Daryl jogged towards it, pausing only to load his cross bow. He advanced again. Daryl became aware that the figure was probably male, once he got within twenty feet of him. The night was wet, the air heavy. He worried about leaving the group with out a look out, but he figured it would be ok for jsut a few moments.
Daryl's eyes scanned the area around the figure several times. He got about five yard away and paused. The man, definitatly a man. Stood there, staring at him, arms folded, like he couldn't decide what to do with them.
"Who are you?" The man asked. That voice... Daryl knew that voice. He frowned.
"The names Daryl."
"Daryl." The mans voice was nice, warm, and familiar, but for some reason it struck fear into his stomach. Daryl figured it was the adrenaline of finding another person.
"Who are you?"
"Dont you know." Daryl scrunched up his face and the man took several long strides towards him.
"Whoa! stay back." In the darkness Daryl couldn't see his face.
"Are you scared of me, Daryl? Who ARE you Daryl?" Daryl felt terribly confused, and he took a few rapid steps back. 'aren't you supposed to be on watch, Princess?" Daryl scrunched up his face. Only one person ever called him Princess.
"Fuck off! Dont call me that." Daryl took another step back and suddenly he was at the edge of a massive, sheer . The man grabbed his arms. And suddenly Daryl was 17 again- a terrified kid, abused alone.
"Whats wrong princess? Why the long face?" Daryl's eyes widened and he backed up another step, teetering on the edge of the cliff. The mans body crept closer, and closer. "Why did you leave me, hm? Didn't think I'd be mad about that, huh?" He laughed and pulled 17-year-old Daryl closer to him.
"No! Go away! Go Away!" Daryl's face became wet with tears. "I-I'll stomp your ass if you get any closer!"
"Aren't you supposed to be on watch?" He asked again, "Why are you sleeping on watch, Princess?" The words repeated over and over again as the mans face started to melt and Daryl felt screams lace his lips.
Daryl jolted then, eyes flying open he gasped loudly. He shuddered, nearly hyperventilating. He gripped his head and gasped, realizing he was very, very close to the edge of the ruins. He looked around and managed to get control of his breath.
"What the hell just happened?" He muttered, rubbing his face with his hands. He jolted again and put his binoculars to his face. He looked all over and saw no zombies. He looked down to the fire pit and found it empty. That was good. He nodded and clsoed his eyes again.
"Christ." He muttered. He was awake at least, and there was no way he'd go back to sleep again, no matter if anyone came to relieve him or not. his entire body felt heavy and thick. He frowned. "Last thing I need is more nightmares." He muttered.
The rest of the night passed painfully slowly, with absolutely no interesting happenings. Daryl half wished someone would run by... although if it was... him he was certainly ok if that didn';t happen.
Meanwhile...Underground Somewhere- Merle Dixon sits talking to a busty woman in a lab coat with thick nerdy glasses hanging on her nose...
Merle paced around the room, rubbing his stump in anguish. He hated waiting.
"Stop pacing, Merle. The more you move the longer this will take, sugar." The woman purred, looking up from her microscope. Merle groaned loudly.
"Is it daytime yet? Maybe I could go huntin' or somethin'?" The woman shook her head, glancing over at the clock on her desk she sighed.
"Definitely not going to happen, theres still an hour until sunrise."
"Oh." Merle huffed and sat down, letting his hand and stump hang between his legs.
"Tell me more about your brother."
"Why?" Merle growled.
"I'm super curious and- It'll help pass the time, and the procedure..." She ;paused. "And don't start acting all gruff and mighty again." She snapped. 'Seriously, when you' ve shown me your true self you cant just whip back around and try to convince me otherwise, Merle.
"Right... Right... What do you want to know about him?" Merle asked, crinkling up his face in a disgusted fashion.
"Start up where you left off last night." Merle paused, frowning.
"Daryl was 12 when I came back from juvy again. He was a little wisp of a thing. He never grew much when we were kids. He was always really scrawny, unhealthy and starved. There was always food in the fridge, it weren't like were were poor or ..." Merle shook his head. "My dad was real... controlling. If he could he;d control everything about a person, from the clothes they wore to when they took a shit." Merle shook his head. "That boy was too damn small, and too damn young to stand much of a chance up against our Pa. See... he liked to forget Daryl exsisted, let him roam around alone, and then he'd turn around and micro manage Daryl's life. He'd lock the fridge, shove Daryl in this tiny box in the basement. When I came home Daryl was thinner then he'd ever been. He had bruises everywhere... And those eyes. They were usually this vibrant blue, but they were... like a walkers, honestly, cloudy, tired... He was easier to fix, when he was younger. Tell him to stiffen up, perk up... Not to be such a pussy, and he'd nod, sigh and tell me 'Ok, big bruffa, ok.' It was all ok, and I actually managed to stay for a while that time. My dad worked off and on, and there was always at least a six pack in the fridge. " Merle paused. "I dont get why your so curious about my past..."
