It was amazing, Daryl noted, how the apocalypse looked so different from the way he'd seen it in movies and in those old paintings from the Dark Ages or whenever the hell – he could care less about art. He himself always figured the post-apocalyptic world would look ugly. A destroyed world full of craters, volcanoes, barren wastelands, the man-made things disintegrating, and painted all in black and red hues. To him the apocalypse should look like the world was floating within the blast of an atomic bomb and not at all like this.
The grass was still green and the sky was still blue. Buildings remained upright and in the same state they were before the apocalypse decided to rear its ugly head. Water still flowed in rivers, the sun continued to rise and set on schedule, and the birds still nested upon branches. The trees still went through photosynthesis (and why not, he figured, everything else was acting as if the world as it was hadn't ended). At this point they were loosing their orange, yellow, and red leaves. Winter was coming. A hell of a winter at that. He wondered if anyone would end up freezing or starving to death.
He put his head down and closed his eyes as he idly rolled one of his arrows between his fingers. Sitting there on the bank of a small lake and listening to the sounds of various bird calls (he took a moment to identify all of them and, full of pride at his knowledge, smiled for a split second before he went back to trying to block out the world) he could almost forget that the world had ended and the dead were walking around like it was the most natural thing in the world. Actually, that probably is the most natural thing in this new world. Everything from before this apocalypse seems so unnatural now.
The apocalypse. How strange it was. He'd never admit it but during these quiet moments alone he would always pretend it was all just another nightmare. A really long incredibly vivid reoccurring nightmare. Just these moments he'd allow himself to pretend the apocalypse never happened until something snapped him back into the horrible reality that awaited him.
He had finally blocked out every sound around him and was about to let his guard down completely when something wet hit his hand. His eyes snapped open and surveyed the area around him, but nothing had changed since he closed them. He looked up toward the overcast sky just in time to catch something infinitesimal floating downward. It landed just under his left eye and he blinked before using his hand to touch the spot which was cold and wet. Rain, he thought, of course. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket that, if he was to be honest was not even going to get him through to November if it kept being this cold, to get rid of the rest of the wetness his finger hadn't wiped away.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and go back to his own form of meditation he caught the sight of a snowflake that gently floated down to rest on the sleeve of his jacket before melting almost instantly.
A snowflake in October in Georgia? Now he was sure it was the apocalypse.