𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝔽𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 | Daryl Dixon

7 | WILDFIRE

The morning after the camp got attacked by the dead was a low one for everyone, to say the least. Bodies littered the quarry, blood dried up and soaked into the reddish/brown dust on the ground. The sun was shining, beaming down over their heads, making the stench of rotting flesh all the more rancid. The brightness of the day seemed almost disrespectful toward the darkness the night had brought with it.

People had died that night – a lot of them, and Tori wasn't used to the feeling that had struck her when she saw the bodies or heard the screams before even arriving at the camp. It was so much all at once, and she didn't know how to react. Never had Tori been hit with so many losses. She didn't even know a lot of these people that well, as she spent most of her time in the camp keeping to herself, only really talking with a select few, and only when necessary.

But with the world crumbling apart around her, she found herself respecting and admiring everyone in that camp for how they all carried on, working on chores like everything was normal whilst they lived in hope that their lives would go back to how they were supposed to be someday.

But that seemed less and less likely with every passing day. And last night, the dead finding the living and destroying them as much as they could before they were defeated, was evidence that things were likely going to get worse before they got better. If they got better.

Overnight, Tori had not slept. She sat in the driver seat of her truck with her jeans pulled down to above her kneecaps. Blankets covered the windscreen and windows as she just stared down at her own blood whilst it seeped out of her cut thigh. The clean blade of her knife glid along her skin to break it, such a delicate yet horrific sight to behold.

She chose her leg for the simple reason that it could be hidden better than her arm... And it hurt more.

The pain brought her little comfort. It kept her sane – or at least as sane as one could be when sat in their car in the middle of the night whilst carving lines into their own skin.

She was beyond used to the sting of her knife, to the point where once the blade was no longer touching her skin, she barely felt the pain. Just a small sting now and again for a couple of days as the cuts scabbed over. The new cuts covered the old scars, concealing them, hiding them in plain sight. Tori silently cried after, keeping her face completely stoic whilst her eyes betrayed her, tears falling down her cheeks like two waterfalls.

Normally, she would have put on her headphones and cranked up the volume until she was deaf to the rest of the world. But Carl still had her Walkman, so she was forced to make do with the static silence of her truck. To make matters worse, she had to wait to get out of the vehicle, as one of her cuts had gone just that little bit too deep and was taking its time to stop bleeding. She held a cloth over it, the materiel soaking up the warm crimson faster than it could pour from her skin.

It was only when she heard some footsteps outside her truck that she finally pulled herself together. She made sure her skin was clean of excess blood, and pulled up her dark green jeans and fastened her belt. She tied her hair up into a high bun, her side bangs immediately falling down her face, the ends tickling her temples and cheekbones. She wiped her pale cheeks and blue eyes clear of any stray tears, and she took a few deep breaths before climbing out of the vehicle.

Now, she strained her arm and back muscles as she lifted up the ankles of a walker whilst Morales got the wrists, and they carried it over to a pile of bodies to be burned. The heat was making Tori sweat, her skin feeling like it was on fire. 

Sweat dripped from her forehead, which she wiped with the hem of her flannel. Her sleeves were rolled up, the thick gloves she wore doing the job of covering her scared forearms.