Dark Intentions│Daryl Dixon✔️

O N E

I had a dream.

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, "Lets go down by the lake." She whispered. Her breath was hot in my ear.

"She'll get mad. She thinks your sick." I answered.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her, C'mon." She whined. I couldn't help my grin and allowed her to pull me from bed. We ran as fast as we could down the dirty streets bare foot. The Rocks didn't bother the soles. We did this every other night.

The hot asphalt sent tingles up our legs but we continued to laugh madly. Our faces stretched with grins. Our muscles burned as our legs pumped faster and faster until we reached the lake but even the cool pool of water didn't stop us and we went sailing through the air and into the wet waves.

I bobbed just above water and her arms wrapped around my neck. They squeezed until I felt I couldn't breathe.

"Mine, Cal! Come be with me!" She snapped.

I woke up. It was hot and sticky. My skin buzzed and felt my urge then. I slipped a finger beneath my panties and began to calm the rattling of my skin. I lifted the back of my hand to gently caress my cheek, "Shhhhh, calm down. Calm down, girl." I cooed at myself and stroked my clit. Pants and gasp echoed throughout the room. Little droplets of skin that reeked of alcohol sweat from my pores.

My chest was becoming soaked with the perspiration.

⌥⌥⌥⌥⌥

The kitchen quieted down when I entered. Strange? No. I was used to the silence around me by now. I slipped past them all and out of the front door. My mother sat on the porch swing, her eyes clouded over as she gazed into nothingness.

"Momma?" I asked. She didn't acknowledge my presence and continued to stare. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair as I slipped towards the barn. I hadn't been shielded from what was out there. Hershel had done his damndest to shield Maggie and Beth from what roamed the woods and most likely the world beyond.

My boots clattered onto the back barn latter that lead up to the loft. I sat cross crossed at the very edge. The groans and snarls eased the buzzing in my head. They reached for me but I was way too high for them to even touch. I stretched my hand downwards until my fingertips tickled their own. Their skin was dry and cracked and dirtied. They didn't wiggle their fingers like I did. They couldn't close their hand around my own. They couldn't jump, couldn't bite, and couldn't eat. I was safe way up here and they were trapped way down their.

Their teeth were rotted and their milky white eyes stared up at me.

Hungry.

They seemed to have an endless hunger that was never filled and yet, they could go weeks and days without their next meal. Though they were constantly hungry, they didn't let that stop them from roaming and roaming until their teeth finally met flesh.

I remembered seeing Beth's Mom brutally eaten by this infected neighbor. I remember my mother's words as she watched without discomfort.

"Death and Life. Life and Death. There is no either or."

She seemed to know what she was talking about but still, my heart didn't want to believe her. I understood what she'd said. When you die, you become the dead and the dead become the living. Today, there was simply no dead. Even the dead were hungry and now they walked in search of the living.

I looked into their milky eyes and saw no emotion. No pain. Just endless hunger.

A hunger that interested me. Drew me in and devoured me whole. I didn't feel sorry for them. There was nothing to feel sorry for. They didn't go hungry. They were already dead.

They would never die..

⌥⌥⌥⌥⌥

"Callie!"

I rolled my eyes and prepared for whatever the hell i'd done wrong then. I threw them a dead chicken and watched them devour the thing. I grinned and stepped down the latter.

"What." I demanded of Patricia.

"A little boy's been shot! We need help."

"Ain't Maggie and Beth enough?" I snapped.

"Callie!" Patricia barked. I rolled my eyes and made my way up the steps. Had I really been so entranced by those dead people that I hadn't heard a commotion? I stepped inside the house, immediately greeted with a man holding a young bleeding boy in his arms. He looked panicked and stricken—panic stricken.

"Grab some towels!" Patricia repeated Hershel's order.

I found myself in the powder room grabbing hand towels before trailing to the bathing room to get body towels. My arms were stuffed full with them. Patricia grabbed the white fabric from me and rushed them to Hershel's side.

I stepped back as they soaked blood up.

"Do you know his blood type?" Hershel demanded of the man.

"A positive. Same as mine." He told Hershel.

"That's fortunate. Don't go far, I'll need you after this." Hershel ordered the man.

"We need space." Patricia told him. That was also a cue for me to leave as well. I backed out of the room and went back outside onto the porch. Momma hadn't moved an inch. I was willin' to bet she hadn't even flinched when that bloody kid was rushed up the steps.

"Meredith." She murmured.

"Oh, Momma, not now." I snapped.

"I know baby. I know."

She would talk to herself but act as if it was someone else. I shook my head and slipped into the woods. I was plannin' on stayin' away in the brush for a few days. My skin burned with rage and I pressed my dagger's tip to my palm gently—soothing the humming and tingling.

A light trickle of blood dropped from the small cut on the soft skin and I let out a slow breath before my boots made the sounds of stomping through the woods, crushing dead and fallen leaves. I found myself by the riverbed and slid down the incline to get to the cool water. I dropped my two weapons and proceeded forward.

My hands dipped into the cold water and I spent 20 minutes cooling my face down. My hands slid over the nape of my neck, dragging the water with it. Little beads of sweat mixed with the cool water of the river slid between my shoulder blades and down my back. When the water stopped rippling from my hands intruding within it's slick wet, I caught the reflection of myself.

Full peach colored lips, perfect white teeth, beautiful and smooth tan skin, dirty blonde messy hair—my mother used to tell me that I put all the other girls to shame, "My pretty baby." She whispered into my hair. It was fake. All fake. An act to prove to other parents that she was a good one.

My fingertips dove in and ruined the image of my pretty face and I flicked the water from my fingertips before standing up and continuing through the trees.