Daryl Dixon needed almost nothing in life. So long as his addict of an older brother and trusty motorcycle were by his side, he was satisfied. For years he had been drifting from town to town, getting high with Merle and fighting burly men in southern bars. If he had overdosed and ended up in someone's lake, not many would notice. Merle might look for a while, but he wouldn't stay. The cops would catch up to him and he'd leave for his own good. For a long time, this was Daryl's life. Various women came and went. None stayed. Nothing stayed in his world. This man would have ended up in someone's lake… but when all hell unleashed, somehow, Daryl's life became less of a hell.

On September 26th, 2010, the first walker was born into world. Many said it was impossible, it was impractical, it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and they were right. It was. It was impossible. Yet somehow, this man-eating beast was conjured into this Earth, and it doomed all those living. Well, almost all those living.

At the beginning, when the virus first began to spread, most people didn't react. It was unfathomable that something so evil could be released into the world. Some prayed to whatever they called a God, others pointed fingers at the scientific inaccuracies or impossibilities. Even when people did react, in a panic at that, their human impulses and suddenly useful primal instincts made it possible for this disease to grow exponentially. Daryl Dixon was not one of these people. Daryl had nothing to lose. Him and Merle drove alongside each other in the midst of this unleashed hell, killing walkers and surviving just fine on their own. The pair had a temper, but this new world was filled with rage.

Sooner or later, there were too many walkers for the two to survive on their own. They needed a group, they needed numbers, and that's just what they got. A couple dozen miles south of Atlanta, Daryl and Merle found a group of Georgians. They all came from completely different backgrounds; there was a widowed mother, two little kids, a cop, an abused woman, a retired man, a blonde woman and her sister, as well as a couple of other people. At first, numbers was all this group was to Daryl. They stuck together for a while, and one day, Merle and a couple of others took a trip down to Atlanta. Merle didn't come back from that trip, but Rick Grimes did, and Rick Grimes made that group more than just numbers, he made them family.

People in this group came and went. Loved ones died, more survivors joined, but the group was never anything less than family. Just as the group changed, so did the people in it. Daryl Dixon was no longer the man he was. Some could say he went soft, and that was far from the truth, but he was no longer the selfish drunk he used to be. One girl changed his entire view of the world he lived in. A girl who was raised her entire life on a farm in Georgia, a girl who had never skipped church or gotten drunk, a girl who lived in a world where her father and sister could be killed in front of her, but she still saw the good in people. This girl was Beth Greene, and she changed Daryl's life.