Disclaimer: I don't own Left 4 Dead 2 or its characters. I only own my OCs.

A/N: Greetings! I'd like to welcome you to my very first fanfic, and I really do hope that you enjoy it. It does feature an original character who is pretty much an experiment for me, and the story will involve a lot of reflection on how the characters develop as they go through the zombie apocalypse together. This first chapter is just to see if you guys like it. I do have eleven chapters ready to upload in addition to this one, and I'm currently working on the thirteenth chapter, so expect this to potentially be a long story and that it also may have a sequel. I will try and upload once every few days, or as my profile says, once a day, depending on how much progress I can continue to make with the story. Anyway, please feel free to review and once again, I hope that you enjoy it.

~ Not So Forsaken ~

- Chapter One -

It had been the most hellish thirty minutes of her life.

Coming round from being knocked out by someone she was supposed to be able to trust with her life, Julia had found herself alone in a hotel room with a snarling former-human in the corner. She wasn't from Savannah originally. She didn't even like Savannah. She'd only come all the way to Georgia for the sake of her so-called-boyfriend, Kevin, who she'd recently discovered to be cheating on her with multiple women for quite some time, and he'd then turned around after all the shit he'd given her over their two years together and knocked her out.

The redhead had come to the conclusion that the helicopters that were supposed to be evacuating survivors had already gone, with her scumbag of a boyfriend onboard, so she'd set out to try and find a way out of the burning building that she was currently standing in to see if she could get to another evacuation zone, to no avail. Armed with nothing but a crowbar that she'd found lying by a corpse in the room she'd woken in, Julia had thankfully encountered very few infected people and had spent her time looking for supplies she might need on her journey, like a first aid kit, and something more useful than the crowbar to use as a weapon.

Brushing a loose strand of her short, curled hair behind her ear, Julia carefully opened the door to the room she was about to search. It was silent. Nothing in there, thank God. Shutting the door behind her, something that she'd been making sure to do the whole way, she quickly searched various drawers, the bathroom and the closet to see if there was anything useful she could find. Her eyes landed on a duffel bag which sat on the floor of the closet. Inside was none other than a Magnum and several magazines worth of ammo. Smiling like a kid on Christmas morning, Julia picked up the gun, quickly checking to see how many bullets were in the magazine that sat in the gun at that time, and found that not only did it have a full magazine in there, but that it was also equipped with a flashlight.

"What are the chances?" She breathed out, almost flinching at the volume of her own voice, despite it not being that loud.

The silence around her was unnerving, and it was something that she was struggling to adjust to considering that fact that a short time ago, this hotel had been full of panicking, screaming people. She searched the bag some more and found a holster that she managed to wrap comfortably around her thigh, and she sat the Magnum in it, deciding only to use it in an emergency. Putting the first aid kit she'd found in the duffel, she picked up the black bag and slung it over her head, allowing the strap to rest comfortably on her shoulder as she then carefully backed out of the room, her crowbar held tightly in her hands.

She moved out onto the balcony next to her, grateful to find it empty before she returned back to the large space she'd been standing in several minutes earlier. There was a storage closet in the far corner that she wanted to search, so she carefully crossed the carpeted floor, taking note of the open elevator doors next to her. It was a bit dumb to use an elevator in a fire but she wasn't really prepared to fight through all those of floors of infected people when an elevator would cut her travel time in half.

'Wow...' She thought to herself with a soft laugh, 'How rebellious of you, Julia.'

Reaching the closet, she carefully poked her head around the door to check that it was empty before heading inside starting to scan the shelves for any potential items that she might need to make the journey ahead a little easier. She spent a good couple of minutes in there, looking around to see if there was anything she could use in her medkit or any other kind of weapon that she could take when the sound of a shotgun cocking caught her attention.

Fear shot through her like a stalactite slicing through a pool of water, and as a panic started to work its way through her body and into her throat, Julia swallowed hard, trying not to be physically sick. Friend or Foe? There was only one way to find out. For some reason, as she turned around slowly to exit the storage closet, she considered all the poor choices she'd made in her life. The choice to sneak out to a boy's house without her parents' knowledge which ended up with her being grounded for three weeks, the choice to drop out of college because she didn't have the confidence to finish the tuition that her parents had been saving their whole married life for, the choice to stay with a mentally and physically abusive man who did nothing but cheat on her and then abandon her in this godforsaken shithole to die... The choice to step into the face of potential death just because she had the tiniest of hope that she might be saved...

