The chilly air whipped around him as he trudged along, the setting sun casting long shadows all around. These woods he found himself traveling through seemed so familiar, and yet, utterly foreign. Daryl's sharp eyes scanned his surroundings trying to place the oddity of the landscape and found it intangible. Maybe it was just the feeling of unease simmering in his gut, threatening to rise into a full-fledged boil. He couldn't discern what exactly was putting him on edge, which did nothing for his foul mood.
He couldn't quite remember what he was doing in the woods to begin with, a fact that should worry him more than it did; he just felt that he should continue traveling on his present path. For now, he was content to continue meandering on through, letting things reveal themselves as they came. He was mindful of keeping his guard up, the air around him alive with the promise of something to come. What was that something? Now that was the million dollar question. He'd bet it all that it wasn't going to be something he was going to like.
Just as the sunset was over it began to rain, only a few sprinkles right at the start, but quickly shifting into a steady downpour, thunder cracking loudly, the lightning illuminating the darkness. The thick droplets where warm, in puzzling contrast to the cold evening. He didn't have time to wonder at that because he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. On instant high alert, he crouched into a fighting stance and reached for his crossbow, realizing for the first time it wasn't with him. Mortified that he could get so far without his main weapon and not even notice he reached for his knife. When he came up empty, panic coursed through him. Patting himself down revealed he was completely weaponless. How did he manage to venture out without a weapon? He couldn't believe himself. The bushes rustled again, and he quickly threw himself behind a tree for cover to give him time to assess the situation. When Carl appeared and it started raining just a little harder, Daryl heaved a sigh of relief, stepping out from behind the tree.
"Jesus, Carl! Where the hell did you come from?" The boy didn't answer, just gave him a solemn stare, face pale, freckles standing out starkly even in the darkness. Carl nodded his head in the direction he'd come, before turning and heading back, not bothering to see if Daryl was following.
They walked for several minutes, neither saying a word, the rain drenching them both to the core. Daryl wouldn't admit it out loud, but Carl was starting to freak him out a bit. He was moving along in a stiff and unnatural gait. Daryl wondered what had brought the boy out that way to begin with. Sure, Carl was known for running off, but this seemed different. He began to wonder if Carl was in some state of shock judging by his manner, which begged the questions: What happened? And where were the others?
He was contemplating asking Carl just these questions when they broke into a clearing. It was obviously the groups' camp. But then why couldn't Daryl remember setting up shop here? Scanning the area, it was clear something terrible had happened. There was blood pooling in places, splattered over the displaced objects strewn about, tents were toppled and ripped into. The fire pit smoldered, useless in the rain, there was a pot of what looked to be stew overturned in the ashes. He didn't see a single soul.
Horror raced through his veins like a poison, paralyzing him completely, he couldn't even breathe. Willing his racing heart back under control and taking a gasping shudder of a breath, he stumbled forward hoping to see someone, anyone, alive and intact.
The rain picked up speed as he rounded a destroyed tent, thunder crashing loudly in his ears, the lightning broadcasting every gory detail on the sight laid out before him. It was T-dog. His body stripped to the bone. A skeleton was all that remained, an oozing hole caved into his skull. It seemed one of the others had taken the time to put the man out of his misery during the chaos. He stared in shock, disgust, sadness till he vaguely noted the rain picking up once more as a noise registered, and he turned toward it. He kind of wished he'd ignored it.
There was Lori. She was shambling towards him, arms outstretched, teeth snapping and snarling. Her once distended stomach had vanished, and in its place was a gaping hole, bloody tissues falling out of her body, hanging in chunks, and smaller pieces slopping onto the ground at her feet. It felt like a knife pierced through Daryl's heart as he realized that Lori had died while walkers feasted on the unborn child growing inside her. Another innocent life snuffed out without even a whisper of a chance in this harsh, unforgiving world.
He just stood there, stock still, as she got closer and closer. He couldn't believe this was happening. He'd allowed this to happen by not being there. By not protecting them. He hadn't been there; no he'd been off traipsing about the woods, sans weapon of all things! She'd turned because he hadn't been there to keep the pact, keep her from turning. And now she was nearly on top of him and he was just staring at her in a daze, he didn't even have a weapon to put her at rest. Lightning flared once more, reflecting off of her cold dead gaze mere inches from his face, snapping him back to reality. He frantically searched the ground for something to use. A stake from one of the tents was conveniently lying nearby. He snatched it up and pierced her eye socket with it, catching her body and gently lowering it to the ground, rather than letting her fall in a heap as he did with the average walker.
The sky split with lightening, rain coming down even harder, as though the electric charge ripped a physical hole for it to pour through. Daryl heard a pained cry and rushed toward the sound. Unbidden, a strangled sound escaped him when he saw what was the cause of that cry.
