(Daryl P.O.V)
"Ngh, shit my head hurts." I felt really uncomfortable. Like I was in the woods again, sleeping in that tent. I like the outdoors, don't get me wrong, but I hate sleeping on the hard bumpy ground with little to keep you warm.
I rolled on to my back and stretched out. Wondering what I was doing on the floor I sat up. I'm tired and hung over and just don't feel right. Now, my hangover wasn't like my normal ones. Despite what you may think, I don't drink as often as my brother Merle, and last night, I drank a lot of wine. When I opened my eyes and looked to my left I saw the bottle knocked over next to my pillow.
"Tch, great." Before I was able to reach over to pick it up, I heard a slight snoring sound from the right side of me. I froze for a second. I relaxed though as I remembered all the gory details of last night. I let that little drunken idiot sleep on my bed and kind of right next to me all night! Now, I'm no blushing teenager, but this whole situation just makes me feel awkward, the kid says he's twenty-two but he acts like a he's 16. And he's young looking too... Damn that little-
"Mmmmmh, mom..." Now that shocked me. I remember when Jenner said something about how Glenn was all he had left. Made me think of what happened to his wife and the kids mother. She could have been bitten by a walker or died years earlier than now. Made me think of my mother.
Now I ain't usually emotional about much, but my mom was one of the most important people in my life before she died. Got cancer when I was a little kid. Say I was about nine or ten when it happened. Died two years after she was diagnosed. She always took care of me more than she did Merle seeing as he was almost never around those days. Especially kept me safe from my dad when she was alive. My dad wasn't an ideal father. In fact, he was a horrible old bitter bastard. He used to beat me and Merle all the time and my mom when she tried to intervene. But after she got sick and bed ridden he never touched her, even when she yelled at him and told him to stop beating us whenever he was caught. After she died, my dad just got drunk and left us alone most of the time.
I won't hide it, I felt for the kid. I knew what it meant to lose a parent. It's shitty. Sighing, I moved over and gave him a little nudge. He didn't move so I did it again. He just rolled over and snored a little louder. Now I was annoyed with the little chink. I didn't nudge him this time. I fuckin pushed him until he was on the other side of the bed. The sheets wound up all tangled around him and his body was all twisted in what I could only guess was a little painful.
"Ah! What the-okay, no, I don't wanna be loud. Loud is bad, very bad. Where the heck am I?" Glenn choked out. When he started freaking out he wound up holding his head in pain. I smirked at the idiot for a second before I remembered his question.
"You, ma' friend, are in my room. Ly'in in ma' bed." Glenn whipped his head around and looked at me like I had two heads. I simply "Hn'ed" and picked my shit up off the ground. The wine bottle found its way into the trash and the pillow was put back on the bed near Glenn.
"Um, why am I here?" Glenn asked nervously. I simply rolled my eyes, sitting at the end of the bed.
"Well, you were drunk off yur ass. When I was walkin' back ta my room, yuh came outa nowhere and started blubbering about all this stuff how I'm cool an' shit. Short story, Yah passed out in my arms." Glenn got all wide-eyed on me.
"Oh my god! I am so s-sorry! I-I didn't mean to do that!"
"Tch, Yuh were drunk. A course you didn' mean to" Glenn physically calmed down at my words. I sighed and stood up.
"So, you ganna get up? Or are we ganna sit here for a while longer?" Glenn sighed and moved the covers out of the way and stood up. He stood a little too fast and grabbed at his head again for a second.
"Hey... I have a question..."
"What'is it?" Glenn blushed a bit.
"Well... Why did you help me? I mean! You could have just left me in the hallway! I'm not someone people generally wanna help...so..." I couldn't answer for a minute or two. I don't know why I helped him. I just wanted to. He may be a bit awkward but he's not mean or anything. I just couldn't leave him there. I was... worried?
"I jus' couldn' leave yuh there... But that doesn' matter. we should be leavin for breakfast." Glenn nodded but didn't answer. Oh yeah, today was ganna be a long one.
"Mornin!" Rick said to us as we entered the same room as last night. The whole room smelled like bacon, eggs, and toast. I almost felt normal again. Everyone is sitting at the table and smiling. Dale is humming softly and Lori is sitting right next to him smiling lazily at Carl who keeps whispering in Sophia's ear. Little girl just kept on giggling at whatever the boy was telling her.
"Morning, where's my dad?" Glenn asked as he grabbed himself a plate and a fork from a little cart that was next to the large table. T-dog was the one that answered him.
"I saw him earlier. He said that he wanted to handle something before he came down to eat with us." Glenn nodded and sat next to Rick who was talking to Shane, something about where to go to next after here.
"Daryl, how about you come sit over here with us?" Carol asked, looking at me. Glenn looked hopefully to me as he poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on the table. I thought it over for a second. Things haven't actually been bad between us lately. Well, besides Merle being left on the roof. Carol has been pretty nice to me and Carl ain't so bad. Glenn's just been… well…
"Alrigh', jus' don' piss me off an' we'll all be good on terms." They all kept silent as I sat down next to Carol and crabbed a glass and the pitcher of water that was on the table. Conversation returned to the table and people were all happy go lucky again. Rick kept talking to T-Dog about how he had at one time went undercover to uncover a drug ring and Lori was talking to Andrea across the table about god knows what. Like I'm ganna listen to their conversation.
"Good morning." I turned around in my seat to see Jenner walking into the room. He disheveled and red eyed. He looked like shit in all honesty. He's even paler than yesterday and even staggered a bit if you looked close enough.
