The woods pressed close around him, thick with shadows and the low, ever-present hum of insects. Every broken branch, every snap of a twig sounded deafening to Daryl Dixon's ears. He crouched low behind a fallen oak, breath coming in slow, controlled huffs as he watched the clearing ahead.
Daryl licked his cracked lips, tasting sweat and dirt. A bead of it trickled down his temple, stinging a fresh scratch along his cheek. His crossbow rested against his chest, a bolt nocked and ready, but even he knew better. A shot—too loud. Too risky. One mistake, and he'd have a dozen of them snapping at his heels.
Carefully, silently, he shifted his weight and scanned the treeline ahead. A gap. Narrow, but enough if he was fast. If he was lucky.
Grimacing, Daryl wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans, heart hammering in his ears.
He pushed off the ground and bolted.
Leaves crunched and twigs snapped beneath his boots as he wove through the trees, hunched low like a hunted animal. His boots slipped once in the mud—his balance nearly gone—but he caught himself, pushing harder, lungs burning from the sudden sprint.
A guttural snarl ripped through the woods behind him.
"Shit," Daryl hissed under his breath, legs pumping faster. Branches whipped at his face, leaving shallow, stinging cuts. His crossbow banged against his hip with each desperate stride.
The Runners were picking up fallen branches, rusted fence posts—anything they could get their mangled hands on.
One Runner hurled a rock the size of a fist. It whistled past Daryl's head, striking a tree with a hard crack.
Another lifted a broken limb and hurled it like a javelin. It slammed into the ground just inches from Daryl's path, causing him to stumble.
"Goddamn runners," he spat, forcing his legs to move faster.=
The Runners, smarter than their mindless cousins, didn't just chase blindly. They tried to corner him, picking up anything jagged or sharp enough to stab or smash with.
Daryl risked a quick glance back.
One Runner, a lanky man with a twisted neck and a missing jaw, brandished what looked like an old screwdriver. Another dragged a rusted metal bar along the ground, the scrape setting Daryl's teeth on edge.
He cut sharply to the right, scrambling up a slope where thick brush made it harder for the Runners to follow quickly. His breath came in ragged gasps now, black spots dancing at the edges of his vision from the adrenaline spike.
And then—out of nowhere—a blur of movement.
A blade flashed in the dying light.
The Runner closest to him jerked mid-lunge, a wet, gurgling noise tearing from its mangled throat. It collapsed in a heap, nearly taking Daryl down with it.
Wide-eyed, Daryl skidded to a halt.
A woman stood there—tall, powerful, a dark, tattered cloak flowing around her like smoke. One hand gripped the hilt of a blood-slick katana. In the other, she held chain leashes connected to two dismembered, jawless walkers who shuffled forward without awareness.
Her face was partly shadowed by heavy dreadlocks, but even through the gloom, Daryl caught the gleam of her eyes—piercing, focused, utterly calm in the chaos.
Daryl's instincts screamed at him to move, to fight, but he froze.
The pet walkers shuffled aimlessly around her feet. The rest of the Runners—the ones still giving chase—paused.
They sniffed the air, heads cocked at unnatural angles.
The rot-smell of the woman's pets, the familiar death scent, seemed to mask Daryl's living breath, tricking the Runners' limited senses.
The woman, silent and composed, extended one hand slightly toward Daryl—palm out, fingers spread.
Stay still. Stay silent.
Daryl didn't need to be told twice.
He dropped into a crouch, crossbow still in hand but pointed low. His chest heaved in shallow, careful breaths, his muscles burning from exertion.
For a long, blood-freezing moment, neither moved. The Runners twitched and shifted uneasily, snarling softly but not charging. The sun bled red across the treetops, casting jagged shadows over the clearing.
Daryl's heart pounded against his ribs so hard it hurt.
Slowly, agonizingly, the Runners began to drift away, their snarls fading as they prowled back into the deeper woods.
Daryl exhaled—long and silent—the tension starting to bleed out of his stiff limbs.
The woman turned her head slightly, one fierce eye meeting his.
Daryl gave a barely perceptible nod.
One Runner—quicker than the others, smarter—paused, sniffing sharply. Its milky eyes locked onto them. It took a slow step forward, then another, head tilting unnaturally, teeth gnashing the air.
Daryl's gut twisted in warning.
The Runner suddenly shrieked—a high-pitched, guttural sound—and lunged toward them.
The others turned instantly at the noise, howling and hurling themselves through the trees.
The woman reacted first. She dropped the leashes of her walker pets and moved in a blur, her katana flashing downward. The blade cleaved through the Runner's chest, splitting spine and ribcage in a clean, brutal stroke.
The Runner dropped, spasming at her feet.
"Move!" the woman barked, her voice low and sharp, slicing through the growing roar of the dead.
Daryl didn't need a second invitation.
They ran.
Tree limbs clawed at their arms and legs. Roots snatched at their boots. The forest seemed to close in around them, every step heavier, slower.
Behind them, Runners howled, some picking up rocks and hurling them in wild arcs. A stone clipped Daryl's shoulder, nearly knocking him off-balance.
Another Runner hurled a broken fence spike like a spear—it embedded into the trunk of a tree inches from Michonne's head.
Daryl grunted, pushing harder, ignoring the burn in his lungs.
Glenn's beat-up sedan was bouncing wildly along the rough dirt road, headlights flickering.
T-Dog leaned out the passenger side, waving frantically. "Get your asses in!"
Daryl sprinted, putting everything he had into his legs.
Michonne stayed beside him, moving like a wraith, her blade flashing once to cut down a straggler who lunged from the side.
Glenn jammed the brakes, skidding the car sideways across the dirt.
T-Dog jumped out, crowbar swinging as a Runner got too close. He bashed it aside with a grunt, shouting, "MOVE!"
