Energy Depleted

(Daniel's POV)

"Hey big dumb, wanna stay alive?" I heard a faint voice as someone was shaking me.

I opened my eyes to see Karla kneeling down. I was confused.

I stared her up and down, showing my annoyance at her. I shrugged and grunted without saying a thing.

"I guess that is a yes." She said as she cut the ropes that tied me to the tree one by one.

"Why help me now?" I asked in confusion.

"For old time's sake." She responded as she offered her hand to help me up.

I thought about that for a few seconds, then I grabbed her hand and stood up. She placed something in my hand, I looked down to see my revolver.

I was still very confused, why would she help me now after seeing me go through all that shit at the hands of Veronica and Marcus, and the fact that we have a bad history didn't add any reason for her to help me.

'Maybe she has been with them for a while and she wants to get out somehow?' I asked myself.

I took a minute to dust myself off and regain eyesight, I saw Veronica and Marcus were asleep near the dimly lit fire, snoring too.

I was a bit impressed by Karla, since what I remember from her was being clumsy, and now she may really save both our lives.

"Ready to head out Danny?" She said as she locked eyes on me.

'She still remembers? What the heck?' I thought as she turned around.

"Sure thing..... K" I said as I barely stopped myself from calling her by her nickname.

She snapped back at me in half a second, she had wide eyes. I was scared to say anything so I just started walking.

"Yours." She pushed a backpack against my chest.

I took it without a word, she kept her eyes on me until I put it on.

She slowly turned her eyes away from me and started cautiously walking opposite of the place Veronica and Marcus were sleeping.

I followed silently, confused, but silently.

I slowed my pace a bit, so I walked to her right and a bit behind her. She didn't take her glare off of the way.

I raised an eyebrow as I took a quick look at her from behind. She had lost a lot of weight, compared to what she looked when I last saw her a few years ago.

'Why help me now?' The question never left my mind.

We walked past tree after tree after tree. It felt never-ending.

I started getting tired, hearing my heartbeat, our non-syncing footsteps as twigs and leaves are crushed under our feet, and the leaves on the trees brushing against each other softly because of the soft winds. The wind brushing against my cheeks gave me a waking sensation, I felt more alive, more determined, and more.... afraid.

Multiple things struck me at once, first thing was, where are my family? Where is Susan? Where are my siblings and mother? Where are my friends? Spencer?

Perhaps the two scariest things were that I was blindly trusting someone who didn't like me prior to the outbreak. And the other being that my life was seriously under danger, not like any of the stupid video games I used to play, one mistake and I am a goner with no coming back.

I felt a shiver run up and down my spine, I was scared, for the first time in a very long time, if ever, I was scared for real.

Noticing I was sweating buckets, Karla turned around and stopped. I stopped too.

"We are close to the main road." She said and then turned back to the way we were walking.

My body got heavier as the seconds went on, my legs got harder to move forward, breathing became harder and harder. I felt like I was carrying something heavy as I was walking.

After about five odd minutes we got to the main road where my legs gave up. I fell on both knees, gasping for air as I felt completely depleted. I brought my hands on my thighs to support me and not fall face first.

Karla turned with a rifle pointed at my head. I don't know where she got it from or how she got it, but I was sat at her mercy at this point.

"You think I brought you all this way because I wanted to see you alive?" She said with a wide smile on her face.

"I knew something like this would happen, but I thought maybe, just maybe you changed." I said to provoke her.

"Why would I change, look at what you have done, you ruined my life Daniel." She said with all her heart.

"All I ever wanted was for you to be safe, and you are going to act as if I ruined your life?

"Lady, drop that gun right now, we can solve this without anyone getting hurt." A man said from behind Karla. He had an obvious American accent. He was about as tall as I am, a bit taller maybe, had a bit of a stocky build with a slight hint of muscle. Brunette with a rough beard and a buzz cut, he was wearing a black drifter coat, it was made out of leather, and some blue jeans, he was also wearing a pair of very sturdy looking boots. Finally he had a pistol strapped to his jeans.

'Not from around here.'

"And who in the bloody hell are you." Karla said as she turned to him.

"Just some guy, I want to help others, not violently." He said as he slowly lowered his pistol to the ground.

"Good, this is personal, so get out of here." Karla said as she pointed the gun at him.

I gathered whatever I had left from adrenaline and got up to tackle her.

We both fell to the ground, she turned me on my back and got on top as she swiftly grabbed her knife and swung at me barely missing my eye and hitting my cheek instead.

Then a loud bang went off as Karla dropped lifelessly on me. The guy shot her.

I struggled to push her away from me to be able to breath.

"Want me to help you up?" The guy asked.

"Why... shoot... her." I said in between deep breaths.

"It was obvious she was out for blood, she wasn't gonna stand for anything less than your corpse."

"That is one way to put it." I said as I sat up.

"Anyways, who was she anyways?" He asked.

"Does it matter?" I turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow.

"We are going to bury her, no?" He looked puzzled.

I was shocked at what he said, I didn't know what to say. He was right on one hand, but we didn't have any tools on the other.

"I mean, it is fine if you want to leave her out, I get it, she tried to kill you after all." He said as he extended his hand to help me up.

"What? No. Not that, it's just that we have no tools to dig with." I said as I grabbed his hand.

"We can find something I guess, maybe some close buildings or something." He shrugged after he pulled me back on my feet.

Suddenly we heard a car engine nearing, the sound was getting louder and louder until the car was visible. Me and the guy froze in place, we didn't know what to do, we looked at each other and gave absolutely no sign of knowing what to do.

The car came close to us and stopped, three people got out and pointed their guns at us, we stood and raised out hands.

One of the faces was familiar, but I felt my sight shortening and then my eyes shut.