"Dad! Where were you? I was worried about you. I almost had to leave and find you." Jenner looked at Glenn and it looked like… Pity?
"It's fine Glenn. Don't worry about it. I just wanted to check the power cells." Glenn looked at the doctor strangely for a second before nodding in understanding. Glenn walked back over to his seat and sat down. Jenner just walked over to on of the computers and sat there. Watching us, with eyes that were practically dead.
"Hey, Jenner." Shane spoke up to the man. Jenner looked to Shane blankly but you could tell he was listening.
"You said that Glenn's your son. And that your all that's left. Well, how did you know that there's no cure? With people leavin and all?" I perked up at that. He had a point. He had to have had help, or at least an example. Jenner sighed at the question and almost looked guilty. I looked over to Glenn and he looked sad. What? Is this some sort of sore pot?
"Please, Come with me" Jenner announced. We all looked to each other and nodded.
"What are we seeing?" Andrea asked.
"It's really pretty." Carl said. I would never admit this out loud but I have to agree. We're in a different computer-room but it's darker and larger. On a screen is playing some sort of vision or something. It's really nice to look at honestly.
"This, is what makes you, you." Jenner explained. I looked at the doctor and back to the screen. It's covered in all these different blue rays of light circulating through each other.
"Whad'aya mean by that?" I asked the man.
"This is basically what goes on in the human brain. Or better yet, is what's inside the brain. Thoughts, memories, feelings, logic, this is it." He explained to the group. Andrea looked apprehensive.
"Is that an actual persons brain. Like, did you have a look inside or…?" Andrea asked.
"Subject 19. The subject was bitten by one of the… Walkers. Volunteered to let us scan them. This is a scan of the subjects mind as they went through the… "change"." He pulled up another image and this time it was of a person. Well, an outline of them at least. The person was moving and the head was swarmed by blue in the skull, surrounded by black.
"The shortest time recorded of the change is seven minutes. The subject… took 8 hours to die and become one of them." We watched for a couple more minutes. We knew how it worked but to see it? It just made it all more real than we thought it was. The blue lights slowly but surely faded and soon the body stopped moving with it. Not too long after though the black was filled with red and the body soon moved.
"All that's left is the motor skills and muscle memory. Everything else? It's all gone. Nothing is there that once was." We were all quiet after that. That was it. Nothing. Sure made a person feel sick. I know I have a hangover but I wanna drink my problems down. At least that would still be normal in this fucked up existence.
We filed out of the room one by one just watching the screen and knowing when something pierced the head that it was a bullet.
Fucking great! Just when we were getting in the swing a shit! Dr. Jenner? He was planning on letting us blow up!
"You can't do this to us!" carol screamed. I was even more pissed than I was at Rick before. Where the hell is Glenn?
"Dad! carol's right! No one wants' to die like this! I don't! They don't! Do you?! What would mom think?!" Glenn screamed. I'm guessing he had no idea about any of this. I walked up to the crazy assed scientist.
"How the hell do we get out?" I didn't leave room for question. But Jenner just looked at me blankly. I wanted to punch that little look off his bastard face. It just wasn't fair.
"Do you realize what I'm giving you? A chance to be with your friends, your loved ones. A way to die without being ripped apart by-" I cut him off. I wouldn't listen to his so called "reasoning".
" I don' care! I die the way I wanna!" I sneered and grabbed the axe of the floor, running to the metal doors. I started banging on them for who knows how long. I gave up after a while and looked back to the others and the doctor.
"You can't do this to us!" Rick yelled at the man.
"Do you have any idea what this place is?!" He stood up, pushing Rick out of his way, and started walking around the others that were still over there. "Weapon-ized Smallpox! Some very nasty stuff! Stuff you don't want getting out!" He sat back down and Glenn slowly kneeled down in front of him.
'Dad! They are good people. No one deserves this. Please...Let us go..'
'You want to leave with them? Leave me behind?' Glenn looked guilty for a second before he looked more determined.
'I wanna live... help people, these people.' His father looked him in the eye for a second before he entered the code into the little metal box on the table.
After a minute the door opened.
"Alright! Let's get our stuff and go!" Shane yelled. Everyone started running but Glenn. His dad, Jenner, was saying something to him before he just stood there shocked. I ran over and grabbed his hand, making him look at me.
"We have ta go!" I yelled to him. He nodded and let me pull him along with me. When we got with the others, Rick was pulling the clip to a grenade`. Me and Glenn ducked behind the wall of the hallway we came out of. The windows were blasted to bits and shards. Glass going everywhere. I had to cover my eyes for a second and regain my composure.
"Come on." We all ran the hell out. Most of the others made it their cars. Glenn kept checking his watch.
"We don't have any time left!" Shit. I pulled him behind a tank with me and wrapped my arms around him. After a second the only thing we could hear was a loud explosion and fire going everywhere. Flying rubble went all over the place and all we could smell was ash and soot. It was hotter and the air felt all the more heavy. The CDC was destroyed. Soon to be nothing more but a fiery grave for the doctor.
After a second, we got up and ran to my motorcycle. It was difficult with all that was around us but we made it happen. When I started it up and started down the road with Glenn sitting behind me, the others cars followed right behind me.
Yeah, a safe haven is far from us. Too far. But we're alive. And that's what we need to focus on now. After all, we don't even know where we're ganna go. Can go.