7.

The moment Niko stopped Rick gave the sign for them to stop too. Daryl understood. Rick needed to keep that safety distance between them and her, and he was fine with it, because he figured he could kill that distance in a matter of seconds if things went south.

Niko stood still in the middle of the corridor, as if suspended in time, with her back towards them and the stick pointed sideways in her right hand.

"What's the matter?" asked Rick. There was no response.

The beams of their flashlights danced around her, but didn't reveal anything else than an empty darkness ahead.

"Move on!" Rick ordered, pointing his flashlight at the back of her head.

She turned just a little, so they could see her profile, but as soon as the light touched her face she turned away.

A wave of familiar gurgling sound came at them from the darkness. They all looked at each other and readied their weapons.

Daryl aimed his bow, focusing his stare at her. The flashlights revealed gruesome walking bodies. They were clumped together and they were no more than a few steps away from Niko.

So sudden and so many. It was then that things did go south.

Rick hissed a curse at the same moment Niko was overran by walkers and disappeared in their midst.

"We need to go back. There are too many!" shouted Michonne. He saw Rick nodding and lifting his gun upwards, signaling to retreat. They all started at the same time but in different directions. He sprang towards the walkers and the three of them towards the door. He heard Rick shouting his name, but he had no time to turn or to explain. He shot his bow and ran straight into the horde.

He made all his arrows count, but the walkers were too many and he couldn't pick them up fast enough to reuse them again. He discarded the bow and made his way right through the center of the corridor with his knife. It was dark. His eyes adapted, but it didn't help him much. He killed intuitively, on the touch. He heard gun shots, shouts. Mostly shouts of his name, mostly Rick's voice. That idiot, he should have gone back, close the door and deal with them gradually. That's what he'd do too, if Niko wasn't somewhere in the midst of that horde.

As long as there was a chance, he had to go after her. Pretty stupid, yeah, but not going after her didn't even cross his mind.

He tried to find her, but with all the walkers and lack of light, he could only see what was right in front of him. He was pushed against the wall, fighting them off one by one. He was cut from the rest of the group and saw no end to the horde, which flowed in from the other side. He was getting tired. He had already killed a bunch of walkers earlier. He was lucky some of the walkers at least were more attracted to the gun shots than to him. Soon enough, though, they will be too many, no matter what.

Chasing after a girl, what a pathetic end of him. Merle will laugh his ass out. He grunted angrily and charged at the walkers again. He heard Rick's voice somewhere near and turned in its direction. Big mistake. A walker came right at him from the front and he had to use both of his hands to prevent him from taking a bite of his neck. He pushed his fingers deep into the thing's throat and grabbed at his brains from below. He killed him, but he also dropped his knife in the process.

He immediately went down on all four and started looking for the knife, tapping eagerly with his hand on the floor. He looked up for just a moment and saw he was encircled. Arms were grabbing toward him, he broke a few and tore some of them, but the situation was getting quite impossible. If only he…well, she's probably food by now, and he will become one as well really soon.

The walkers above him suddenly started dropping, one by one, as if all their skulls were hit by a single bullet that flew in a circle. Somebody pulled him up and pushed his knife into his hand. He found himself standing back to back with that somebody. He couldn't afford to look, he had to fend off the walkers on his side, but he knew it was Niko. He felt her weight leaving his back from time to time, he heard some slashing and then he felt her against his back again. They persisted, made a clearing, but the walkers kept coming.

"Go towards that cell!" she told him.

"Okay….just stay with me!"

They moved slowly, keeping back to back, until they reached the cell. He slid the door open and went in. A walker appeared from the inside and he killed him. He heard the door closing behind him, and turned quite relived, thinking luck must really be on his side today, until he saw Niko standing on the other side of the cell.

"What the…" He grabbed at the bars and tried to pull the door but it was locked. He shook it with force. "The fuck…. open it!" he growled.

She slashed a few walkers down just in front of the cell and disappeared amongst them again.

"No! Fuck!" He kicked and banged on the door with all his might. It attracted walkers and soon tens of rotten arms tried to grab him through the bars. He started cutting the limbs and killing those at the door, to get some view. It didn't help much. He killed off some more, then put the knife in his mouth and tried to reach the outside latch. He twisted his arm desperately, knowing there was no way this would work, it was a cell after all, but he had to try something. Eventually it came to pulling his arm back in or losing it to walkers.

He took a quick look at the room and grabbed at the iron frame of a bed with the intent to push it to the door, step on it and get some view of what was happening behind all those walkers that now pressed against the door of his cell. But the frame was fixed to the ground and there was nothing else in the cell.

