The forest felt endless, an unbroken sea of trees and shadow.
Daryl pushed through the thick undergrowth. His crossbow slung across his back, every step deliberate and quiet.
Behind him, Beth and Sophia trudged along, pale and trembling but alive.
"We'll find 'em," Daryl said finally, his voice rough, low. More of an order to himself than reassurance to them. "Carol. Joe. Rick. Maggie. They'll find a way. They always do."
Beth swallowed hard, forcing a nod as she rubbed her belly... an unconscious gesture she kept making more frequently now.
The small swell there was a fragile symbol of hope, but in moments like this, it felt like a terrible vulnerability too.
Sophia, walking silently beside Beth, glanced up at Daryl. "Do you really think they're okay?"
Daryl hesitated, just a fraction, then gave a sharp nod without looking back. "Yeah. I do."
Beth clung to that answer like a lifeline, even if she wasn't sure she believed it herself.
By late morning, Beth could go no further.
Her legs trembled with each step, and finally she stumbled against a tree, panting. "I… I can't…"
Daryl stopped immediately, scanning the woods around them before sighing. "Alright. We stop here."
He chose a clearing barely large enough to fit them, surrounded on all sides by thick brush.
While the girls sank to the ground, he set to work in silence.
Scattering a circle of crude snares and noise traps fashioned from wire and old cans around their perimeter.
It wasn't much, but it would give them a warning.
When he returned, he dropped his pack beside a small fire he'd coaxed to life and dug out a single can of soup. "All we got," he muttered, prying it open with his knife.
They sat huddled around the meager warmth, taking turns sipping from the can.
The taste was thin, metallic, but it was sustenance.
Beth cradled her hands around it for heat before passing it back to Daryl. "Thank you," she whispered.
Daryl grunted, taking a small mouthful before handing it to Sophia, who finished the last drops.
When it was empty, he set it aside and leaned back against a tree, crossbow across his lap.
"Get some sleep," he said. "I'll keep watch."
Beth lay down first, curling on her side with a hand over her belly.
Sophia nestled close beside her, eyes half-closed but still darting nervously at the shadows beyond the firelight.
Sophia only relaxed when she felt Beth hold her gently from behind. Her thoughts were swimming chaotically through her mind.
Her mother, Carl and Clementine. If they had made it, if they were thinking of her.
Eventually her eyes closed, unable to stay open any longer.
Daryl watched them quietly, his jaw tightening.
They were all that was left of the world he'd fought to protect, and he'd die before letting anything take them now.
Above, the wind rustled the branches, and somewhere far off, a single walker groaned.
Daryl's hand tightened on his crossbow as he stared into the distance, waiting.
...
The night air was cool, but Maggie felt suffocated.
Her boots crunched softly against the gravel road as she led the group forward, her eyes scanning the treeline for movement.
She glanced over her shoulder for what felt like the hundredth time.
Sasha lagged a few paces behind, her face streaked with dried tears, jaw tight with barely contained grief.
Bob trailed beside her, head down, quietly taking inventory of their meager supplies.
A half-empty canteen, a handful of canned goods, and a single box of ammunition.
Maggie's own pack was light. She'd abandoned so much in the chaos of the prison's fall.
All she had now was the knife on her belt, the faint life stirring in her belly, and the hollow, gnawing question she couldn't stop asking herself.
"Where's Joe?" she whispered to herself again.
Her voice was barely audible, but the pain in it echoed louder than any gunshot.
No one answered, just like every other time she'd asked.
She looked down at her stomach, the smallest of bumps just beginning to show.
She hadn't told him yet. She hadn't even told anyone. There hadn't been time, and now…
Now she didn't know if he was alive to hear it.
Her eyes stung, looking down at the silver necklace Joe had gotten for her in place of a ring.
She blinked the tears away and kept walking.
...
Up ahead, movement flickered between the trees. Maggie raised her hand, signaling the group to stop.