Daryl reached the car first, diving through the open back door, dragging himself across the cracked leather seats.
Michonne followed a heartbeat later, rolling inside and snapping the door shut behind her.
T-Dog yanked himself back into the passenger seat just as Glenn slammed his foot on the gas.
The tires spun in the dirt, flinging rocks, before catching grip.
The car roared forward, leaving the Runners shrieking and clawing in the dust behind them.
Inside the car, breathing heavy and fast, Daryl leaned back against the seat, crossbow clutched tight against his chest.
Beside him, the woman—silent, composed even now—cleaned a fresh smear of blood from her katana with a torn piece of cloth.
Glenn glanced into the rearview mirror, his face pale and tense. "Holy shit, Daryl—who's your friend?"
Daryl wiped sweat from his brow, gave a lopsided grin, and panted out, "No idea."
The car rattled and bumped over the uneven dirt road, the suspension creaking loudly with every pothole they hit. Glenn's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his eyes flicking anxiously between the cracked windshield and the rearview mirror, half-expecting the Runners to burst from the treeline in pursuit.
T-Dog sat rigid in the front seat, crowbar resting across his lap, breathing heavily but steadily now.
In the backseat, Daryl leaned back, one arm stretched across the top of the seat, still clutching his crossbow with the other hand. His shirt was torn and blood-streaked, but his mouth curled into a slight, tired smirk as the tension slowly bled out of him.
Beside him sat the woman—Michonne.
She wiped the last of the blood from her katana with deliberate care, her movements precise, almost ritualistic. The chain leashes of her two "pets" clinked softly with every bump, looped tightly around her belt.
For a few long moments, no one spoke, the car filled only with the low rumble of the engine and the occasional metallic rattle from the trunk.
Michonne finally broke the silence.
"What the hell were those?" she asked, her voice low and rough, but tinged with something unexpected—real confusion.
Daryl glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the smirk fading from his face. He adjusted the battered ballcap on his head, wiped some blood off his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt, and said simply, "They ain't regular walkers."
Michonne turned her head slightly toward him, brows furrowing. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say more but stopped herself, gathering her thoughts.
Glenn caught the look in the mirror and offered a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, welcome to the new world order. They're what we call 'Runners.'"
Michonne's mouth tightened into a thin line. She leaned forward slightly, her arms resting on her thighs, katana balanced carefully between her knees.
"They're fast," she said, almost like she couldn't believe she was saying it out loud. Her brow furrowed deeper. "They think. They plan."
T-Dog nodded grimly from the passenger seat. "Yeah. We figured that out the hard way."
Michonne's nostrils flared slightly as she exhaled, trying to process. Her usually stoic mask cracked just a little, revealing the alarm underneath. "Walkers don't do that. Walkers stumble. They don't... they don't throw things. They don't coordinate."
"They do now," Daryl said with a shrug, his face serious. "Seen 'em pick up rocks, pipes, hell—one tried to jab a broken stick at me."
Michonne's eyes widened slightly, a rare slip of emotion flashing across her face.
Glenn, still focused on the road, added, "They got something leading them too. Someone—or something—we call the Prophet. Smart ones... they follow him."
"The Prophet," Michonne repeated, her voice low, testing the words like they tasted wrong in her mouth.
"Yeah," T-Dog grunted, glancing back at her. "Think of him like a cult leader... except all his followers are dead and don't know it."
Michonne leaned back into her seat slowly, processing, her fingers tightening ever so slightly around the hilt of her sword. Her face returned to its familiar guarded expression, but a small line of tension now creased her forehead that hadn't been there before.
"This world keeps getting better and better," she muttered bitterly.
The others chuckled darkly—no humor in it.
Small talk drifted in and out over the rumble of the engine.
"How long you been on your own?" Glenn asked casually, his voice lighter now, trying to cut through the heavy atmosphere.
Michonne didn't answer right away. Her eyes stayed locked on the passing blur of trees outside the window. Finally, she said, "Long enough."
Daryl snorted quietly, giving a half-smirk. "Sounds about right."
"You got a name?" T-Dog asked, glancing back again.
"Michonne," she said simply.
T-Dog nodded in acknowledgment. "T-Dog. Up front's Glenn. And back there's Daryl."
She gave a small nod in return, absorbing the names but offering no more.
Silence settled again, but it wasn't the tense, suffocating silence from earlier. It was quieter. More... measured. They all understood survival had made talking a luxury.
Daryl shifted slightly, adjusting his crossbow. His eyes flicked toward Michonne again, studying her. She wasn't shaking. Wasn't panicking. She sat like she belonged in a battlefield. He could respect that.
"You did good back there," he said gruffly.
Michonne offered a faint, almost imperceptible smirk—more a twitch of the corner of her mouth than anything else.
"You too," she said.
The car bumped violently over a pothole, jostling everyone. Glenn cursed under his breath, wrestling the steering wheel back under control.
"Next time," he muttered, "somebody else drives."
Daryl chuckled lowly. "You're doin' fine, city boy."
Even Michonne let out a short breath that might have been the ghost of a laugh.
As they rounded a bend, the towering silhouette of the prison loomed into view ahead—cold, grey, and forbidding against the blood-red sunset.
T-Dog leaned forward in his seat, eyes narrowing. "Home sweet home."
Daryl sat up straighter, rubbing his hands together. "Hope Rick got things sorted while we were gone."
Glenn's face sobered slightly. "Last we left... tensions were high."
T-Dog glanced back again, meeting Daryl's gaze meaningfully. "Higher now, I'd bet."
Daryl grunted. "Ain't nothin' ever easy."
As the car sped toward the battered outer gate, Michonne watched the prison loom larger, the razor wire glinting in the last light of day.