She did what she considered to be smart. She slid the crowbar out of the room first, hearing it bump awkwardly on the carpet as it came to a stop just outside the door. She still had her Magnum, and whoever was outside this door didn't know that. Not unless they'd been trailing her for the past five minutes, which they very well could've been... Raising her hands above her head, lifting her head as defiantly as she could, Julia stepped outside the closet slowly and kept her body angled slightly to the right so that the person who had the shotgun wouldn't be able to see the Magnum. She was met with three men and a woman, who were all pointing guns at her.

"Friend or Foe?" A very young looking man in a yellow t-shirt which said 'Bullshifters' on it spoke quietly, sounding nowhere near as brave as he clearly wanted to be.

"F-Friend..." Julia answered, equally as nervous as the younger man, "Friend, I swear..."

"You alone?" The African-American man standing at the back of the group asked, lowering his shotgun slightly.

"Yes." Julia swallowed hard, trying to control her body's incessant need to start shaking, "Completely alone."

Three out of the four lowered their weapons. Just the dark-haired guy in the white suit kept his submachine gun aimed at her, his eyes narrowing as he looked her over. Julia looked towards the pretty African-American woman in the pink 'Depeche Mode' shirt, hoping for a little support from her so that the guy in the suit might actually lower his weapon. Men intimidated her. They always had. Okay, the guy in the yellow t-shirt and the big guy in purple looked harmless enough, but the guy in the suit? He looked hardened and cold. Not warm and friendly like the others.

"W-We're heading to the mall across town." The man in yellow said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I guess you missed the evac too, huh? We think they're headed that way if you wanna come with."

"Yeah, I missed it." Julia answered softly, bending down slowly to retrieve the crowbar from the floor, "Um... It'd be nice to have some company on the way there... If that's okay..."

The man in purple offered her a kind smile and laughed heartily, approaching her without hesitation and completely bypassing the man in the suit, who watched almost incredulously as the group approached the newcomer without any concern. They all seemed to assume that the nearby open elevator was working, and happily accompanied Julia inside. The man in purple leant out of the elevator once more to call to the man in the suit who had now, thankfully, lowered his gun.

"You comin', boy? I have a feelin' this is gonna be a one-way ride..."

With a sigh of what sounded like resignation and irritation, the man in the suit followed and stepped into the elevator with everyone else. The woman in pink pressed the button for the first floor, and the doors slowly closed, leaving everyone in a rather awkward moment of silence.

"Holy shit..." The man in yellow swore quietly, taking off his blue and white baseball cap to briefly rub his forehead with the back of his hand, his curled hair sticking up slightly in the heat around them, "This is some sort of nightmare, Goddamn zombie apocalypse and shit... Shit, shit, shit... What the hell are we gonna do?"

"Settle down, son..." The man in purple was quick to try and reassure the younger man, "It'll be okay. What's your name?"

"Ellis..." The man in yellow answered, "My name's Ellis."

"Hey... Name's Rochelle." The woman in pink said with a sweet grin before turning to the man in the suit, who was leaning back against the elevator with his arms folded and what looked like a jar full of a strange green liquid in his hand, "You?"

"Name's Nick. But don't bother learnin' it, 'cause I ain't stickin' around long."

"Let's try to stay together a little while longer at least, okay, Nick?" The man in purple said quietly before turning to the others, ignoring the scowl he got from Nick, "My friends call me Coach. I guess y'all can do the same. What about you, young 'un?"

All eyes then turned on Julia, who was playing with the white ties of her apple-green hoodie as she pressed her sneaker-clad foot against the wall of the elevator. Swallowing down her sudden onset of anxiety at being the centre of everyone's attention, she cleared her throat to answer Coach, who was looking at her expectantly. She hated being so awkward and so anxious but she tried to fight it, regardless.

"Julia. My name's Julia..." She answered, nervously brushing her hair behind her ear again, "But some people call me Jules."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jules." Ellis was the first to extend a hand to the twenty-one-year-old, and she took it warily, trying not to panic when she felt how strong his grip was, "You got anythin' to use other than that crowbar?"

Julia's gaze flitted to the jar in Nick's hand before she moved back to Ellis, trying hard to make eye contact. Eye contact was something she'd struggled with for a long time, especially since the first time that Kevin had hit her. Even as a teenager, her confidence had been so lacking that maintaining eye contact with friends and teachers had been a struggle, but she knew now that she really had to make the effort to try and get past her social awkwardness because she was going to have to work as a team with these four strangers.