Shapes emerged cautiously from the shadows. Three people, barely more than teenagers, clothes torn, eyes wide with terror.
One of them held up empty hands.
"Please," the boy stammered. "We... we got separated from our group. We just want to live. We won't hurt you."
Maggie hesitated. They were young. Desperate.
For a moment, she saw Hershel in their pleading faces, heard his voice reminding her that mercy mattered, even now.
But then Sasha's rifle cracked once, then again.
The boy fell before he could finish his plea, the other two scattering in panic only to be cut down by Bob and Nicole's gunfire.
The forest went silent again, save for the ringing in Maggie's ears.
Nicole lowered her smoking pistol, her expression hard and unflinching.
"They were with him," she muttered, referring to the Governor, her voice thick with the loss of her mother.
Maggie didn't argue. She couldn't. Not anymore.
She turned and kept walking, her face cold, her heart breaking in a way she didn't dare show.
She understood now what Joe had tried to teach her. "In this world, mercy could be a death sentence."
But as she pressed a hand lightly to her stomach, she prayed silently.
That the world her child was born into could be something different.
...
Glenn's ribs ached with every breath, each inhale like fire in his chest.
His head throbbed, blood trickling warm and sticky down the side of his face.
With a low groan, he forced himself to sit up, the world tilting violently around him.
Below, walkers milled aimlessly through the wreckage of what had once been their sanctuary.
Clawing at twisted steel, staggering over the charred remains of the yard.
The prison was gone, truly gone, nothing left but smoke and death.
He pushed himself to his feet despite the pain, swaying for a moment before steadying against the wall.
"The group has to be alive", he told himself desperately. 'They gotta be.'
He stumbled through the door behind him into Cellblock C.
The silence was deafening.
The place that had once been filled with voices, laughter, and hope now felt like a tomb.
"Hello!" Glenn's voice echoed off the concrete, hoarse and raw.
Nothing. No answer.
His heart sank like a stone, a weight of despair threatening to crush him.
He clenched his fists, forcing it back. 'I can't give up. Not yet.'
He moved to his cell and found the photograph of Mary still lying on the table.
He picked it up with shaking hands, staring at her smile one last time before tucking the photo into his pocket.
"I'll find them," he whispered, whether to her memory or to the others he wasn't sure.
Determined, he gathered what he could.
An AR-15 with an extra magazine, a set of riot gear, an axe, and any scraps of survival gear left behind.
...
Glenn shoved open the cellblock door and stepped into the yard, immediately engulfed by the sound of the dead.
Walkers turned toward him with guttural groans, clawing at the air.
He gritted his teeth, gripping the axe tightly, and pushed forward, hacking through rotting flesh until he broke free.
Across the yard, on the west catwalk, a figure sat motionless.
It was a woman, slumped against the railing, hair matted with ash and blood.
Glenn hesitated, torn between survival and humanity. 'Keep moving. Save yourself.'
But he couldn't. Not when she was still breathing.
With a curse under his breath, he climbed up to her, every movement sending pain lancing through his abdomen.
When he reached her, he knelt and carefully took the pistol from her limp hand.
He ejected the magazine, pulled the slide. It was full.
"It's full," he muttered, incredulous. "You didn't even fire?"
The woman's head turned sluggishly toward him, her eyes dull and lifeless. She gave the faintest shake of her head.
Glenn's jaw tightened. "Alright, let's go," he rasped, voice hoarse from smoke and dehydration. "We gotta move."
Her lips parted slightly, her voice flat and mechanical, "Tara."
"Glenn," he replied, forcing strength into his tone. "Listen, Tara... we can't stay here. Not with them everywhere."
She stared at him, blank and distant. "I was part of this," she whispered.
"I know," Glenn said, softer now, crouching to meet her hollow gaze.
"Why do you care?"
"Because I need your help," he answered without hesitation.
Tara blinked slowly, as if the words didn't compute.
