[Author's note: Italics symbolize a stream of thoughts, whether they're Daryl's or someone else's]
Getting out of bed was easy- in theory at least. Especially when bed wasn't really a bed, but actually the back of a pickup truck, the ground, or a sleeping bag shoved hastily into a tent shared with too many other people. Sit up, stretch, yawn, swing your legs out to the side, stand up.
Easy, right?
Reality, though… reality is a fucking bitch.
Reality is waking up and hovering (for a split second; not long enough, never long enough) in the dead space between slumber and the waking world, where you still clung to the thought that maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe the world hadn't turned into a whirlwind of death and fear after all.
Yeah fucking right.
Reality was the grip around your lungs and heart that made it hard to breathe, to exist, when you remembered that the world had ended with a bang. Not a goddamn whimper. The dead weight of lost hope on your chest, uncomfortably reminding you that you were still alive and fighting
for some fucking reason
when the lucky ones are enjoying the peace brought on by death. Or undeath. The difference doesn't matter, not to the dead, only to the living.
Reality was remembering that yesterday you shot a man
what used to be a man, not a man anymore, not even an animal
through the left eye with a crossbow bolt because he was fixin' to use you and yours as a chew toy. The noise it made, the nauseating wet cantaloupe-dropped-on-concrete SPLAT of grey matter making a hasty exit out of the brain pan that had previously cradled it so reassuringly. The mess it made, the blood that oozed out like cold molasses from the hole when you yanked the bolt back out
after all you're going to need it later, for another walker, there's always another
before wiping it on your filthy shirt.
Reality was dirty, and exhausting.
Reality was also a lost girl, alone and scared out in the woods, wondering why no one had found her yet
oh please no oh please oh shit have they given up please find me please please please
And so you get out of bed. You swing your fucking legs over the side, one foot to the ground then the other, and you don't take the easy way out
just go back to sleep to dreams to normal to safety
because someone has to fight for that little girl. Someone has to find her. You keep breathing. You keep fighting, until you can't fight no more. You owe it to that girl, to the others
why? because we're all that's left just us and we need to stick together, help each other
But goddamn, is it a fucking chore to keep existing in this sick new reality.
Reality is a bitch.