"Uh... Yeah. This gun." She carefully took the Magnum out of its holster to show the group before pointing to the glass container in Nick's hand with suspicious eyes, "I-Is that puke?"

"We think so." Coach replied, "You hear about those zombies that started to mutate?"

Julia nodded solemnly. Yes. She'd heard of those. She'd even seen one in a hood that walked on all fours like some kind of wolf pounce on some poor woman near the entrance to the hotel. It had this horrific scream that it let out as it jumped on her, and it literally tore her to shreds right in front of her helpless husband. It had been awful to see... Just awful...

"Well, one of 'em's this huge, fat thing that burps and groans, and it pukes up stuff that looks like this. Accordin' to Rochelle, the military's been callin' em Boomers." Coach continued to explain, "Nick shot one that came runnin' at us down a hallway and it exploded, but the walls got coated in this shit... Zombies came chargin' for the damn stuff. They must like the smell."

Julia winced, wrinkling her small nose in disgust. Why did it have to be puke? Why couldn't it have been something else? Although, what else would she rather it be? Would it be better to be puked on by a zombie or something else? She shuddered. She didn't really want to think about zombies and their varying bodily functions.

"I got a feeling that we're gonna get some unwanted attention when these doors open." Nick said with a grimace, "This elevator's gotta be making a lot of noise. It's why I've got this in my hand. At least we can distract the zombies with it if they decide to throw us a welcome party."

"We have no idea what we're walking into out there." Rochelle said quietly, "We need to be careful."

The elevator's lights suddenly cut out, and there was a loud crashing around them which caused the elevator to shake. Instinctively, Julia tried to brace herself against the wall, as did everyone else. It seemed that their ride had come to an end, and smoke started to fill the elevator which gave everyone, even Nick cause to be nervous.

"Get ready..." Nick's voice was stern but calm, and his hand hovered over the button to try and open the doors.

He hit the button, the doors opened, and the group of five was met with the awful sight of an entire floor in flames. Nick ran out without hesitation, and the others quickly followed, leaving Julia standing anxiously in the elevator. She saw a glow of green flying through the air and it landed in the fire, causing zombies to sprint from the rooms ahead of them and straight into the flames. The smell was indescribable, and the screams of the infected people now being burned alive were just unbearable. Julia knew that she had to fight to the death for survival against these infected people but she still couldn't shake the notion that they were indeed people. Just incurably sick people.

"Jules!"

Her large brown eyes snapped up to meet Ellis' and as she licked her full lips to try and give them some moisture in the intense heat, she quickly reached out to catch the muted submachine gun that he was throwing her way. She didn't know where he'd found the damn thing but she knew she needed to use it, and use it quickly.

"Watch out for the ones in the Hazmat suits!" Ellis yelled over the roar of the fire, starting to cough almost as soon as he spoke.

Sure enough, infected were running out of the fire completely untouched because of the special suits they were wearing. Julia stepped out of the elevator, aimed the gun towards the oncoming zombies and took a deep breath before pulling the trigger. She saw one of the zombies running towards her suddenly collapse because of the bullets she was firing, and she almost dropped the gun. She'd never shot anyone before. She'd used a shooting range at her father's insistence, but shooting people was a lot different than shooting paper targets and it felt awful.

At last, the wave of zombies seemed to disappear, and the group started to run quickly down the corridor to try and find a way out. Spotting a room to his right, Nick quickly slipped out of sight, and the white of his suit could be seen amongst the darkness of the thick black smoke as he rushed around that particular room, trying to find supplies. He returned quickly with a backpack in his free hand which had what looked like yet another first aid kit hanging out of it. He threw it to Ellis, who quickly zipped up the bag and slung it onto his back. Nick yelled at them all to move, and the group quickly started to head further down the corridor.

Once again, Nick headed to the right, and this time, Rochelle and Ellis followed, leaving Julia and Coach to do the same. There was no point even trying to communicate verbally because the thick smoke was making it impossible, and all that could really be heard above the roar of the fire was coughing and spluttering as the five of them started to inhale smoke and fumes from the burning building. Julia couldn't help but wonder if they were going to die from smoke inhalation or if they were just going to burn to death. At least, she realised, she wouldn't die alone if that were the case.

