Lizzie and Tyreese walked straight through the forest, keeping a good pace but also being wary of their surroundings.
"There's a roadside market just outside the forest. The sooner we get there and back, the better." Tyreese assessed.
"Well how far is 'just outside'?"
"As far as we make it to be…" He responded, briefly stopping to turn to Lizzie while doing so, before moving forward again. Lizzie briefly raised her eyebrows in slight agitation at that.
"Make sure to mark every turn we make, we don't want to get lost." He instructed after a short silence.
"Can't we just follow our footprints?"
"Just mark them down to be safe. We don't wanna take any chances."
Lizzie nodded as the pair continued walking.
"And remember, if a walker comes at you, you run."
"I thought you're supposed to shoot." Lizzie objected.
"Only if you have to."
Lizzie gave a slightly annoyed look as if someone tried to make her smell a dirty sock.
"And what about you?"
"I'll run too. But if need be, I can handle myself."
"…Well so can I." Lizzie objected.
Tyreese stopped at hearing this and turned to Lizzie.
"…I know…" Tyreese remembered the fateful headshot on Alisha that had perplexed him since the moment he saw it.
"So why can't I shoot then?" Lizzie followed up.
"You can, but only if you need to. Same goes for me."
Lizzie had a defiant but at the same time compliant expression on her face, but that soon changed to one of urgency as snarls were heard coming in nearby.
"Look out!"
While Tyreese's back was turned, a walker attempted to sneak up on him, but thanks to Lizzie's warning, he was able to quickly turn back, grab his axe and slash its skull. Another walker made its approach from behind Lizzie.
"Get behind me!" Tyreese urgently instructed as he went to kill the snarling walker. The force of the blow caused the axe to get stuck in the walker's skull and as Tyreese was pulling it out, a third walker made its way towards the pair. Quickly, Lizzie tossed her knife to Tyreese who stabbed it in the neck. The blow was not enough to kill it though and Tyreese and the walker were locked as the former tried to remove the knife whilst keeping the latter from biting him. In one very quick motion however, Tyreese managed to get the knife out of the walker's neck, but the strength of his push forced the walker to the side, right towards Lizzie, who quickly took out her gun and shot it. The walker fell to the ground, not moving.
Tyreese and Lizzie briefly looked at each other, panting, before Tyreese gave Lizzie her knife back and went to assess his surroundings. The path led to a crossroads.
"We'll turn right. Mark our turn." Tyreese said, and he moved on.
Lizzie went to a nearby tree and prepared to use her knife to mark it. But just as the blade was about to touch the tree's bark, Lizzie heard a small rustling, and she turned and saw a chipmunk move down from the tree, onto the ground and into the bushes right across. Lizzie followed her gaze to the chipmunk's movements, and she stood there by the tree, her knife still having not quite touched the tree yet. She eyed the bush she saw the rodent disappear into. Her panting stopped, and she looked at it with a fixed expression that looked contemptuous…and unhinged. She looked as if she was seeing her mother's killer. But as she eyed the bush, the walker she had shot earlier sprung up and ambushed her; she had only shot it in the face, but not in the brain. Lizzie though, reflexively turned back and jabbed her knife right in the walker's head and pinned it against the tree. She had the same look on her face, but with her eyebrows more furrowed, as she looked at the lame and dead walker's head against the tree. She slowly, almost intimately, twisted her knife around its head before removing it and letting the walker fall to the ground. She then stabbed the walker in the spot on its neck Tyreese stabbed it in, and began to slice. She soon walked away, leaving the walker's head leaning on the tree.
She caught up to Tyreese. Aside from slicing the walker's head off, everything had actually happened rather quickly.
"That took longer than it should have…" Tyreese remarked.
"One of them tried to ambush me." Lizzie replied.
"…You should have run then…"
As he said that, Lizzie noticed another walker creeping up behind them. She quickly grabbed Tyreese's axe from his belt, made her way to the walker, and swung. It fell dead before her, as Lizzie looked at her work, with a proud smirk forming on her face.
She then turned to Tyreese with that expression.
"I can handle them." She said in a somewhat jolly tone, and she started walking forward once more. "Just give me a weapon."
Aaand cue the theme song! So, by a very surprising popular demand (thanks guys!) I have made my sequel for You Should Give More Hugs! Now let me say first of all, that, as the writer of YSGMH, (SPOILER ALERT!) I'm quite bummed after what happened in "The Grove"... To be fair though, Carol kinda needed to do what she did... She did have her reasons. And given those reasons, the first thing I did in this story was get rid of Lizzie's creepy love of walkers! Hope you guys enjoy! Just like last time, criticize if you want to, but do so constructively and not rudely and pointlessly or risk getting reported. And I'll still be putting in Andrea references 'cause I'm of course eternally devoted to her. But they won't be as explicit as they were last time. In fact, I put a couple of them here now which you may or may not have noticed! And speaking of Andrea, shameless plug, but I've posted a few chapters on another story I've written about Andrea and Michonne. You're welcome to give it a read if you like!
p.s. - Just so that no one gets confused, this particular chapter is the prologue and it's a flashback
p.p.s - I kinda forgot that Tyreese actually uses a hammer and not an axe...oh well...