after a minute too long.

Jodie taps the back of my shoulder playfully and I ignore her.

After a few more seconds of waiting in silence, the flap door flies open. Daryl crawls from out of the tent with disgust written all over his dirt patched face.