The sound of Nick's submachine gun hit her ears as he shot at zombies in the far corner of the kitchen area they'd run into, and Rochelle's pink shirt could be seen moving around frantically as she searched some shelving next to them. Julia could see her desperately shoving some bottles into Ellis' backpack, and she then tapped Nick on the shoulder to tell him to keep moving. They fought through the smoke, heading out into what Julia presumed used to be some sort of dining area. It was almost impossible to negotiate a path now since the flames were just so big and the smoke was so thick. Over the horrendous sounds of the fire, Nick turned around to yell instructions to the others.

"Grab onto the shoulder of the person in front!" His voice was so commanding that everyone obeyed without question, "Only shoot if you have to!"

They moved carefully but quickly, and Nick shot at a few infected people who came running out of the blackness towards them. Julia's heart was throbbing in her chest, her face now coated with a layer of sweat and her mind filled with regrets about putting on her thick green hoodie when the weather was still so warm, despite Fall coming to an end.

As daylight came into view, the group realised that they were heading to an area that was probably free of fire, so they released one another and took up their weapons again, moving quickly towards the exit of the hellish inferno they'd just walked through. Passing by a couple of tables that were stood up against a wall nearby, Rochelle spotted what looked like a Molotov cocktail and another jar of Boomer bile. She grabbed them without hesitation, throwing the Molotov to Ellis, who caught it quickly and shoved it in the gap between his torso and where his blue overalls were tied around his waist while she decided to keep the jar of bile to herself.

"Safe room up ahead!" Nick announced with slight relief in his voice, "Keep moving!"

He reached the safe room before the others, and Julia couldn't help but feel somewhat suspicious that he might actually lock them out of the damn thing, but as he reached the door, he suddenly backtracked, grabbing Rochelle's arm as she caught up with him and pulling her back with him.

"One of those charging things!" She yelled, quickly moving out of the way with Nick before opening fire at it.

Out of the safe room came a zombie in overalls with an enormous arm, his other arm looking almost deflated as it flailed uselessly behind him. His twisted skull gave him an almost agonised look, but as he set his sights on the group, all pity for the damn thing vanished. It let out what could only be described as the thunderous roar of an angry bull, and ran straight towards Ellis, Coach and Julia. Coach stepped to the side to get out of its way, and Ellis quickly grabbed Julia, heaving her out of its path. It ran into one of the pillars of the foyer they'd just crossed, staggering pathetically to the left. Everyone shot at it as it stumbled around trying to get its bearings again, and it collapsed to the floor with a mournful groan, leaving the group staring at it silently.

"Well... You know what they say about zombies with one big arm." Nick said, waggling his eyebrows at Julia as he turned to head into the safe room.

Julia's brain was now filled with all kinds of horrid imagery that she really didn't want on top of the shit she'd already seen over the past few days, so while she tried to remove said imagery from her head, she slowly walked beside Ellis as they headed towards the safe room. The whole ordeal she'd just been through was very surreal and very alien to her, and she wondered if the light-headedness she was experiencing was due to the shock of what she'd just survived with her four new companions.

"Thanks for the save." She said sheepishly, looking up at the young man with an embarrassed smile, "I've never seen one of those before..."

"No problem." Ellis smiled at her sweetly, "We're still tryin' to decide what to call the special ones, but I think we're gonna call that one a Charger."

"Hey, Overalls! Raggedy Anne!" Nick's voice rang out loud and clear from the safe room, "You comin' in here, or what?"

Julia felt almost offended by the term Nick had just used to describe her, which was clearly in reference to her copper coloured hair, but she and Ellis pressed on regardless, heading into the safe room where Coach and Rochelle were busy gathering the supplies that were in there. Nick closed the door behind them, and Ellis moved to help him barricade it, while Julia stood in the centre of the room, her denim-clad legs pressed together in a nervous fashion and her fingers instantly moving to fidget with her sleeve.

Nick turned for a moment to observe the pretty, petite redhead, with her pale skin, short but almost cutely curled coppery hair, her awkward, nervous posture and her clear discomfort with being surrounded by strangers and he couldn't help but think that she wouldn't last five minutes out there. Almost as if she knew he was looking at her, she turned those deep brown eyes on him, and he looked away, smirking to himself.

Yeah... She wouldn't last five minutes...

~ To Be Continued ~

I hope you enjoyed this first chapter!

Thanks for reading so far!