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THE SEARCH IN the woods left a bitter taste in Ellie's mouth, discovering nothing but the bitter absence of evidence to indicate their location, other than Andrea's gun. How could something have gone so drastically wrong? For what felt like an eternity, Daryl had tracked fresh sets of prints, followed by the occasional scruff against the dirt, though the trail never seemed to lead to anywhere.
It had almost been like the punchline of a very cruel joke, leaving them all exasperated and borderline hopeless. But Rick would simply not allow that. Though, even when more prints became visible, evidently from the masses of walkers that had metastasised and taken over the woods. They were a cancer, waiting to be exterminated, no matter how large their masses had been. Ellie vowed to, somehow, rid the world of the parasites, and to restore all good, however delusional it may have been.
Their return from the woods had been entirely silent, each individual more distraught than the last as the flowed back to the graveyard. Though Daryl had been quietly following, Ellie did not dare raise her aching eyes from the ground, merely allowing her legs to carry her wherever they deemed fit. She halted far in the distance, ahead of a lonesome car that rusted with abandonment.
It had been astonishing how profound the raging storm in Ellie's chest had been; how with each breath she took, her muscles battled ferociously with the notion of not pounding against the car until her body became raw.
Anger burned through her skin like flames swallowing paper.
An emotion so strong, so visible, yet to those who choose to see only what they want to see only the flash of fire in one's eyes; feel only a burn in the deepest depth of one's soul; hear only the drop of one tear as it passes past one's cheek; these signs catch those who care and they look only into one's eyes with the power of ice, calm their soul with just one touch; to dry the tear with just one word. Nothing would soothe that raging ice storm, built solely within Ellie as a weapon that she would use on anyone, just to find her way back to her daughter.
Emboldened by her rage, Ellie rapidly thwacked her leg against the metal of the car, wailing as a searing burn twisted through her bones. Though Daryl tugged at her from behind, attempting to withdraw her from the inevitable conclusion of rage, though she refused. Refusing to give Daryl a single moment, Ellie's leg thumped against the car once again, earning a piercing wail to escape her lips.
It hadn't been a wail of pain — no. It simply had been a wail of grief. She slowly sunk down onto the ground next to the car, burying her face in her hands as she felt the hot tears landing in her palms. Ellie was entirely helpless.
From above, Daryl swallowed hard on the lump forming in his throat while gently trailing his thumb over the soft fabric of one of the teddies that Ellie had brought with her since the first day of the apocalypse. It had been a teddy gifted to Coda on the day of her birth, and had since felt an inseparable connection to. Daryl sighed quietly as he clutched it in his large hand, feeling tears begin to form in his invariably vacant eyes.