He cursed and paced around like a furious animal. There was nothing he could do but wait. He sat on the floor, just enough away from the door so that the walkers could not reach him, and stared blankly at the growling dead faces.

He couldn't come up with any reasonable explanation for her doing. Even with his help the odds of getting out of this alive were quite low, but alone…and to lock him in like this…He swore to himself, if she somehow got away, he'll track her down and then…He realized he was shaking his head and trembling from anger and frustration.

The walkers outside the cell seemed to start forming quite a pile. Those in second or third line from the door collapsed over the very first row of walkers. He jumped up and killed those at the door, realizing the ones that piled up on them were already killed. He pulled himself up on the bars with his hands and saw flashlights. He saw Rick, and Michonne was not far behind him. He also saw there were more walkers lying on the ground now than standing.

He kicked some of the dead bodies away from his door, lowering the pile a little, so that he could see over it.

"Rick!" he cried out and banged on the door.

"Daryl?" Rick flashed his light around the corridor.

"Over here… in the cells!"

Finally the beam caught his face.

"Let me out, Rick…come on!"

It took Rick a moment to realize it really was Daryl. He made his way to him, slashing another two walkers on the way. He stepped on the top of several bodies to reach the latch.

"How the hell did you end up in here?" Rick pushed the latch but nothing happened. It was stuck.

"Rick, watch out...behind you! "

A walker fell upon Rick and they started to wrestle before Daryl's eyes. Rick grabbed him by the shoulders, turned and smashed his body against the cell door, while Daryl thrusted the knife in his brains. They barely gave each other a nod of acknowledgement, when Daryl's stare warned Rick more were coming.

Rick tried to push the latch again, but it still wouldn't slide. The walkers were too close, he had to move away from the cell and deal with them first.

"Fuck…dammmit! "Daryl punched against the bars angrily, causing his knuckles to bleed. He barely noticed it, certainly didn't feel it. What he did feel was an immense frustration as he watched his friend getting assaulted by the walkers from behind the bars. Rick was having a hard time, he could tell that much.

"Hold on, Rick!" he called out. "Michonne! Glenn!

One walker grabbed Rick by the shoulders and he couldn't shake him off. He stabbed with his knife backwards at him several times, but always missed the brain. Another two were coming at him and Daryl watched in horrifying expectation Rick's impossible struggle.

The two walkers heading toward Rick suddenly fell down revealing Niko's silhouette behind them. An instant later he saw her stabbing the one holding Rick as well. She quickly moved on to the next three walkers coming at them, taking them out with a single stab through their brains. She moved lightly and killed with utmost efficiency. Daryl had to admit, it looked easy, too easy almost. She made some space, allowing Rick to recuperate. More walkers came and they both started to kill then.

The growling sounds of walkers gradually quieted down. Daryl saw Michnonne and Glenn fighting their way towards Rick and Niko. Soon they all stood in a circle and took down the remaining walkers as they come at them, until the corridor fell silent.

"There's no more of them… " said Niko and swung her sword to the side, removing blood from the blade. She squatted down at the nearest walker and started to poke him, until she tore a small piece of cloth from him.

"How can you tell?" asked Michonne holding her katana up.

Niko shrugged, wiped the rest of the blood from her sword and sheathed it.

Michonne gave her a wary look and slowly lowered her katana. Rick and Glenn did the same with their knives.

Daryl hit the bars once again. "Let me the fuck out of here."

They all looked at him, Rick flashing his light directly at his face. Michonne and Glenn were trying to suppress their laughs.

"Asshole… just open the fuckin door!"

Rick turned to Niko and pointed in Daryl's direction. "Why did you do that? "

Daryl was eager to hear her answer too, but even more so he wanted to get out of the cell, so he banged and kicked at the door repeatedly.

Instead of replying Niko started to examine her white t-shirt, which was not really white anymore, and picked off two chunks of something which belonged inside a body.

"Fine," Rick nodded to himself. "How'd you do all that, with…" he raised his finger at her face. "Do you see in the dark?"

Niko smirked. "I don't need to see, I feel it. If you wait until you see it, it's usually too late."

"Rick, god dammit!" Daryl's voice impatiently resonated through the corridor.

"Yeah , yeah…" said Rick and headed towards the cell, while Michonne and Glenn took a walk among the bodies and pricked the skulls of those they were not sure were dead for good.

Daryl observed Niko through narrowed eyes as Rick was loosening the latch.

With his hand ready to slide the door open, Rick grinned. "You might wanna step back. We're letting Daryl out."

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