"That's not my little girl…"

- Carol Peletier. Nebraska.

I didn't mean it.

Rick pulls on his coat and tests a flashlight. It lights up brightly and he clicks it off.

"Be careful," says Lori.

She kisses him on the cheek and he smoothes back her hair, nodding.

"We're gonna find him," states Rick to everyone else. He looks right at Mom when he says it.

They walk out the door so it's only me, Mom, Lori, and Carl left in the living room. Plus the people who live here but they're upstairs, except for Maggie who went to help since she lives here and knows the property best.

Mom's playing with her hands, massaging one with the other, like she did at Auntie Rachel's funeral. I think wringing is the word for it. I sit close to her on the couch so that we're sort of touching.

"He'll be fine, probably make it back before the others," Carl says.

"Yeah," Mom agrees softly.

The cut on my hand starts itching. I scratch at it lightly with the second knuckle on my finger to keep from opening up the scab. Mom takes hold of my hand and pats the top of it. She looks at me with her soft blue eyes. "It'll all be alright."

"He's dead."

I know that something horrible has happened to Daryl. Because I wished for it. I wished for him to go away. But I didn't mean it. I just got scared is all.

"And angry." That voice reminds me.

It's not just a voice. It's like this whole other person in my head. She looks like me, only the bridge of her nose is cut and bruised, and her bottom lip is swollen. Her eyes are so dark that they are all black, no colored part to them.

I know She's not really real. But sometimes I picture Her – not all the time, just sometimes - like She will looking over my shoulder when I'm doing something and talking in my ear or standing across from me, watching.

…The air from the fridge cools me down. Most of me. The hurting parts are still hot.

The grape soda isn't by the margarine. I push back the carton of milk and a jar of pickled beets to see if it's hiding at the back. No such luck. I bend over, resting my hands on my knees to look on the two lower shelves. Cheese, a fruit cup, and some …

There's none in the door either, just salad dressings and ketchup. I don't like cool ketchup, room temp. ketchup tastes better and it won't cool off your food but I leave it where it is.

I close the fridge and just stared at it. I could kind of hear sports commentator from the living room.

What happened five minutes ago on the couch –

Grape soda.

There might be some grape soda downstairs in the mini fridge.

I tip toe over to the stairs. I look down them. It's pitch black. I never liked the dark. It's creepy. So are basements.

"Hey," Dad barked. Shivers run down my back. "Git me a beer."

A secret. He said before.

"'Ey, did ya hear me in there?"

I quickly walk down the stairs, into the darkness. In a rush I miss the last step and sort of trip. Our basement isn't finished so the floor isn't carpeted.

Above me, I can hear crike, crike, creak, crike. Our house is old as Georgia, the kitchen floor and about half of the hallway creaks loudly when people walk on it.

From where the creaks come from it sounds like Dad is walking over to the stairs. I tell myself to move but stay sitting there on the cold concrete, just looking up at the ceiling. Then the crikes go back over to the fridge and then get quieter as they go back in to the living then they stop.

I pick myself up and walk to the back, stepping carefully. I would normally put on socks before I would go down because I'm terrified of getting a nail or something sharp stuck in my foot, and getting nerve damage and never being able to dance again. But I couldn't go to my bedroom without going back into the living room. So I risk it. I bump into the pole in the middle. A little further and I'm all the way in the back.

I pull the string to turn on the light, it's just a light bulb hanging down from the

There are four cans of grape soda in the small fridge. I grab one and pop it open.

It's ice cold. Tastes really good. I stop drinking to take a breath and my heart starts racing, I get super hot and cold all at once. The soda bubbles up in my stomach, and then up my throat. I have just enough time to get to the sink over by the washing machine before I throw it up.

Splotches of purple liquid run down the white sink.

I had lift myself up to my very tippy toes to lean over it and the high wall squishes my belly but I don't put my feet flat on the floor until I take a few deep breathes and know that I'm all done puking.

There's an old mirror with a gold frame leaning against the wall. The girl looking back at me has a cut up nose, and her bottom lip has a large bump, and teeth marks.

I didn't know what she was then, but I could feel that even though it was my reflection, it wasn't me I was looking at. It was some other thing.

Headlights splash on the wall. We all look over at them. There are footsteps on the porch. The door opens but no one comes in. Then Glenn walks in slowly, letting Daryl lean against him.

Happy. I get so happy to see he's alive.

Maggie squeezes by them and goes upstairs. Mom gets on her feet but she doesn't go anywhere. Glenn keeps walking with Daryl. His head is pointed at the ground, so I can't get a good look at him.

Something's wrong.

They go into the bedroom across the hall from the couch. I twist around to look through the open door. Glenn helps Daryl lay down on the bed.

There are voices on the porch, Andrea, Dale, and T-Dog come in.

"He's in shock, broke his collarbone it looks like." Dale explains.

Mom looks back over to me.

I'm gonna go see to him. Ok?

I nod.

Mom's so good.

"How are you her daughter?"

Maggie and an older man, whose is probably Hershel, come down and go into the bedroom. They close the bedroom door, not completely. I can still sort of see through the crack. Mom is sitting beside Daryl, still on his back. Hershel moves around him. The back of his striped shirt blocks my view.

Mom says that demons can get inside people's heads, make them think and do bad things, and that's what She is; a demon in my head.

I never really knew before if having a demon in your head made you a bad person or it was something that you couldn't help. I know now. It makes you a bad person. She is bad and that badness is a part of me.

A high cry of pain, something like scream comes from the bedroom.

I did this.

A/N:

Serious thanks to NatLaufey for the cover she made of Carol telling Daryl to keep the photo of Sophia in the last chapter.

Find it on her Deviant Art account: stuff-i-do .deviantart art/DH-cover-363525568?q=gallery%3Astuff-i-do&qo=0

(Don't take out your leave that in your browser bar thing.)

It's awesome and that's not all. I strongly recommend checking out her gallery, so many good pictures. Have you ever wanted to see Meth? Not the drug but the ship of Merle and Beth. Now you can and it is beautiful.

Or if your computer dislikes Deviant Art like mine does seventy-five percent of the time, she also has a tumblr account. iwanderhere. tumblr. com

Thanks for the amazing reviews, y'all really give me some great things to work with. War90, piratejessieswaby, sammyjase, JackAndHoney (thanks for also giving me a good poke), Chemical Ghost, Emberka-2012, Ashvarden, GemmaTellerSoa, 6747, Kountry101, Surplus Imagination, gypsykl79, NatLaufey, and wolfgal97.

Tiny chapter, next one won't be far behind. I wanted to get your reactions to basically see if it sort of makes sense, next chapter will be how they get back to the Greene's and Daryl's accident, which serves the plot, I'm not just picking on him.