Glenn leaned closer, his voice low but urgent. "I know you've lost people. I have too. Hell, I don't even know if my group's still alive out there. But if we stop... if we just give up. Then everything they fought for, everything they died for, it's all gone for nothing. I won't let that happen. And neither should you."
For a long moment, Tara was still. Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.
Glenn worked quickly, fashioning a Molotov from a bottle and rag.
His hands shook as he lit it, but his aim was steady.
The bottle shattered against a nearby car, flames roaring to life as the walkers turned toward the blaze.
"Keep your head down. Stay close," he ordered.
They descended from the catwalk, moving low and fast through the chaos.
The dead were everywhere, their snarls echoing through the yard, but the fire had drawn most away.
A wall of walkers surged toward them near the gate. Glenn's heart pounded as he raised the fire axe, teeth bared. "Go!"
They fought their way through, Glenn striking with practiced precision despite his wounds.
Tara following awkwardly but with a growing fire in her movements, anger replacing despair.
Glenn's riot armor absorbed claws and teeth as they forced a path to freedom.
At last, they stumbled through the ruined gates, gasping for air.
Behind them, the prison smoldered, a black scar on the horizon.
Glenn didn't look back again. He just kept moving, Tara trailing behind him, as the ghosts of their pasts faded into the distance.
---
They slowed only when the forest swallowed the road ahead, the prison now just a distant plume of smoke behind them.
Glenn bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
Tara stood beside him, staring down the empty road, her expression still somber but no longer vacant. "Where do we go?" she asked quietly.
Glenn straightened, wincing at the pain in his ribs. "Forward. Always forward."
He glanced at her, then back at the road. Somewhere out there, the group was alive. They had to be. And he'd find them.
Together, they started walking.
...
The afternoon sun cast light over the cracked asphalt as Glenn and Tara trudged forward.
The forest flanked them on either side, silent but for the occasional distant groan of a stray walker.
Glenn walked with one arm pressed to his ribs, each step a dull throb, but he kept moving.
Tara followed a few paces behind, eyes fixed on the road ahead, her thoughts far away.
Images of the prison burned in her mind.
The explosions, the chaos, and that final battle she'd witnessed from the western catwalk.
She had seen it all.
Joe fighting like a demon amidst the fire and the dead.
The Governor charging him, machete in hand. The brutal clash of steel on steel, the moment the blade sank deep into Joe's chest.
And then her sister... her last living family.
Stepping from the shadows, tears in her eyes as she raised her gun to finish him.
She'd hesitated, Tara realized now.
Her sister had hesitated just long enough for fate to intervene, for a walker to tear her down before she could fire.
Tara had watched Joe crawl away towards the treeline. The machete still sticking out of him, leaving a trail of blood behind.
She hadn't followed. She'd thought no one could survive that.
And yet… she wasn't sure.
---
Glenn's voice broke into her thoughts. "You okay back there?"
Tara blinked, looking up at him. "Yeah," she said quickly, though her tone lacked conviction.
He slowed his pace slightly to walk beside her.
She said, "I've been thinking… Joe. He was your leader, right? At the prison?"
"Yeah," Glenn replied, a note of pride in his voice. "Kept us alive more times than I can count."
Tara hesitated, then said quietly, "He made it out. I saw him."
Glenn stopped dead, turning to face her. "What? You saw him?"
Tara nodded. "During… the end. He was hurt. Bad. But he killed everyone that came at him and… he walked into the woods with a blonde woman. I didn't think he'd last long with… with how bad he was wounded, but…" She met Glenn's eyes.
Glenn muttered, "If anyone could survive, it's him."
His heart lurched with cautious hope. He wanted to believe it so badly. "Thank you," he said softly.
Tara only nodded again and resumed walking, saying nothing of her sister.
Nothing of the gun she'd almost fired at Joe's head. That was a truth she wasn't ready to share.
Behind them, the smoke of the prison faded into the horizon.
Ahead, the unknown stretched on,but at least for now.
Glenn walked with a little more hope in his stride.