Stick Together

Trust Me

"Aaron."

"Aaron."

"Aaron!"

Finally snapped awake, Aaron whipped his head to the speaker and yelled, "What?!"

"We need to go, now!" The voice belonged to Dakota. "You can't grieve if you're dead."

The blaze of bullets had attracted a plethora of walking dead to the bar that the group occupied, forcing yet another escape on foot for them. Yet, Aaron still remained where he had been for what seemed like an eternity; over his dead sister. The mystery man had slit the little girl's throat, among other foul things. Rebecca's final moments were spent in agony and tears, which made leaving her all the more difficult, not only for Aaron, but for everyone else in the group as well.

"Aaron, now!" Kenny was the next to speak. He finally swooped in and picked up the shuddering kid and took off with him in his arms. There he'd stay for a considerable amount of time, just staring at nothing, thinking of nothing, and hearing nothing but the loud ringing in his ear from the commotion.

Hours later, the group was caught in a heavily wooded and snowy area, so dense a forest that they were lost, and so much snow that running ceased to be an option. Finally, to top off the unfortunate scene, a thick fog set in and cut visibility in half. The roars of the dead only grew louder, but they echoed all around the environment, therefore surrounding the survivors and leaving them with no choices at all. The ones that were able circled up, back to back, facing all directions in order to fight off the living dead. Aaron was still out of it.

"They're gettin' close," Kenny warned, although not completely sure because of the confusing acoustics of their area. "Get ready."

Get ready they did, as they all drew their blades and prepared to protect those in the middle of their circle, the first step in not letting anyone slip through the cracks.

In minutes, the terror was upon them, forcing everyone's hands in swinging down their axes and knives and hatchets and swords into the menaces' heads. Soon, the internal circle of people was surrounded with an external circle of the dead.

After the incident, Andrea inspected everyone for wounds of the bite type, and Dakota attempted to talk to Aaron.

"Aaron, buddy, please get up and come back to reality," Dakota pleaded. "We need you. We almost let it all go right there, not five minutes ago."

Aaron looked on.

"I know that this is rough, but it'll pass, maybe not tomorrow or the next day or next month, but it will, I swear. You just have to power through the pain."

Aaron lingered his eyes to one fixated spot in the forest.

"Listen, if you can, we all need you. You are an important asset to this team, and I don't know how long we'll survive without your consciousness. Look at me, at least!"

Aaron kept staring at whatever was in the not-so-distant distance at this point.

"Goddamn it, man! At least acknowledge my existence!"

Next came a scream. Then another and then even more. Dakota about-faced to the direction Aaron was looking at, and saw it. Elle was on the ground with something attacking her arm, seemingly eating it. Cameron dove into action and shoved the person off Elle, and the face was revealed. It was that of Rebecca, but with distinguishable differences, resembling a run-of-the-mill zombie. And the wound on Elle's arm appeared to be a run-of-the-mill bite.

Dakota drew his weapon and fired into the late Rebecca as many times as he could, leaving no ammunition in his magazine. Meanwhile, Andrea quickly acted and took a machete and began her swing down upon Elle, as if she were about to give the final blow.

"Stop!" Lily yelled. "Don't kill her, please!"

"I'm doing the opposite of that, honey," Andrea started, "I'm saving her life." She completed the swing and chopped Elle's arm clean off, causing a mass amount of blood to spurt all over the place. She then grabbed a wad of bandages and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, the same bottle that was used to save Jesse, and dressed the new nub on Elle. She had, to no surprise, passed out from the pain and blood loss. Dakota was chaotic, Aaron was weeping by his twice deceased sister, and Kenny and Cameron were fending off the walkers that heard Dakota's rampage of trigger pulls.

"If she dies, it's on you for fucking chopping off her goddamn arm!" Dakota heckled Andrea.

"She would've definitely died had I not chopped off her goddamn arm!" Andrea retorted. "Now we'll all probably get eaten because of your fucking trigger happiness!"

"Fuck you!" Dakota screamed, making matters even worse. "I am not the cause of any of this! If anything, it's your fault!"

"Bull-fucking-shit, asshole! All your fucking friends would be dead without me, so maybe a fucking thank you is in order!" Andrea retorted.

"Okay, yeah we all fucking thank you, now can you get to saving that girl's life and get off of each others' dicks?" Kenny yelled back at the arguers. "Dakota! Get your ass over here and make yourself useful."

Dakota stormed over to the herd and unleashed hell upon them. Using his hatchet, as he has on many occasions before, he cleared the area of living dead within a short time, and did it quite effectively.

After Andrea was done stitching up Elle, or at least what she could, she rounded everyone up and told two should carry Elle, and the rest fall in and protect the three in the middle of the company. All obeyed, except one.

"Aaron, we gotta go, kid!" Kenny hurried. "Let's go!"

"Leave me here," Aaron spoke his first words in 24 hours. "Just leave me. I'll catch up. Maybe."

"We can't leave you here to die," Cameron reasoned. "You at least need a weapon."

"Go on. I'll be fine," Aaron mumbled. "Trust me."

With no other choice, the group headed off, in search of let another stronghold to house the wounded, while Aaron and his dead sister lay in the middle of the woods, where they'd be for a long time.