My apologies to all who have been discouraged by my lack of postings! I recently moved to a new house with my family and have had zero time to even think about writing anything. Fear not, though! When TWD returns, I'll be on the ball again!

So anyway, this one shot has been on my mind since day one, pretty much. It's a bit of a mind-tingler, I guess you could say. It's different. Read on, review, favorite, let me know what you guys think!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything pertaining to TWD. Sadly.

…And This Will All Just Be a Dream

So young. She was so young. A long life should have awaited her. It would have been filled with danger around every corner, but she deserved anything more than what she was about to receive.

Marlie's world fell into slow motion. She watched as Sophia stumbled drunkenly over the bodies of the fallen undead corpses, caring not that a pistol was pointed directly at her.

And Marlie stared, wide-eyed and teary outside the Greene's family farmhouse. Blood pounded in her ears at a deafening volume. She felt sick. Cold. Terrified. But above all, Marlie knew. Knew what was going to happen. Knew the outcome of the situation presented.

Somewhere in the foreground, amidst Carol's sobs as she fell into Daryl's protective grasp, a gun rang out. It left a resonating buzz in Marlie's ears that quickened her already erratic pulse and filled her stomach with foul-tasting ash, which weighed her down and turned her legs to jell-o.

The girl's head snapped back.

Marlie's eyes clouded over.

The world shut off around her.

Gasping, her brown-haired head rose from her down pillow in an instant. There were tears rolling down her cheeks and her breath came in short, speedy waves. Beside her, a prone form moved.

"Marlie?" a male voice asked, rolling over to sit up beside her while propping himself up on his elbows.

She took a moment to raggedly catch her breath before sighing, shaken by the nightmare.

"Hey," the man whispered, placing a warm hand on the small of her back. "What happened? Was it another dream?"

Marlie squeezed her blue eyes shut, recalling the painful image of the zombie child. Nodding, she fell back down onto her pillow. "It felt so real, like always."

The man rubbed the bridge of his nose sleepily and lay back down beside the woman. At first, when she began having these dreams several weeks ago, he thought nothing of them, even though he was apparently a main character. Just nightmares. Nothing a kiss on the forehead couldn't fix. But they kept coming. Night after night. The way Marlie described them, they almost sounded like pieces of a story or a past life. It was a ridiculous idea, but there were so few explanations for the woman's dreams.

"This one was worse than the others. Scarier."

Inhaling deeply, the man shifted in his place and stepped out of bed. "I'll go make something hot to drink," he advised kindly.

Even though a glass of wine—or twelve—sounded better than hot cocoa or coffee, it was only four in the morning, much too early for alcohol. Sighing, Marlie said, "Thanks, Daryl. I'll be down in a minute." She smiled falsely when he bent over the bed and pecked her cheek. She then made her way to the bathroom once he was out of the room.

A grey-and-white feline weaved between her feet as Marlie stared at her frightened reflection in the mirror. She gave a friendly pat to the cat before taking her right wrist in her hand. There was a pale scar across it, matching the thin line on her other wrist. An image of her mother and brother burning in a house fire flashed in her mind's eye, causing her to flinch.

Then she recalled her dreams. They were accurate, in a way. Her family's untimely death, her suicide attempt, meeting Daryl—although they actually met in a mechanic's garage when Marlie was getting her Dodge Challenger looked at, not in a zombie-infested forest outside of her city of Atlanta. Marlie wondered about the reason behind the dreams' sudden appearances and the meaning behind them as they played out like forgotten memories.

And the little girl. Why did it hurt her heart so much to see her die? Marlie had only seen the kid in previous dreams. It made no sense, and yet, she felt connected with the dangerous world of walkers, as her dream mind called the undead. It was extremely unsettling.

Scooping up her cat, Marlie slowly made her way downstairs to meet with Daryl for coffee, judging by the cappuccino scent wafting up to her nostrils.

"It'll be done in a few minutes," assured Daryl, nodding towards the coffee-maker, which was gargling and hissing as it brewed a pot of liquid energy, since there was really no way that Marlie would be going back to sleep.

She watched as Daryl flipped on the early morning news, which was actually playing news from the night before because it was too early for even the most diligent news reporters. Leaning against the counter top with a purring feline in her gentle clutches, Marlie listened.

The news woman was talking curiously about a newfound virus that was traveling fast around the world. It caused fever and erratic, violent behavior.

Marlie's brows furrowed and she gasped when her cat hissed wildly at the flat screen television and fled up the stairs.

"What the hell was that?" Daryl asked from the other side of the counter, his southern twang clearly evident in his voice.

Marlie shrugged, evaluating the extent of the cut on her hand made by untrimmed claws.

Turning back to the TV, Daryl said curiously, "That's exactly what this world needs. Another damn disease to scare everyone." He shook his head unhappily.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Marlie replied quietly, hardly believing her own words. She was getting an uncomfortable vibe about this fresh news story.

"Yeah," agreed Daryl. When a buzz in the kitchen sounded, he added, "Coffee's done, Mar. Lemme get you a cup."

Graciously, she took the small mug from Daryl's grasp. But her eyes were glued to the TV. Talking to the female reporter was the familiar face of blue-eyed Deputy Rick Grimes, one of the many people from her nightmares.

Marlie's fingers slipped as her heart fluttered and her warm mug fell to the floor, exploding in a maelstrom of glass and coffee.

See? A bit of a change! Would do ya think, my fellow readers? Review, will ya? And again, sorry for the lateness!