There's a ringing in his ears and it won't die.
He passes through life these days like its a river of concrete not quite dry. Every step is heavy and every breath is lead.
Glenn offers water and he refuses.
Carol reaches for him, her fingers grazing his arm, and he jerks, the ringing intensifying in his ears, in his head.
"You okay?" She whispers and God it's like nails on a chalkboard and he wants to scream.
He wants to shoot something. He needs to shoot something. He needs to breathe without someone making sure he doesn't stop on the inhale.
So he shrugs Carol off and he mumbles something along the lines of "going scouting'; don't follow" and heads for the woods.
Out there the ringing isn't so bad. The sound of nature - of birds and cicadas and squirrels - it comforts him; and when he's in the woods, he feels her there more strongly than anywhere else.
He's walking along when a bird lands on a low tree branch several feet away and starts singing to its distant brethren.
A songbird.
Like her.
He approaches the bird so quietly it doesn't startle, doesn't fly off. He whistles its tune back to it, mimicking the notes the best he could.
And when the bird replies in kind, Daryl can hear the ringing fade away to a background noise.