"When a homicidal maniac stumbles into my camp one handed and passes out on top of me, I like to get to know him." She shrugged. "You were heavy.' She nodded and he laughed.
"How long until its ready?"
"Being impatient again." She cooed. Merle chuckled warmly and sighed. "Skip ahead to when he was 14, the first time you went to prison, right?" Merle huffed and rolled his eyes. "I like hearing about your past, Merle. And It'll help when the bonding process starts, you'll have all the memory emotion running through your wrist and it'll attact to the hand." The woman smiled. Merle Withered.
"I know sometimes I was hard on him. I liked to call him Darlina, and he hated it, but... I just wanted him to be... Well... more of a man I guess. By the time he was seventeen he was hard, and structured... but." he shook his head. "Even by then he was tiny. He never grew right, he was 5'3 for years."
"Do you have a picture of him as a kid?"
"Yeah, in my wallet." She looked over at her desk and frowned.
"Eh, it was wait." She shrugged and Merle smirked.
"Your so lazy."
"i am not..."
"Anyway, it didn't matter how long I was gone, or how badly I treated him because he finally did what he had to. Its not what I would have done, but when he couldn't take it anymore, he cant take it anymore." He shrugged. "He ran away."
"Oh? Why?"
"He told me right before I was arrested for selling cocaine. Adam... my dads best friend, was an Ecstasy addict... he would stay at our house, we had a big house. I mean.. when my aunt died she left my mother a lot of money and my mama used it to fix up the place. Ecstasy is a bad thing to be around anyone, especially a 15 year old kid." He shook his head. "It... became a constant thing, something he knew was going to happen. Daryl couldn't take it anymore when he was 17, he ran away."
"Was he... taking advantage of his body?" Merle nodded. "Bastard! You kicked his ass right?" Merle laughed.
"I love how you've never met these people but you still hate them or care for them."
"What? I'm an emotionally in tact person. But did you kick his ass?"
"Then I dumped him in the woods and went to find my brother. Took me nearly six years to find him. This is where is gets super juicy, pay attention."
"Well, your gunna have to tell me later." She said easily. "Its done, come here." She glanced at the clock and frowned. "You've been talking for nearly an hour..." She laughed. Merle walked voer and offered his wrapped stump. "I think its fate."
"whats fate?"
"You cut off your hand and find me... and Im the only person alive- even before the Apocalypse- that could have done this for you. And I shouldn't have even been up stairs that day... Fate."
"Mm." Merle hummed, not really listening. "Just hurry up woman." The woman laughed and shoved the prostetic hand against his stump.
'This'll hurt, Sug." She warned, he let out a groan when the sounds of machinery started, painfully digging into his flesh. He groaned again, louder then before.
"Augh..." He groaned, gasping. "You said this was going to hurt, but what the hell?" he demanded.
"Sorry."
"Feels like im cutting it off all over again."
'Its re-establishing the nerves that you cauterized. It has to have them, sugar, with out them it wont do what you need it to, when you need it to."
'That why you made me stay up all night?"
"Yeah, the more tired you are, the more sensitive and open your nerves are." She answered. "Sorry."
"Ah." He winced. "But will it still have the metal opening... parts? Wont it just fall through?" He asked, looking at the hand with a frown. He gasped when the fingers uncurled, and then curled into a fist.
"I'll add on some skin when I can, but... theres not really a doner around here with enough skin for it, unless you want some of Toby's."
"He's only fifteen, and... black. Thanks anyway, though." He laughed warmly but winced again.
"Well... maybe I can graft some of mine, or try to grow it again, for now, this." She held up the rubber covering.
"Cool. This is... weird.." He muttered, "Its like my hand, it obeys... but... It... I can't feel it."
"Yeah... It was going to be the next step in limp prosthetic rehabilitation, but... well... you know why that didn't happen." She shook her head.
"hey Aria!" A young black boy, presumably Toby, came into the room. "Theres like fifteen walkers roaming around the car park, shouldn't we take care of them?" He was a thick english accent.
"Are they near any of the entrances?"
