It was going to happen one day, sooner or later. It was inevitable. Humans could only survive for so long in a world that belonged to the dead and while it was a good run for for Daryl, it seemed as though even he couldn't hack it. He hadn't minded it much when the world first went up in flames and he hardly noticed it when he was on his own, but then Glenn just blew into his life.
Glenn had nestled himself into Daryl's empty heart and filled it with promises and warmth. It didn't take Daryl long to fall head over heels in love with the Korean-born twenty-something and it took even less time for Glenn to reciprocate the mutual attraction. But Daryl hadn't known he was digging his own grave.
In the following months after the apocalypse, Daryl had been separated from Glenn on a routine food scavenge. Daryl hated the city, preferred the country, but they were far from any wooded areas so Daryl had no choice but to follow Glenn's lead. While he was initially confident in Glenn's knowledge of the city, he was not confident in their lack of firepower. Daryl would consider himself to be one tough son of a bitch but even he couldn't take on the whole world.
It all happened so quickly. Daryl likes to tell himself that it was the wrong place at the wrong time and that there was nothing he could've done, but that was a lie. Daryl could've been more cautious, more knowledgeable of the city, more faster, but he wasn't. There were many things Daryl could do but a lot of other things he couldn't, one of them being unable to save the ones he loved.
He remembered the way Glenn had stumbled out onto the street, meeting him halfway to the rendezvous, clutching to the left side of his neck. Upon seeing Daryl, Glenn collapsed to the ground and grunted as the unforgiving asphalt caught his frail body. Daryl froze up, petrified with genuine shock.
It wasn't until Glenn reached out a bloody hand towards him that he actually realized what was going on and quickly rushed to the young man's side. A walker with blood smeared around it's mouth rounded the corner and, without even hesitating, Daryl drew his bow gun and shot it right between the eyes. He didn't question whether it was or wasn't the one responsible for wounding Glenn.
Daryl dropped to the ground and cradled the young man's head in his hands as he frantically tried to figure out what to do. Glenn's left hand was clamped over the bite on his neck, making the blood gush out from between his fingers. Daryl pried Glenn's hand away to get a better look but he soon regretted it. It was another nail in Daryl's heart that he just didn't need.
The walker had taken a chunk out of the side of Glenn's beautiful neck. The same neck that Daryl had, on many occasions, kissed and nipped while half asleep with Glenn warm and safe in his arms. But now Glenn was cold and pale and losing more blood than what was safe. Even if there was a cure and highly skilled doctors, Glenn couldn't be saved. But the hardest part was trying to save him even when it was no use.
"I'm gonna fix this," Daryl choked out, trying to wipe away the blood with shaking hands. Daryl didn't believe one word even as they tumbled out of his mouth. "I'll fix you! And it's gonna be alright!"
Daryl tried to keep himself calm and his emotions in check but he didn't know how long he could hang onto that last shred of composure. Glenn was now choking and straining to speak but all that was coming up was more blood. His chest jerked forward and spasmed as he went into a choking, coughing fit that wracked his body with uncontrollable tremors. The blood that came out of his mouth stained his lips and splattered across his cheeks and Daryl tried, in vain, to wipe it all away.
"Try an' slow you're breathin'. You'll get through this," Daryl reassured, more or less to himself. "It's just a fit. You'll be fine. We're gonna get through this."
Glenn jerked in his arms as Daryl waded through the fit with him. Daryl pressed a firm hand over Glenn's bite and the other cupped the young man's face, holding him still as the weak form went through it's last quakes. It used all of Glenn's remaining strength to do as Daryl said. He slowed down his breathing long enough to open his copper flavored mouth.
"...s-scared," was all Glenn could manage with blood in his throat. And he was. Glenn's voice cracked and and the syllable resembled that of a sob. He no longer sounded like himself and his dark eyes almost looked as if the lights behind them were fading.
"Shh.. Save your breath, kid," Daryl soothed as he smoothed a bloody hand through Glenn's matted hair, making it worse. He knew Glenn was done for but it didn't stop Daryl from trying to comfort him one last time.
