The Way the World is ¹ | the walking dead

| 07 | Losing hope

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍: 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄

Nowhere is ever truly safe...

Madalyn's heart hammered in her chest while her feet pounded against the ground.

It was all going to be okay...

"Watch out!" Beth shouted. Madalyn just nearly avoided running straight into a walker. She pushed its shoulders, sending it falling back into more walkers.

It was doomed from the start...

Daryl was in the front while they raced through the forest. Madalyn was right behind him, and Beth was behind her. Madalyn had her gun back in the holster since she ran out of ammo just after they escaped the prison. She held her knife firmly in her hand when she stabbed a walker in the brain. She jumped over the body, following after Daryl.

I knew it was going to happen...

Madalyn heard a gun clicking behind her. She slid to a stop and spun around. Beth had her gun pointed at a walker coming at her, but she ran out of ammo. Daryl shot the walker in the head with his crossbow then hit another with the end of the crossbow. He waved his hand to Beth and Madalyn, telling them to keep going. Beth grabbed Madalyn's hand and kept running, Daryl hot on their trail.

Two months...

They ran out of the forest into an open field with tall bushes. They pushed their way through the bushes, Madalyn looking back to watch for walkers. "Just keep goin', kid!" Daryl shouted at her. "Don't look back."

What's there to look back at? Everything I knew is gone... except for surviving out here... at least that I know...

They only stopped for a second to catch their breath before they were running again. Madalyn could feel her body begging her to stop. But they couldn't. Not yet. There were walkers everywhere. If they stopped, they would die.

They ran on for a bit more before each of them fell to the ground onto their backs. All Madalyn could hear was her own breaths and Daryl's and Beth's. Madalyn held her knife to her chest, her other hand laying limp beside her. She stared up at the sky.

There were birds circling above them. Waiting to see if they were dead so they could eat them.

They were not dead. Madalyn was not dead. But sometimes, death seemed a kinder fate than living in this world.

~*~*~*~

Madalyn stared at the fire and sparks rising into the night sky. None of them had slept that night. She didn't think any of them could. Not after what they saw.

She sat against a tree, her legs pressed tightly to her chest. Her arms wrapped weakly around her knees. Daryl was over to the left, and Beth was to the right.

They hadn't spoken that much either. Only directions for setting up the campfire. Madalyn was taken back to when she lived out here. She and her mom had to learn how to do a lot of stuff to survive out here. When Madalyn was alone, everything she learned came into play. She wasn't afraid that she couldn't live out here. She could.

She was afraid of just simply living out here.

She felt like that scared little girl again. The girl who was confused at what happened to her careless mother. The girl confused why her distant mother now decided to start caring. The little girl who spent her whole life alone, even with people around her.

Madalyn had adapted to living at the prison too quickly. She adapted to people actually caring about her. She adapted to having friends. But now that was all ripped away from her, and she was left with a girl she barely knew and a man that probably wanted nothing to do with her as much as she tried to be his friend.