•A DARYL DIXON STORY•
"I need you to listen to me. When we're out there together, if I say run, run. If I tell you to leave me, then damn it, you leave and you don't look back."
"Daryl," she sighed softly, shaking her head.
"No, I mean it," he argue...
'when death takes my hand, I will hold you with the other, and promise to find you in every lifetime.' -rupi kaur
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Cold. The water was so cold.
It cut off all sound, light, and breath. Only fear and the stinging nettles in her chest remained.
Zeppelin kicked and thrashed against the fingers reaching for her flesh and bone as the water filled her throat and lungs. It wrapped around her insides like a python, squeezing and squeezing until breathing was just a distant memory.
Surface. Get to the surface.
She managed to twist her way out of the walker's grip around her neck, and the rotten claws sliced into her skin as she pushed to the surface before the corpse finally fell away from her.
Sunlight. Air. Freedom.
Then, more claws.
Zepp could barely hear Rick still screaming for her as he pushed the canoe closer, stabbing whatever bodies lay between them. He wasn't quick enough. The boat wasn't strong enough. Just as she reached for him, another rotted arm wrapped around her. She gasped for one last breath, and it felt like a thousand needles piercing her throat as the snapping jaws and squirming limbs pulled her deep, deep down.
Pure instinct had her screaming despite the way the murky water stifled it. Desperation kicked in, and panic had already settled. And then... a longing. A longing like she'd never felt before—a longing to live.
Not like this.
Her heartbeat slowed to a sluggish pace. Her eyes closed, or maybe her vision had started to fail her.
Not like this.
Using the last burst of energy she could muster, she reached behind herself and snagged her fingers through the walker's thin patches of hair, then she yanked down as hard as she could. It freed her enough to allow her to kick away just as a hand broke through the surface, reaching into the depths for her.
Her hand found his, a lifeline in the growing blackness.
Zeppelin broke the surface with a wild gasp, blinking the inky water out of her eyes as Rick wrapped both hands under her arms and pulled her into the canoe. "I got you," he said over and over. "I got you, I got you."