"Puh..." Glenn gasped out, breaths shortening each time he exhaled.
"What?" Daryl whispered, craning his head and putting his ear to Glenn's mouth. Glenn's breath was hot against his cheek as the young man tried for words. "What is it?"
"Please," he murmured into Daryl's ear. Daryl reeled back and looked down into Glenn's dimming gaze. Glenn looked so pitiful and pale, having had the blood and life drain from him. He was almost gone and he was silently pleading with Daryl to end him now so he wouldn't have to suffer any longer. So he wouldn't have to be one of those things. "Please..."
Daryl could no longer stop it. The final nail went straight through his heart, shattering it into a million pieces. He openly wept and the tears came streaming down his face, collecting at the bottom of his chin until finally falling down onto Glenn's bloodied face. Daryl didn't care about his whole tough guy façade anymore, he didn't care about being strong. He couldn't be either of those things without Glenn.
"I can't. I can't do it. I'm so sorry."
Glenn seemed to understand, giving Daryl a short half-hearted nod despite the obvious agony he must be going through right now. Glenn reached up to cup the side of Daryl's wet face with a weak hand, prompting the older man to press his hand over it to keep it in place. Daryl didn't care if Glenn was smearing blood on his face, he just needed to feel Glenn one last time.
"I love you," Daryl confessed through a strained voice, words pushing past the lump in his constricted throat. "Don't leave me."
Glenn pulled his hand away from Daryl's face, feeling like jelly, and placed it over Daryl's beating heart. His eyes glazed a little and his chest took in a deep shallow breath.
"Here..." Glenn choked out, coughing blood once more as he patted at Daryl's chest. "Always..."
The light in Glenn's eyes faded completely, dilating, and his chest stopped moving in it's erratic shallow bursts. Realization hit Daryl like a ton of bricks as the life in Glenn's body vanished. Glenn was dead and in a few hours, he'd live again. But the Glenn that'd be coming back would merely be a shade of his former self.
"I'm so sorry," Daryl whispered to himself as he hugged Glenn's body, muffling sobs into a slender shoulder.
Daryl would wait there, holding Glenn's limp body in his arms until he finally woke up and he wouldn't move a muscle as the shade of Glenn reached out to grab a hold of him. Daryl wouldn't flinch when Glenn pulled him closer and he wouldn't wince as Glenn's teeth sank into his forearm.
Daryl would no longer be scared of facing the world alone.
Death is an elusive force that no one understands while living, but in death we find the truth. We find out whether there really is a light or if it's just darkness. If there is a higher power or if we're all just really alone and when the world ends, there will be nothing to suggest that we were ever here.
But this is different. There is no light at the end of the tunnel but there is no darkness either. It's in between. It's life. It's something and nothing at the same time. It was almost like being born for the first time, except... well... you're dead. Your heart stops beating and everything that made you who you are is gone and you still get the pleasure of living life as a shade. But it doesn't matter, because you won't know the difference either way.
Daryl doesn't and neither does Glenn.
Some walkers travel in packs and some are just stragglers that wander around on their own, but even through death and rebirth Daryl and Glenn had somehow managed to stick together. Life as a walker is routine to them, it's what's familiar, and as far as they know they've always been dead.
Daryl and Glenn spend their days milling around the city mostly, staggering side by side as they search for nothing in particular. They never branch off with another group nor do they let other walkers join them. They simply rely on each other for companionship and neither one of them understands or notices it.
Daryl and Glenn have a language all their own but sometimes communication can be a little difficult at times. Moans and grunts can only mean so many things to a pair of inactive minds. But they continue to learn, because it's all they have. If there's one thing that brings them to a better understanding, it's food. All walkers could agree that they have the same taste in food.
Whatever Glenn finds he shares with Daryl and vice versa. They work together to survive just as they did before but fruit and beans and deer is not what's on the menu anymore. It's humans, or anything else that happens to have a heart beat. And while humans coming to the city is not rare, it can still be a challenge.
