Hold On / a Daryl Dixon story

7. Semi-Automatic

I went to stay with Amy and Andrea for the night in their tent. I didn't really feel comfortable sleeping with anyone else since I didn't know them very well. Not that I knew Andrea and Amy any better, but they seemed welcoming enough to let me in. I was thankful.

I didn't have my own sleeping bag, but I did have a blanket that I had been using when I slept in trees some nights. Andrea and Amy only had two sleeping bags and no one else had an extra, but they insisted that I take their second sleeping bag and they could share one. I felt like I had no choice to comply, but I would've been fine with just my blanket.

"Don't be stupid, take the sleeping bag. It's the least we can give you. You did help us out back in Atlanta," Andrea insisted.

"I didn't really do much. I did just as much as you guys did. Rick deserves the credit, it was his plan that got us out," I replied, trying to be modest.

"Well credit can be given where credit is due, but you and everyone else helped my sister get back here safely. I couldn't thank you enough for that," Amy said, smiling at me.

Andrea went over to her sleeping bag to rearrange it and said, "I'm exhausted, I think I'm gonna hit it. Long day."

I agreed with her and situated myself so that I was comfortable in the sleeping bag. Once we were all settled, Amy turned the lamp off.

I was exhausted. Today was such an eventful day, and I'd never really gotten a good night's sleep since everything went to hell. But still no sleep would come to me.

The minutes turned into hours, and I continued to toss and turn. Normally I would drift in and out of sleep for an hour or so at a time, but tonight I couldn't get a wink.

After a few hours I gave up. As quietly as I could, I slipped out of the sleeping bag and out of the tent. I walked over to the logs set up around the extinguished campfire. I sat down on the same log I had earlier, and looked up at the sky. I tried to find the moon but the sky was still clouded and I could hear thunder in the distance. Without the moonlight it was pretty dark.

However there was a light coming from the top of the RV. Someone was on watch duty, but I couldn't tell who from this distance.

The thunder rumbling in the distance became louder and more frequent. The storm was much closer now. It could've probably rained at any second.

I heard a voice from the top of the RV. "Why don't you run along back to your tent now missy, wouldn't want to get caught in the rain would you?"

Shane. Great. Without even replying, I stood up and turned around, marching off back to Andrea and Amy's tent.

"Hey! Bridget, come back! I wanted to talk to you!" Shane called out.

I stopped walking. I turned back around and slowly walked up to the RV. I crossed my arms, shifted my weight to one leg, and looked up at Shane. I didn't feel like dealing with him now.

"What," I said sharply.

"I just wanted to know how you enjoyed your first night at camp? It's important that you enjoyed it, especially if you're going to be hanging with us now," Shane said. He sounded sincere, and I wanted to believe that he was, but I tried not to buy into it.

"It was fine, thank you," I replied. "Anything else?"

"No, um, I..." he carried on.

I took that as my opportunity to leave. "Okay then if that's all you wanted to talk about, I'll be going back to my tent now," I said quickly with an annoyed tone.

I hurried away from the RV again, I wanted to get away from him. I wanted to avoid any personal questions. Personal questions lead to friendships and relationships and those were both things that I wanted to avoid in this world because they could be ripped away from you in a matter of seconds by the undead. I wanted to keep my distance, especially from Shane. Something seemed off with him.

"Hey!" Shane called out again, a little louder this time. "Come back I wasn't done!"

I stopped walking but didn't turn around. "You said you were, so I left." I looked back at him. "And you might want to be a little quieter, wouldn't want to wake anyone up now would you?"

Leaving him silently surprised with that, I continued back to the tent and crawled back into my sleeping bag.

I curled up in a little ball, wrapping my blanket close around me. I closed my eyes and just focused on listening to the rain. I figured that if I kept my thoughts on something else, they wouldn't drift back to all of the bad memories and regret and pain and suffering.

In my own little world inside my blankets and sleeping bag, it was almost as if that freak-infested world full of death out there didn't exist. But it still didn't feel like normal life instead. It was like I was roughly cut out of my life as I knew it with a pair of zig-zag scissors and sloppily glued somewhere else into a collage of other stories. Unfamiliar faces, an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar monsters. It all felt so strange to me.

But I could make it work; I would have to in order to survive. This was my life now, whether I liked it or not.

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sorry this chapter is kind of short I didn't want to add too much onto it but there are some longer ones coming up! The chapter title is from Semi-Automatic by twenty one pilots. x- Anna