The Walking Dead is property of its respective owners
I own my OC's Afton and Brian
"I got this one." Words both familiar and foreign, spoken so simply before everything changed, echoed relentlessly through the recesses of Afton's consciousness. She groggily tried pushing them away, wanting only to settle into the soft and blissful sensation of a dreamless sleep that beckoned to her sweetly.
But the words were deafeningly insistent and rammed forward, jerking her rudely from her gentle tumble into the black.
She blinked, dazed, against the warm afternoon sunlight that was twinkling off of the windows of the skyscrapers surrounding her. She found, with numb surprise, that she was standing on the double yellow lines of Atlanta's I-20 and could not remember how she had gotten there; could not remember why she was there.
Her mind blundered through her confusion, searching frantically through memories that were hazy, fragmented, and just out of reach. A faded, well-loved photo, a pink feather held tightly between calloused fingers, a deeply tearful kiss. She tried desperately to hold onto these, to investigate them more closely, but lost her grasp as she was suddenly struck by a headache, piercing and sharp, sparking hot behind her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but left her reeling, nonetheless.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and caught the murmur of voices over her shoulder. She turned slightly and was relieved to see faces she recognized: the men from her group, standing in the road next to her brother, and Daryl.
Daryl. She looked hopefully to his eyes and felt her breath hitch in her chest as pain and overwhelming sorrow, unwarranted, unexpected, settled heavy on her heart. Her mind continued its frenzied search, leafing through memories like old, disorganized papers in a filing cabinet, but could not find a reason as to why just the sight of him would cause her to feel such welling, unbearable sadness. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to remember the cause of such hurt, especially since she was almost positive that it was her fault.
Uncertainty ticked across Daryl's face before being replaced by a comfortable and encouraging smile. All the feelings of grief and loss were quickly and gleefully forgotten, pushed away at the sight of that lopsided grin.
His gaze shifted from her as he looked past her up the street.
Afton turned back the direction she had been facing and saw a Walker stumbling haphazardly between a row of abandoned vehicles not twenty yards from them. She glanced to her hands as the familiarity of her surroundings finally began to sink in and saw, with not much surprise, that she was holding her bow, already drawn and ready, with a pink and black arrow nocked snuggly between her fingers.
She took half a step forward, the bowstring already trembling in her grasp, and caught, from the corner of her eye, movement in the passenger seat of a deserted sedan behind the Walker she already held a mark on.
And she knew in that moment, without a shadow of a fucking doubt, that the glimpse of that sneaky zombie bastard was all it took to alter the course of her existence; her, Afton Evelyn O'Connell, a woman whose life was built on giving second chances, was somehow, impossibly, given her own.
Not taking any time to examine the absolute craziness of what had just happened, or the millions of questions and internal arguments that it had inadvertently stirred up, Afton released her arrow.
The Walker in the street was still crashing to the ground in a flourish of flopping, useless limbs as she stepped forward, reloading her bow.
She strode, purposefully, to the car holding the Walker who, in another life, in a dream, in a fucking alternate universe, had killed her. The residual echoes of what should have happened clamored for purchase in her mind. I'm dying, Daryl is holding me, I can hear Brian crying, I am so fucking scared. And all at once, the fear and pain and keening sadness she and Daryl had both felt came rushing forward and nearly overwhelmed her.
But, as the Walker turned in the passenger seat and reached its hand out to her through the open door, all emotion was put on hold and was replaced by cool, lethal determination.
She grasped the Walker's outstretched hand and yanked it out of the car. It landed with a heavy thud and lay sprawled on its back in the street before her, snarling and snapping viciously.
She slammed her foot down on its shoulder, hearing the brittle snap of its clavicle and not caring, needing only to pin it in place for the time it would take for her arrow to find its home in the zombie's diseased head.
"I don't know what happened," she whispered, "I don't know why. But these voices need to fucking stop."
Her fingers slipped off of the bowstring. The Walker stopped moving. And after a beat, the voices continued. Daryl's, Brian's, her own:
you're all I have left
what do we do?
I love you both so much
Tears began to well in her eyes and cascade down her cheeks. She didn't know if the voices would ever stop, but she did know that she could not live her life constantly feeling as if she was being torn in two different directions. And what would Daryl think if he ever found out was going on inside her head?