They are both slow and not very well coordinated, almost child-like, but what they lack in finesse they make up for in determination, and being a walker you HAVE to be determined if you want to survive. So when human is sold out they resort to the ways of the living. They hunt for animals. It's a human trait neither of them even realize they still have because all that's on their mind is their next meal.
Daryl and Glenn wander aimlessly through town, hunt for food, and then do it all over again. And life goes on...
But each day is the same as the one before, seeming to run into one another, and it begins to feel like they're living the same day over and over again. Despite being mindless corpses they can still only take so much and quite frankly, it all seems to be a bit boring to them. Doing the same thing everyday with no stimulation whatsoever. It's almost like they were remembering who they once were. Remembering that they once had feelings and emotions and a beating hearts.
Then one day, without even seeming to notice it, they left the city together and didn't stop walking. It was almost by an instinct that was deeply seeded into the recesses of their mind and somehow they remembered one of the most potent human emotions.
Curiosity.
The who, what, when, where, and why. It's what fueled humans in childhood and walkers were no smarter than a toddler, so it made sense. The longing to know what was beyond the doorstep of the world, or in this case the city, had spiked in both Daryl and Glenn's mind. Even if only one of them wanted to leave the other would undoubtedly follow without so much as a second thought. Not that they thought much at all.
Leaving the city had triggered something inside both if them, something they didn't quite understand. There were moments when they were walking alongside the road or through a field when they'd just stop and stare at each other. Almost as if they were trying to figure something out or perhaps remember things from before. It was like having a thought on the tip of your tongue but unable to pinpoint what it was exactly.
Glenn would often crane his head and look Daryl over with foggy eyes, seeing him as one of his own. All pale skin and dead eyes. He would initially feel nothing as he studied his companion but when Glenn would spot the chunk missing from Daryl's forearm, something deep inside of his mind would come to life. First a spark and then a bombardment of memories came flooding back along with a mixture of emotions. But Glenn no longer understood what those things were.
There were times when Daryl would do something similar to Glenn and when they communicated through grunts and gestures, Daryl would brush a hand against Glenn's arm or cheek. It became apparent that this was a sign of affection and while it may have been a shoot and miss for Glenn, Daryl, even through his muddled inactive brain, understood what it meant.
Somehow, Daryl knew who Glenn was and how much he once meant to him. What he still meant. While his memories were still foggy, Daryl managed to follow his instinct and his instinct told him to stick to Glenn like glue. Glenn was a friend, a companion, and above all a walker. Even the dead needed contact or at least some form of connection with another being.
Daryl grunted harshly and jerked a lazy arm in the direction of a thickly wooded area, eliciting a nod and grunt of agreement from Glenn. They couldn't talk, but if it was a yes or no topic they could actually get far in a conversation from grunting and nodding alone. They even, on many occasions, invented their own form of sign language only they understood.
Some were obvious signs and others were a little more strange, but it worked for them. When they were hungry they'd put a hand to their stomach. When they were exhausted they'd put a hand against their cheek. When there was danger, namely humans, they would pound their fist against their chest where their heart was, replicating the motion of a heart beat. To say they felt alright was a pat to their head and placing a hand over their heart meant stay.
Glenn placed his hand over his heart a lot. Daryl wasn't sure if Glenn was trying to reassure him by saying that he was staying or if he was telling Daryl to stay. Either way Daryl wasn't going anywhere and he hoped Glenn wasn't either. It was odd but things, as weird as it may sound, were actually seeming to get better despite being dead.
There was no knowing how long or how far they've traveled or where they were heading but it didn't seem to matter to either of them. They both needed an escape from the living and the dead, a place to call their own and claim it for themselves. Somewhere quiet and peaceful where they wouldn't be disturbed.
