So backstory time guys, I was in school the other week and actually revising in a free with my friend (who I usually just fan-girl about TWD with), my headphones were in and the Sweeney Todd sound track was on. Then I was like ''omfg imagine TWD-version''. And then I realised it worked too well in my head and I really, really tried to resist writing it, I was telling my daddy everything hoping it would unlodge but that's all that came to head when trying to write today. Xxx
Zach had travelled the south, first with his family in the old world all those years ago. Beheld the wonders of the American south in its final glory days. He barely remembered it though, but the tales given to him by his family made him feel part of the old world. He was born there, but he was bred here. He wanted to see the world. Walkers and hunger weren't abnormal for him, he grew up knowing to run, knowing to fight. Anyone left could tell you the same.
In some crazed adolescent dream, the dreams of a lonely orphan he had left his camp in hope to extend his knowledge of the country, see if it really was the same past the green-leafed home of Georgia. It had been. Disheartened he had set himself back, planned to return to the leafy suburbs of Atlanta, the city that he knew. Along the way a group of rough tag-a-longs, bikers in the old world, asked him to join. Joe let him in, showed him the ropes and he helped them travel the world to behold its wonders. From the abandoned monuments and the mountainous homes of survivor communities. They traded and made friends, somehow in their roughness providing help places need exterminating surmounting pressure from walkers or other groups. They'd do the dirty work no issue. But there was no place like Georgia.
He and another man, the quiet bowman were left. Given a rucksack and dropped off as members sometimes do, waving them down the road, he stared apprehensively at the silent man. He knew enough to know his name, to have said thank you for a few meals. But that was all that was ever said to him, by anyone. The man liked his space, or perhaps just didn't like the company. It didn't matter much, most the men spoke enough to make up for the silence.
''No, there's no place like Georgia.'' The man's voice was gruff, loud and unreadable in its tone. He seemed to be answering his own thoughts, but somehow mixed in Zach's along with it. Zach was happy to be back, the place seemed somehow homely though it was identical to everywhere else.
''Mr Dixon?'' he looked up apprehensively, giving a small smile. The man grunted, taking off into the woods.
He had nothing else to do, nowhere to go now he was back. Perhaps that was the issue, but the man seemed to know where he was headed. Zach spoke about things, unable to stand the silence with the man who never spoke. He told him about his dreams, how he wanted to travel. And now, that he was back in Georgia he wanted it all- to find another survivor, a female one. And they'd fall in love and settle down. He couldn't wait.
Dixon broke the silence.
''You are young. Life has been kind to you. You will learn.'' The words were simple, they strung out into the air beneath the heavy southern accent. A voice of misuse and terrible knowledge far surmounting his years. He set up a camp for them, expertly making a fire and taking a day-old rabbit out his pack tossing it at the flaxen haired youth. How he despised that colour.
Sitting back against the tree with the hunting knife in hand, Daryl took first watch. He knew he wasn't going to sleep, but the boy was going to need to. And the boy, as insanely naïve as he was, he would provide a little cover, an alibi to stop them looking too closely. And they'd never find out, not until the job was done.
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit, and it goes by the name of Woodberry.
At the top of the hole sit the privileged few, making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo, turning beauty to filth and greed-
He too had travelled this hell form crevice to corner, overturning every stone and leaf to make his way back to sanity. To make his way back here. And it was finally happening. The wonders of this life for him weren't great, the cruelty of every group and the own world for making the dead somnambulists who only want to devour. But no place was crueller than Woodberry.
''Is everything alright, Mr Todd?'' The boy's voice startled him, an achievement in itself. He realised that he must have moved or made some disgruntled noise in his thoughts.
He was so close, he could almost taste it. The shadows of the building could be from these very trees, soon the streets they walked down would be back under his feet. He was raised in the woods of this state, lived off them as a child. And now they welcomed him home, concealed him and led him in their familiarity to the dark crevices of his past.
Zach willingly took over watch, eager in his youth to provide help. So Daryl let him, why take the brunt of it all. He should rest himself, get as much sleep as possible so he can relish the next day or so.
There was a hunter and his wife and she was beautiful. He dreamt of her soft blonde curls on his chest, she would use him as a glorified pillow and he would smiling pretend that he cared. Her big blue eyes would bore into him in the mornings, matching where he had stayed to stare at her sleeping. And she'd smile, the light of it making her cheeks rosy and lips seem all too delectable. And they were safe, she was safe. And for a while he believed, he truly believed, that nothing would go wrong. Not at all, they were safe here. A foolish hunter and his wife.
A long time ago he was a man with no meaning. He thrived and survived to dodge the pain that he world had inflicted on him. A father who beat him. A brother who abandoned him. And there was nothing, no motivation behind any of it. Before he had rolled up to that damn farm, and he had met her. He thought nothing of it- inexplicably ending up sat with her in the now empty barn staring at where her mama had been and the girl he lost had been too. They didn't speak, not for the first few days, and then a week later he was the first person she spoke to. He tried not to stare at her bandaged wrists, wishing he was brave enough to have taken that initiative years ago. There was no point now, he had suffered long enough for it to be normal.
They taught each other to smile again, and she even clumsily taught him to dance. The farm fell to flames and death. And when they ran he ended up unknowingly keeping an eye on her, fighting the disapproving gaze of her father. But she didn't care. And so how could he possibly?
An unexpected herd wiped most of them out, killed Lori and Herschel some others too. Barely any of them survived, but she had- and for some reason that's the only someone he wanted to survive. She became his reason and his life. His introspective world had been breached, he knew it then. And he knew it at her first kiss. The first time they made love, and every time after. When they found the sanctuary of the village walls they thought they found everything.
And she was beautiful, small frame and that doe-eyed face. She was an angel amongst the death, part of everything yet somehow apart from it all. Her upbringing had sheltered her from men like him, rough and unlovable. But she had found a way, upheld her virtue so he couldn't see it for less value than what it was, what a value she was.
And he had been so fucking naïve to think that he could have her. To have them.
Sometimes his mind couldn't help but go back to those years, the early ones before the tensions began, before it all fell out of place. And he was happy, happy with her. He'd hold her swollen belly and leave small kisses on her neck, before he went hunting. And when he came back she'd be in their kitchen, wearing the gentle powder blue sweater she loved so much and nursing a small mug of tea. If only he had known someone else was watching.
He never saw the man as a threat. Would never have thought that the hospitality shown was going to backfire so completely in his face, but it did. The governor. He was a man with two faces, one for public viewing and the darker real man underneath. He was another man who saw her for what she was, how beautiful she was both inside and out. How could he not, it radiated from her. It didn't take anything for him to make the orders, denounce him in the street as a murderer and have him beaten. Through closing eyes he saw her tearful face, hands clasped round their baby girl as he was dragged out.
They left him west of Arizona. Left for dead. And he didn't care if he died. But the jealousy of living whilst knowing she was too susceptible to him. Would Beth know he hadn't murdered that man? She may doubt it, but what was that- her heart was too good to suspect he had been set up. He'd swoop it, and she'd fall.
Beth Greene was so soft, so young, so lost and oh, so beautiful.
But he'd come back, hadn't stop fighting all these years to battle off his own depression and find safe enough means to travel. Perhaps the isolation he imposed made him mad, or perhaps the smile the man had given him as he was dragged off for dead finally did him in. either way he was here, and he would have revenge.
His eyes opened to the soft morning light under a faded canopy, he rolled over grabbed his hunting knife and woke the boy. It was time to go, it was time to meet Woodberry.
I would really really like to know what you think! xxx