A/N: After some debate, I decided to continue with Beth in this chapter.
"Mika!" she hissed as she neared the back room. "Jud-" She cut herself short as she glanced up at the door. 'DEAD INSIDE' was streaked across it in long, dripping letters. "Oh God," Beth whispered, her throat thick with unshed tears. There was only one option left: get outside, face the walker herd, and try to find someone, anyone who could help her.
Willing herself not to collapse and give up completely, Beth backed away from the room. She could hear the moans and snarls inside – they'd probably smelled her – and blinked back tears. She couldn't believe she'd lost Mika and Judith so easily. There had to have been a struggle; she could see droplets of fresh blood on the floor. Why hadn't she woken up? Tears flowed afresh as she realized that Mika may have taken what she saw as the only way out: sensing grave danger, the girl might have decided to kill Judith and herself as a merciful act, avoiding the suffering that came with the slow, feverish death most endured these days. Beth grasped her head, trying to understand what could have possibly happened while she was conked out. She still felt incredibly disoriented. It was as if everything had changed while she was sleeping and she'd awoken into another world altogether.
Steeling herself, Beth rose to a crouch and eyed the front yard again. The walkers seemed to have dissipated, but they could be waiting just around the corner. She couldn't let it end this way – couldn't let herself wind up eaten by walkers after all these years of gut-wrenching, heartbreaking survival. All she wanted was to give up, just sit down and wait for death to come and save her, but Daryl's face floated into her consciousness and she knew she had to at least try.
Tucking her knife carefully into her belt, Beth inhaled and exhaled deeply and set to gathering supplies, placing them in her rucksack. She had to stop every now and then when dizziness overtook her, but each time it passed and each time she kept going. There is no other option, she told herself firmly. What would Daddy do? Would he just give up? Stop working because he felt a little sick? She yanked open one of the half-stuck kitchen drawers and rummaged inside for anything useful. Having no use for pizza cutters or food processors, Rick's drawers were mostly empty. But then Beth's searching fingers tapped something tucked in the back of the drawer in the corner. She pulled out a flare. Beth stared at it, her mind working quickly. A moan from outside made her spin around. She was still in danger. Slinging the rucksack on her back and triple-checking that her knife was still on her hip, Beth dropped to a crouch and crab-walked cautiously to one of the front windows. There were no walkers to be seen, but she could still hear the occasional bone-rattling groan. It was growing brighter outside, indicating that she'd slept for at least a day and a half, and fear darted up her spine every time a shadow drifted just out of sight. It was time to go.
Steeling herself for the possible repercussions of what she was about to try, Beth took the flare she'd found in hand and very, very slowly opened the front window, facing the garden. She flinched every time it creaked; the windows were old and in disrepair, so she was grateful this one opened for her at all. For a moment, she simply gazed across the way at her and Daryl's home, the sight of the dusty little cottage making her heart constrict almost painfully. She swallowed the lump in her throat. If only she had a camera. If only she had time to – but no, there was no time to be wasted. She had to move.
Almost hyperventilating, Beth struck the flare once – twice – the third time it caught. Adrenaline surged through her body and she bit her lip, took a deep breath, and hurled the flare as hard as she could. All that muscle-burning crossbow practice with Daryl had apparently paid off, as it hit her target almost perfectly. The garden was ablaze in seconds and as she flattened her back against the wall, Beth watched walker after walker in her peripheral vision, all of them drawn to the flames like so many moths. When the moment felt right, she burst through the front door and ran for her life.
Beth didn't know how long she'd been running. She'd sprinted out of Rick's door and into the forest like she was doing the hundred-yard dash. She didn't stop until she physically couldn't go any farther without collapsing. Sucking in oxygen as quick as she could get it, she leaned against a tree, resting her hands on her thighs. Nothing around her looked familiar, but she took comfort in that, since she knew that meant she was far, far away from the herd of walkers. Beth grabbed a canteen out of her pack and took a long, deep pull. The water revived her somewhat and she started looking at her surroundings more carefully, more analytically. She tried to look through Daryl's eyes, and gradually, as she focused, little signs began to present themselves to Beth. She became a tracker.
Oddly, as Beth followed the path that she was sure would lead her to Daryl, the markers grew more and more obvious. Eventually she stumbled upon a fire that was still faintly smoldering. Daryl would never allow that. None of her group would. There were others out here. She gripped the handle of her knife hard and tried to quiet her breathing so she could hear better. The sounds that had seemed perfectly innocuous only seconds earlier now rang sinister: that insectile buzzing could be a whispered conversation, that rustling could be someone readying his weapon. For the first time in a long while, Beth felt completely and utterly alone.