Daryl's Lullaby ~ Daryl Dixon x Reader

Ch.23 ~ Shane's Return

3rd Person POV

Inside the two story farm house belonging to the Greene family, a decision is to be made. In the front downstairs bedroom, Carl still laid unconscious on the double bed.

Night had long since fallen, lamps and candles providing light in the room as Hershel timed the boy's heart beat using his family's pocket watch.

"He's still losing blood faster than we can replace it." Hershel says to Rick and Lori who had since joined them not long after Shane, Y/n and Otis left.

Tucking the pocket watch away, Hershel continues to explain to the worried couple the urgency of the situation as time continues to tick by without the supplies from the highschool.

"And with the swelling in his abdomen, we can't wait any longer, or he's just going to slip away." Lori and Rick stood up at the old man's words. Stress, fear and worry painted on their faces as Lori paced back and forth running a hand through her hair.

"Now, I need to know right now if you want me to do this, because I think your boy is out of time." Hershel says to the two as they just stood there, shocked that time had run out. "You have to make a choice!" He urges in a quiet yell.

"A choice?" Lori said in disbelief to the man's demands, her face asking how he could rush the two to make such a decision.

If time was a luxury maybe the two would have longer to debate the question but from the urgency sensed in Herschel's voice Rick turned to his wife asking her to help him make a choice.

Would they save their son or let him die? Earlier that day Lori had mentioned not wanting Carl to live anymore, thinking maybe it was better. But in a world like this was death better?

Would a normal death succumbed by injury really be better than surviving the new cruel world where every breath could be your last Every step outside the door being your last Was it worth fearing what was around the corner? To go hungry for days? Spend nights curled in a ball scared to shut your eyes for fear that you as a human were no longer the top of the food chain? Was surviving worth it?

Was death and opting out really that easy as Dr. Jenner made it sound? Did it suffer no consequences in this new world?

There were all these questions in this new world that no one could give a definite answer to. Death...opting out... you didn't have the luxury of knowing what would happen next like you did in the old world. Going from a life full of answers and science to one where you're having to discover them along the way made decisions like this incredibly hard.

How was one to know the answers to letting Carl die naturally? To pass on because some idiot shot him? Would it be like the old world? Would he draw his final breath never to open his eyes again? Or would a normal death in this new world not grant him that luxury and instead make him suffer? Would death in this new world trigger his brain to come back to lift as a mindless and emotionless being craving the flesh off of others?

There were no answers to these questions, not today, not in this world. The only way to get them would be trial and error. And were Lori and Rick really willing to risk that? To believe their son would no longer suffer? No longer be scared or go hungry? Just to have it all thrown back in their faces as this new world decided to screw them over once again?

A decision had to be made... and a very difficult one at that. 

"A choice. You have to tell me what it is." Rick says to his wife. Pleading for her to choose to save her son's life.

Placing a hand on her husband's cheek and caressing it Lori takes a shaky breath in as she tries to hold back her tears. "We do it." She says in a quiet sob.