Lone Survivors

I kept quiet as Michonne and I met with Rick and Carl, lost in a daydream where I was reliving the sweet moment I experienced not too long ago. Daryl never stopped surprising me at how good his heart was. Before I knew it Michonne and I were on horseback, trotting away from the prison.

“He really said it, huh?” she said, her tone telling me she was smirking.

“Yeah…” I muttered with a small shake of my head in disbelief. “Next job is finding you a man.”

“Ha, right…” Michonne laughed. I opened my mouth to give encouragement, but was stopped by the echoing, muffled sound of a gunshot from behind us.

“Was that…?” I trailed off in fear. My stomach had already hit the ground. Michonne turned the horse around as another shot was fired.

“Oh no,” she groaned, kicking the horse’s side to speed back to the gate. She whistled loudly and I spotted Carl running towards us. He pulled the gate open and we got through, but so did a Walker. Michonne and I noticed at the same time, and she jumped off the horse, kicking my gut accidentally. The horse moved closer to the gate, and I spotted Michonne struggling at arm’s length with a Walker. She’d had no time to pull out her blade, and she was desperately trying to fend off the monsters.

Gripping onto my aching gut, I slid off the horse’s back and grabbed my own knife, ramming it into the second Walker’s skull and falling to my knees with it. In the corner of my eye I noticed Michonne crashing to the ground, but the shock of a gun firing nearby caught my attention. A Walker dropped to my feet, proving it was closer than I had realised. Panting, I stole a look at my saviour and saw Carl. Maggie was suddenly with us, pulling Michonne to her feet as Carl led the horse to safety. Once I was past the gate, I pulled it shut and secured it, taking the time to stab another Walker that had thrown itself against the fence. As I joined Michonne’s side and swung her arm across my shoulders for more support, I noted the other gunshots had stopped.

“What the hell happened?” I questioned anxiously. No one had come back out of the prison yet.

“I heard them shoutin’ ‘bout Walkers in D,” Maggie replied quietly, her fear evident.

“The three M’s, up to no good again,” Carl said light-heartedly as he jogged to a stop next to us. We all chuckled as his face turned serious, glancing down at Michonne’s foot. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” she nodded curtly. “The three M’s? Is that what kids you call us?”

“Yeah. Your names all begin with the letter M, so we call you the three musketeers,” he smiled, clearly glad to see Michonne laughing instead of being in pain. When we got closer to the prison, Rick appeared and explained the situation. The survivors thought it was a flu strain that had killed a boy overnight, so of course he’d turned into a Walker and killed more. He said that Daryl was fine, but I couldn’t see him because he’d been exposed to whatever sickness it was. As we led Michonne inside so I could bandage her ankle, my heart sank at the thought of not having Daryl to hold at night. Everything had been going so smoothly; I had been naïve to think it would last.