Survive | Daryl Dixon ¹

𝐱𝐢. 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

Once they were alone, Astrid's head snapped back to the hunter. Instinctively her stubbornness flared in response, and she immediately tried to pull away from him, but Daryl's fingers curled into her elbow, his grip firm. Daryl began to pull her toward Andrea (of course he would have overheard her intentions), and hostility surrounded them as they began to walk—or hobble, more like it. Shadows seemed to cast themselves across the ground with their every synced step.

Astrid could not help but challenge Daryl's brusque demeanor as she glowered at him from the corner of her eye. "You didn't have to be so rude back there," She said.

Daryl did not meet her gaze, his icy eyes fixed on the dirt path to the RV. "You ain't seen me rude yet."

"No?" Astrid mused. "Then what was that?"

"That was jus' me," He grumbled.

She scoffed. "Whatever, Mister Tough Guy."

The rest of their walk was marked by a near-intolerable silence, broken only by the sound of their uneven footsteps. Astrid still clung to Daryl's arm, struggling to keep up despite the pain throbbing in her ankle. Gradually, though, her baby steps grew more confident as her stiff and bruised joint grew accustomed to the bandage that pushed snuggly in her supported boot—but even as she gained speed, she was in no rush to reach her destination, due to the severity of what held to meet it.

By the time she and Daryl finally reached Andrea, Astrid was able to stand on her own two feet. Still, Daryl hovered. His cautious gaze shifted between Amy's lifeless body in the dirt and the woman who stood upright beside him. "You got a gun?" He asked. Astrid nodded, taken aback by the abruptness of his question. "Don't be afraid to use it," He advised, his words laced with an unsettling intensity. Without another word, he retrieved a pickax that lay nearby and stepped away, returning to the horrid task of disposing of the dead that surrounded them.

Astrid swallowed the lump in her throat as she knelt beside Andrea, and her eyes fell to Amy's blood-stained corpse. The life that once animated the young woman had been so violently snuffed out, leaving only a haunting empty shell in its wake. Amy's once-white shirt and blonde hair were soaked a deep red in her own blood. The gruesome wounds inflicted by the walkers—nasty bites on her neck and arms—festered in the warm sun overhead. Astrid's first instinct was to stitch them back up, but blood no longer ran in the cold girl's veins.

She reached out tentatively toward the dead girl. But as Andrea raised her voice, a plea to let her sister rest undisturbed, Astrid withdrew her touch again. "Don't," Andrea whispered. The single word was hoarse in her dry throat. "Just let her be, please."

Astrid let her arm fall to her lap, her hands trembling with a mixture of sorrow and helplessness. Words failed to rightfully capture their shared grief, but the truth echoed as she murmured, "Andrea, I'm so sorry."

"Today was her birthday."

The revelation struck Astrid like a bullet to her own chest, freezing her in disbelief. The cruel irony of Amy's death on the eve of her birthday seared into her like a melting iron. Astrid's bottom lip began to quiver, her heart breaking all over again. "Really?" She managed to ask.

Andrea nodded dazedly, all the while reaching into her back pocket to produce a small silver necklace. It had a bright blue mermaid pendant at its center. Tears welled in an older sister's eyes as she smiled painfully down at her tiny gift. "I was going to give this to her," Andrea confessed. "I found it in Atlanta . . . In that department store, actually."

Astrid held out her hand, and Andrea gently placed the necklace in her palm. She traced her fingers along the delicate chain. It was so clean against the backdrop of Astrid's gritty and bloodied skin. "It's beautiful," She murmured.