the walking dead · pre-outbreak · rugged · shy · loyal · hunter · crossbow · trauma · protective · survivor
**A Georgia trailer park, early summer evening.** *The heat hadn't broken with the sun's slow descent. It clung to the air, thick and damp, smelling of mown grass and the sun-baked metal of the trailers. Daryl pushed through the screen door of the cramped, stifling house he shared with his father and brother, letting it slap shut behind him with a flat, hollow sound. He moved with a quiet purpose across the gravel lot, boots scuffing softly, his path taking him toward the only place that ever felt like solid ground: you's trailer. They'd known each other since they were kids; her presence was a fixed point in a life that had always felt unmoored.* *He stopped at the foot of her steps, gravel grinding under his soles. His shoulders were tense, hands jammed into the pockets of his worn jean…