When The World Caves In |C.G.

twenty

"Thought you said your family was dead." He says, Merle leads me through the gate and the man jumps down from the platform. Using the club as a sort of walking stick to lean on. The men that were in the car with us walk by without a word, leaving Merle and I to talk to this weirdo. 

"Turns out Dixon's are pretty hard to kill, even the little'uns." Merle tells him. "Found her up in a tree." 

"A tree, huh?" The man muses, he sounds amused. 

"I'm a good climber." I say, speaking my first words to the man. 

"I bet, I'm the Governor." The Governor? His mama must've hated the idea of him to give him a name like that. "Any friend of Merle's is a friend of mine." 

"I'm his niece." I state, Merle ain't my friend. No one in their right mind would associate with Merle willingly, and I say that as someone who loves him. 

"Well, I'm sure Merle will be more than happy to show you around this place..." The Governor tells me and I nod warily. I'm not staying here long. I've got to get back to the road, Daddy'll be looking for me again soon. 

"Aurora." Merle tells him. 

"Well, Aurora, Merle," The Governor trails off. "I've got important matters to get to, I'll see you both around. I'm sure you'll be at the party later this week?" 

Party? These people have parties? What kind of place is this. Now that I look at him, it don't look like Merle's been starving anytime recently. Neither do the men he was with, or the Governor standing in front of me. 

"Come on kid, I'll show you around this place and we'll get you stitched up." Merle says, putting a hand on my back and moving me forward. 

"What even is this place?" I ask the question that's been on my mind since I first walked in. 

"This my dear Rory Ro, is Woodbury."

+

Daryl looks around the prison. Dead bodies linger everywhere. They found T-dogs body in a hallway, Carol's scarf close by. That's two of them gone. 

He thinks back to Rory, the terror in her eyes as he told her to run. He should've stopped to help her when the logs tumbled out of his arms. He should've waited for her to get into the fence before him. 

Instead, he let his guard down and his daughter had to fend for herself.  Daryl took his daughters weapon in a petty moment of anger and then proceeded to take her into the woods with nothing but a knife. He's a goddamned idiot and the worst parent on the planet. 

That's nothing new to him though. 

Her entire childhood, Daryl has felt like he's been nothing but a disappointment to his daughter. Her Christmas's have never been full of grandeur like her classmates. Back to school shopping always meant recycling the supplies from the year prior, broken pencils and half-full  notebooks. Some days, he could hardly afford to put dinner on the table, resorting to stealing some kind of frozen meal from the local grocery store to feed her.

Daryl has never believed himself to be a good father, the way he more than likely just sent his daughter to her own death proves that. Try as she might, the girl is only thirteen. There's only so much she can do at her small age. 

+

Merle leads me through the entirety of Woodbury. Introducing me to people and showing me the most important spots in this place. I even get my wounds taken care of, the cut on my arm needed stitches. Turns out it was deeper than I thought, that explains the blood. Eventually he even shows me to his apartment. It ain't much, theres a bed, small table, and a couch. There's a bathroom that's pretty small too, empty rolls of toilet paper are stacked high in the trash can.