Hershel was kneeling over Beth, bloody hands bring the girls intestines to his lips. He was eating his own daughter. Not much could turn his stomach, but in that moment, Daryl thought he might be sick. He steeled himself and refused to turn away when the young girl locked eyes with him, hers radiating pain and spilling over with tears.
"Where were you?" She whispered accusingly, voice weak and barely there. He could do nothing but look on sorrowfully. "Do something!" She begged, prompting him back into action.
Daryl stepped forward, raising the tent stake, still slick with Lori's blood. "I'm sorry, Beth." He choked out over the lump forming in his throat. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to finish her. Swiftly, he stabbed the stake through her temple, releasing a sobbing gasp when he pulled the tool free.
Hershel, disturbed from his meal, turned on him with a growl. The old man was missing a large chunk from his left shoulder, Beth's guts hanging from his bloody maw. Daryl jabbed the stake through the top of the man's head accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder.
He fell back on his haunches, tears he refused to let fall stinging his eyes. The relentlessly pounding sheets of rain started coming down even harder. He'd begun to recognize this as a precursor to discovering the fate of another member of his group. He looked up through the rain, fearfully, terrified of what fresh hell he'd be confronted with next.
He should have kept his head down. Glenn and Maggie where staggering his way, Maggie was missing her right arm from just above the elbow, gore dripping steadily from the jagged wound; the left side of Glenn's face was all but missing, having been eaten away. A low growl emanated from his ruined throat as he approached. They were both very clearly dead, and yet, they were speaking as they neared, freezing Daryl in place in shock.
"You let us down, Daryl." Blood dribbled from Maggie's lips as she spoke.
Glenn shambled forward, "Why weren't you here? Look at us. Look what's happened."
Daryl couldn't speak, he couldn't move. He just sat, the rain pounding mercilessly, staring in sheer horror at the pair. His breath was coming too fast, chest heaving, desperate for oxygen. He was panicking again. They were nearly on top of him now, accusations flowing freely from bloody lips, and still Daryl sat unmoving. Too shocked to defend himself, too mortified to do anything. Two shots suddenly rang out, along with an increase in rain yet again, just before they descended on him, all snapping teeth and vicious snarls. They collapsed before him, bullet holes in their skulls, blood and brains seeping out of the fresh orifices. Rick stood a couple yards away, revolver in hand, but lowered now. He approached Daryl with a crazed look in his eye.
"You failed us, Daryl, and looked what happened. Glenn and Maggie. Look what I had to do to them!" He shouted in Daryl's face. Only when Rick reached out to grab his shirt, bringing him closer, did Daryl notice the bite on the other man's arm. Up close like this, he could see the sickly features of Rick's face, it wouldn't be long now. He'd have to face another of his friends turning. "How could you let this happen, Daryl? You're just worthless aren't you? Not even there when we need you." Rick gritted at him.
"It ain't like that, Rick." Daryl hated the trembling he detected in his own voice. He was losing his composure, the grief and trauma threatening to overcome him. But it wasn't over. Not yet. Abruptly, Rick threw him back.
"You're weak, Daryl." He snarled. Daryl flinched as though he'd been struck. "We should have gotten rid of you like we did Merle."
He knew he should be mad at Rick's words. He should be enraged. And yet, he found he wasn't. He agreed. He'd heard it all his life, that he was a worthless piece of shit, no good to anybody. He'd fooled himself into believing that he meant something to these people, how wrong he'd been. He'd been off fooling in the woods when they'd needed him most. He really was useless. He stayed silent staring at the ground, even when he heard Rick draw back the hammer of his weapon, knowing this was the end. He shut his eyes and waited.
BANG!
It took Daryl a moment to recognize that Rick had shot himself instead. Ended himself before he could reanimate into one of the monsters that'd plagued their lives for so long now. He looked up, taking in Rick's corpse, then further up into Carl's cold and murky eyes.
"Carl. I'm so sorry." Daryl forced out quietly, his breath nearly stolen by his abhorrence of all that'd happened in the past few minutes. Carl's gaze never wavered; he just kept peering at him unnervingly.
"Carl." Daryl tried again, standing. He took a single step forward, but before he was able to move any further, a fierce gust of wind whipped around them, knocking the Sherriff's hat off the boy's head. Anything Daryl would have said died on his lips in that moment. The right side of Carl's head was caved in; blood began coursing down his face now that it was no longer trapped under the hat. The boy growled and started for him. How was he a walker? With his head in the condition it was?