After a while Daryl and Glenn were becoming more and more human. Daryl and Glenn had lost their taste for humans and turned to other living things, but sometimes, when they were desperate, they'd relapse. They still had trouble remembering things from the past, before they died, but they were learning everything and them selves all over again. Re-learning each other because it was apparent they had history together. It made sense, though.
Whenever they were distressed or worried about the other, they'd pull at their hair until they were reassured otherwise. Glenn seemed to worry the most, especially when they went through a city. He was often afraid that he'd forget about all the progress he's made with Daryl and go back to the same old hum drum walker routine. Wander, eat, repeat. But Daryl wouldn't let that happen.
Their bond over their lives as walkers grew exponentially, so much so that Daryl would grab Glenn by a short sleeve and tug him along so they wouldn't be separated in a crowd. Sometimes after they'd eaten their latest catch they would even try to wipe off each other's faces. They weren't exactly well-coordinated with their hands just yet and they'd often make an even worse mess than before the fact. But they usually got clean when it rained. Daryl loved the rain.
There were nights when they would find an isolated little place in the country or in a town and they'd just stop to sit down. If only for a moment. It was strange to think that they were getting more and more exhausted. It wasn't as if they were weak from lack of food because they weren't. Their hunger was under control and they only needed to eat when it was absolutely necessary.
But these nights when Daryl or Glenn would put a hand to their cheek they would sit hunched over, grunting back and forth, speaking a language only they knew. Daryl would grunt and nod his head once and Glenn would usually pat his head in response. If they didn't have a roof over them they would talk about the stars, or rather, point out the ones they liked most. It was almost like they were living again, enjoying things only humans knew the meaning of.
Daryl and Glenn both came to understand the meaning of many things as time went on. Like their feelings for each other. Humans would say that walkers were uncapable of emotion or feeling but based on what facts? How could any human possibly state that walkers were soulless? To understand how a walker's mind works, you must become one. See how they see, feel how they feel, think how they think.
Just because you didn't have a pulse doesn't mean you're dead. A heart beat isn't what makes you human. It's something deep inside of you. It's the will to feel.
Daryl and Glenn may have been able to re-learn being human but could others learn as well? Could the dead become alive? Neither Glenn nor Daryl was sure. They still had problems with their own feelings, or rather, how to express them. Daryl was protective and worried about Glenn frequently, showing his concerns through simple touches to the younger man's arm or face reassured him.
Tonight was a little different, though. Without even thinking, as walkers are one to do, Daryl pulled Glenn close to him and let the young walker burrow into his side for warmth he didn't even know he needed. Glenn felt so cold all of a sudden, nestling closer to Daryl's equally frigid body for comfort. Warmth spread out through his chest and ached for the slightest second. Right then Glenn knew that even though he was dead he was capable of living again.
Daryl turned his face into the side of Glenn's head and tousled the young man's hair with his nose. Glenn shivered bodily, finding it odd that his body was moderating it's temperature, and turned his head to face Daryl. They pressed their foreheads together and Daryl placed a hand over Glenn's heart, the latter doing the same in return. They were so close, the closest they've been since they changed, but to them it was the still the first time.
With their hands over each other's hearts and their foreheads pressed together, they learned a new sign. A sign that communicated their love for each other. Their noses bumped and almost by accident they slipped and their cold dead lips brushed against one another. They almost immediately pulled away, feeling embarrassed, and Glenn couldn't help but notice the blush that crept across Daryl's face.
They felt so warm inside that it couldn't have been real. But it was. And it was just the start of something new.
The next day they walked through a small town populated by a fair amount of walkers. Daryl had his hand tangled in Glenn's, pulling him along the street, and as they looked around they noticed something odd about the other walkers. They seemed to be communicating through signs much like Daryl's and Glenn's, but they were slightly different.
Daryl looked over at Glenn and Glenn only shrugged. They staggered along in a disjointed fashion, holding hands and looking onto the other walkers who tapped their hands against their knees and flailed about with special signs. Daryl and Glenn continued along their endless trek, feeling proud that they had started a trend that was just as contagious as this infection.
Perhaps the dead could live again after all.