"No... Not really."
"Then we probably dont need to do too much and... Theres no point in putting anyone at risk again, kiddo. Not for a handful of walkers." Aria shrugged.
"What about hunting?" Merle whined.
"You need to train your hand a little more before you go outside." Aria answered. "For now, go take a nap." She offered.
'But the sun is coming up!" He whined.
"Merle." Toby addressed calmly. "Maybe you and I could play some video games or something in the rec room?" Toby offered. "Or maybe you could tell me another story." Merle frowned. As much as he hated Toby's kind he couldn't help but... smile when the kid came over to him all wide eyed and sweet. He liked Merle, and Merle (although he'd never admit it) liked him back. He was a good kid... a lot like Daryl in his own way, a little bit broken, but strong and stubborn. He watched his whole family slaughtered and managed to escape. He had a lust for killing Walkers, went topside as often as possible to kill them. Aria hated it when he did that, but didn't argue.
"Yeah, sure why not. Might as well work on being racially sensitive some more before you kill yourself off." He winked at the boy and followed him into the Rec room. It was a nice little sanctuary they had sculpted for themselves. Well, Aria had sculpted for herself and invited them to come inside. She had set up a faux camp above them, with tents and a fire pit. The real camp was several feet below and to the left of the fuax one. She had set up several windmills and solar panels long before the infection came. She had built her home based on defeating the need for fossil fuels. In her mind the Apocalypse was the perfect test run. she was a genius that had even set up her own computer system. She was on the way to making her own waste reusable when it hit. Merle sort of thought that was a good thing.
So, the only problem their home had was the food sources were not refundable. After not very long they would be gone- it was just a matter of months. Maybe a year at the rate they were going. There was a
Merle hunted, or at least tried to. Without both hands it was increasingly difficult. That was the reason why he collapsed on Aria that fateful day. He hadn't eaten in days, and forget water. It had only been about two months since she found him, and she had several prototypes in the work for her new prosthetic.
"Yo, earth to Merle." Toby called. "Paging Merle Dixon, Merle Dixon please respond." Toby giggled boyishly, snapping Merle out of his mused trance.
"Sorry?" Merle muttered. "What just happened?"
"Sheesh." Toby rolled his eyes over dramatically. "I asked you if you wanted to play a game of scrable?" Merle noticed the box in his hand, held there like every other game in the world, open and wanting for Merle to swoop in and act big brother again.
"Okay." Merle nodded. "But we're playin it my way." Merle sneered, then laughed tenderly, running his hand through the boys hair. His hair wasn't as thick as one would expect, him being African American and all. Merle mused he was probably only half and he had the other halves thinner hair. It was still jet black. Toby ran over to the table and hummed as he set up the board. This was not something Merle ever expected- especially after his run in with the RC's back when he was younger. Toby was black, Merle would have called him a Nigger and shoved him off before he met Officer friendly. He woulda told him to sit and spin on his middle finger. So... No- if someone said in a few months he'd be playing scrabble with some little negro 15-year-old dressed like he was 'from da hood' but was actually from 'the Brittan' and treating the kid like one would a little brother or son... well... Merle wouldn't have believed it. He'd probably would have beaten their ass and thrown them in the psych ward for fear they'd gone insane.
But all of that aside- Toby was a nice kid. He liked to help, he still liked to play. He was young, dumb, but more mature then any 15-year-old Merle'd ever met, save for Daryl, and Merle liked that. So, Merle sat and addressed his pieces. He had 7, of course. D,A,A,Y,M,O,L Moldy... Day... Yam, Dam...
"You go first." Toby said. "Since we're gunna play it your way." So Merle laid out the word Day, and then the word Moldy. Toby giggled. "Eww."
((Since I left you with a serious cliff hanger yesterday, I figured I'd give you something more substantial today, and leave you with a pleasant sweet moment of Merle being Racially correct and playing Scrabble with some kid. And in case you were confused... Uhm... Yeah- the guy, the whole thing was a dream- actually a nightmare... so... yeah... :D Poor poor Daryl! Poor... Poor... everyone suffers in my stories... More on Aria and Toby in the next Chapter, and Im thinking of going against the TV Show completely and giving T-Dog like... All The LINES! O_O
ALSO! i love it when I get reveiws, you two are aweosme and I love you, but please... spread the word about my story and get your friends to reveiw and read and I'll be more likely to update in a timely fashion {although I am updateing a lot because im a little addict!} I love you both, my little readers/reveiwers... :D))