"You should have been here!" Carl yelled before snapping at his arm. He jerked away on reflex, finding the stake was still curled in his numbed fingers. He plunged it into Carl's head, then dropped it in disgust. He couldn't take his eyes off of the dead child. This was too much. His chest was on fire, a cry threatening to erupt at any moment, breaths coming in desperate gasps.
Suddenly there was a hand lightly touching his shoulder. He flinched violently, turning around with an arm raised, till he met Carol's eyes. His arm dropped. He hadn't even noticed the rain start to come down harder than ever, impossibly. But it had.
She was regarding him with such a look of sadness, he thought his heart might fly into a million pieces right there on the spot. She was bleeding heavily from a wound right over her heart. He couldn't breathe again.
She took a faltering step closer to him, a pained expression ghosting across her features just for a moment. "You didn't protect me, Daryl. You said you'd always protect me." He could feel himself starting to shake in his effort to control the emotions roiling inside him, on the verge of explosion.
"I… I…" The aborted sentence hung in the air between them, stagnant and insufficient. He caught her as she stumbled and fell.
"Quit making promises you can't keep." The words were wispy, but filled with reproach. He watched her face as the light in her eyes went dark, like she'd just faded away and never was. He crumbled to his knees, cradling her body in his arms, an anguished scream tearing from his chest.
Everyone. He'd just lost every single one of them. He found himself staring down at her, devoid of emotion. He felt empty, used up. He had nothing left. Game over. Then the lightning splintered through the night again. That's when he saw it. He opened his mouth in a silent scream, unable to even produce a noise in his dismay.
The drops of rain on Carol's face… blood. It was raining blood. That was why the rain had been so much warmer than it should have been. That's why it started raining harder each time one of his group perished. It was their blood!
Daryl nearly lost his mind at the revelation. Unthinkingly, he dropped Carol to the ground, uselessly scrubbing at his blood drenched arms and face. There was nothing for it. The bloody rain was a torrential downpour by now, and he was already soaked through. He looked about wildly for somewhere to go. Anywhere but here, but when he lifted his eyes, he took pause.
The blood-rain hadn't stopped, but the campsite was gone. In its place was a small neighborhood. A sickeningly familiar neighborhood. Complete with the little house that would forever haunt his memories, smoke billowing from it into the sky, flames licking at the windows.
His house.
The one his mother had been burnt to a crisp in. As he watched the flames, he felt something burning his arms, and looked down at them. Little specks of smoldering bloody ash where dusting over him. The thick smoke from his childhood home wasn't smoke at all, it was sooty blood, cascading back down through the air to cover him, mixing with the rain and creating a disturbing crimson paste on his skin. He wiped a finger on his arm, inspecting the gook detachedly, rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb.
"You knew you weren't worth it. Had to end sometime." Daryl spun at the familiar voice behind him, coming face to face with Merle. His brother had a smirk on his lips, his right arm ending prematurely, bleeding too heavily from the end to be solely from the awful weather phenomena.
When Daryl failed to respond, Merle just continued. "Always knew you was a fuck up, Baby Brother. Couldn't even protect the people you fooled yourself into caring for." Merle sneered nastily. "You really think those fuckers gave two shits about you? You was nothing to them. A resource that happened to be convenient. How long you think that would have lasted?"
"Shut up, Merle. You don't know what you're fucking talking about." But Daryl's tone lacked conviction.
Merle just laughed. "Oh, ho, ho! Really now? Didn't they just blame you for what happened back there? Tell you what, Darylina, you're damn lucky they all died. Saves you the trouble of dealing with it when they try to cut you loose, because they would have. Sooner or later. Only a matter of time."
Daryl opened his mouth to make a scathing retort, then snapped it shut. Somewhere between Merle's appearance and now, the river of blood falling from the sky had begun to pool up and rise on the earth. It was knee deep now, and rapidly rising. Dread replaced anger as he tried to wade through the thick fluid. It rose inches in the time it took to take two steps.
Merle was laughing again, "You ain't getting out of this one, Baby Brother." Daryl looked at him, panic in his eyes and watched as his brother simply disappeared before him. The moment he spent watching Merle vanish allowed the blood to rise even further, reaching his armpits.
"No, no, no!" He cried hysterically, no longer in control of his wits, the horror of this night overwhelming him.
He was swimming in gore now, and for all his efforts, staying in one place. As the vile substance rose even higher, he refocused his efforts to simply keeping his head above the proverbial water. Suddenly hands were grasping at his legs, trying to pull him under. He let out a guttural scream before being dragged underneath the crimson waves. He tried desperately to break free, but the hands held firm, keeping him submerged. He was choking on the thick coppery fluid, lungs burning for oxygen. His mind reeled at the futility of it all, the monstrosity of his end. And then, it all went black.