She brought a shaky hand up to brush her tears away, hearing him walk up behind her with the rest of the group, and felt a soft tickle at her fingertips as she grazed the feather tied into her braided hair. The conflicting and incessant voices quieted at the fleeting touch.
Afton breathed out a relieved sigh and quickly set her bow down to loosen the braid. She clutched the freed fletch into her closed fist, just as Daryl came up to her, pulling her into a tight hug.
"Helluva shot, girl! I didn't even see the fucker in the car!" he exclaimed, his smoked southern drawl muffled against her hair.
She wanted to cry out with joy, and not only because the voices had stopped. It seemed like forever since she had felt the warmth of being sheltered in his arms.
Brian came up behind her, clapping his hand on her shoulder as Daryl released her from their embrace. "Nice! Guess you learned a thing or two from me after all." He grinned, handing her the arrows he had pulled from her kills.
Afton looked up at her brother as she reached over her shoulder to drop them into her quiver. When was the last time she had actually seen him smile? Last summer when she had visited him on base at least, definitely not any time since they had been reunited in the Vato's hideout.
That strange leafing-through-files feeling abraded her memories again. I was there because I hit my head. Knocked me the fuck out. She clenched the fletch in her palm tight enough for her nails to press indented crescent shapes into her skin. The nurse told me I had a concussion. That explains the voices, right?
She shook her head slightly and offered Brian a weak smile. "I had the best teacher." She looped her arm around his waist and squeezed him in a side-hug.
Rick stepped forward and bent before her, grasping her bow from the street. "Thanks for clearin' the way." He hefted the weapon in his hand, testing its weight before passing it to her.
He adjusted the duffle bag across his chest and turned back to the group. "Let's keep movin'; it's not much further."
They all set off for the truck, Afton automatically falling in step beside Daryl, relaxing her grip on the feather in her hand.
Stay with me Afton
"Hmm?" she looked over at him, sure she hadn't heard him right.
Daryl glanced at her, one eyebrow cocked. "I didn't say nothin'."
She pulled in a shaky breath and put on her best "I'm normal and everything is fine" face. She saw concern flash in his eyes, but turned her head quickly to look at Rick and Glenn, walking alongside her, and caught them in the middle of their conversation.
"Admit it," Glenn was saying, "You only came back to Atlanta for the hat."
Rick pushed the brim of said hat up off his brow. "Alright, but don't tell no one."
Daryl looked over at Rick as they walked. "Hate givin' away half our guns and ammo."
Rick only chuckled. "Not nearly half. We have enough to protect ourselves and then some."
Brian snorted, coming up beside them, rifle held out in front of him. "Even if they do have less than half, how long you think they really got?"
Rick looked thoughtfully to the shotgun in his hand. "How long do any of us?"
Afton swallowed back her tears, willing things to go back to normal, or at least whatever passed as normal these days. I'm gonna be okay, right? She glanced down at the bright pink feather nestled securely in her palm. I don't know…
Glenn sucked in a sharp breath, snapping Afton's head up. "Oh my God."
The group looked to an empty and utterly deserted street.
Daryl stared, slack-jawed. "Where the hell is our van?"
"We left it right here," Brian said, tunneling his fingers through this hair. "Who would take it?"
Rick's shotgun fell limply at his side. "Merle."
Afton saw Daryl's whole body tense at the name. He sighed, scrubbing his hand roughly against his cheek. "He's gonna be takin' some vengeance back to camp."
"Shit." Afton looked over at T-dog as he slowly continued, a terrified stare widening his eyes, "I'm the only one that's got to worry. I'm the one that dropped the key."
"I know my brother better than all y'all." Daryl spoke quietly, glancing to the ground before raising his head to look thoughtfully at the empty space that had once contained their truck. "And Merle ain't gonna deal out his justice to just one of us, it's gonna be the whole goddamn camp. So, we best get our asses movin'."
There was a gentle rustle as everyone rearranged and adjusted their gear before continuing on in silence.
Daryl stepped next to Afton as she began walking, sliding his hand firmly around hers, squeezing reassuringly, just as she desperately squeezed the pink feather, her secret talisman, her silent reprieve from the voices, in her opposite hand.