This is my first try at a "Walking Dead"- Fanfiction and I truly hope it sparks some interest. The story's going to be a crossover and I originally wanted to post it in the right category. However, I'm a secretive kind of author and therefore didn't want to anncounce what other fandom I had in mind while writing the first eight pages. If this is not to your liking... Well, I won't force any of you to read what I wrote. Just feel free to either go ahead, or to stop ;)
Chapter 1
"Your property now belongs to Negan!"*
The man's words were still echoing in his head as he stood there rooted to the spot. He balled his hands into fists. They were only three and it took no wise man to tell him that their opponents were too many and well-armed to stand a chance against them. Frantically he tried to find a way out of this situation only to come to the same conclusion as before: Fighting back would've made no sense at all even though every fibre of his body told him to do so. What a crappy day in an even crappier world. Was it this Negan fella who made the two survivors in the woods draw up drastic measures concluding in taking away his crossbow and his goddamn bike? Was it out of fear of this guy? By now he was gritting his teeth, too infuriated to come up with a clever retort, one that wouldn't have had them dragged deeper into already hot water. Meanwhile, Abraham had begun to negotiate. He could have told him that this would be to no avail. He knew that kind of people well enough to be sure that they wouldn't even try to mull over any of Abraham's offers. Poor guy could have talked to a shark instead, might as well would have had the same effect. Right now, he would have loved nothing better than to beat that fucking arrogant grin out of the fella's face.
That conceited prick knew all too well that they had no options left, except for those he'd already voiced. "You could have the truck!" Abraham's efforts to persuade the shithead otherwise only resulted in his emitting a huff. As said before: Pointless. "Why should Negan consider himself satisfied with your truck when he can have it all?" The prick downright sneered at them. "Jus' do what I told ya and we spare your lives. Now, that's generous, isn't it?" One of the other assholes, lazily sitting on his bike, burst out laughing. Generous… Without their weapons they could consider themselves as pretty much dead already. The woods were full of walkers and in the streets they'd be as easy targets as there. If he had been an optimist as well as a faithful man he'd have prayed to god for a fucking miracle, but he wasn't. Instead, he just hoped that neither Sasha, nor Abraham were about to do something incredibly stupid. He stared at a point above the self-declared leader's head and blinked, not entirely sure if there really had been someone darting across the street or if he'd gone mental in the end.
The shape, cowering beside his companion, pointed with its outstretched index finger at the street in which a gang of armed bikers pulled over a truck, forcing its occupants out of their vehicle. For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then, the first shape turned towards its companion. "You've seen that?" "Aye, hard to miss… Eight red, three grey. Would say: Grey's in trouble!" "Yeah and red should better button down the hatches!" "You're going in." It wasn't a question. "Fine, what about the division?" "On either sides!" "At least one of us will have to cross the goddamn street then!" "Sure, but who would we be if we couldn't rely on stealth?" Grinning, the shape turned its attention to the back of the space they were occupying, emitting a faint bird-call. Two other silhouettes emerged from the shadows of the undergrowth. "There's work to do, my dear loved ones! Got to help three civilians cheating the gallows!"
Washington, D.C., 3 months prior to the apocalypse
"I have to go!" "You always go at the most inconvenient times… It's three in the mornin' for fucks sake! What could possibly be that bloody important that you can't stay?" "Sorry, emergency!" "It's what it ALWAYS is! We only meet each other like… almost never and when we do I can count the times on my fucking fingers where you, at some point, didn't have to leave soon after! I was really looking forward to seeing you again, Lyn, but you sure as hell had to ruin it, eh? Sometimes I get the feeling you're only trying to mend things between us because you don't have the guts to tell me that you grew tired of your best friend!" "Susan, please, stop… You know it's not like this. It's not true! I'll make it up to you later, gonna give you a call, talk things over, but I really do have to go now, k?" "Sure, do what you always do and piss off, Lyn. Just piss off!" It were in times like this when Lyn was suddenly painfully aware of how non-standard her life was. The dangerous flash in Susan's eyes had made it quite clear that the phone call she really was about to give later that day would be no cakewalk. It was all too likely that she wouldn't have a best friend anymore after that. If she hadn't lost her already in that very moment…
Sighing she snatched up her belongings and left the apartment. Interpersonal relationships were a bloody complicated thing when you led a life like hers. However, it never once occurred to her that she should and could give it up, doing what so many other people around her did: Carving out an ordinary existence. Sure, she didn't know it any better. Maybe… if she had grown up under different circumstances… No she wasn't going to follow that train of thoughts! Even if it was hard at times, even if it meant that she would lose people because of it, people she could never tell what she was actually doing all the time, she wouldn't have traded any part of it just to get what Susan considered a good and normal life. Lyn craned her neck. Either she would be able to mend things again, or she had to take another loss. Wasn't like she wasn't used to it… Whether through death, or the state one could best describe as growing apart. She caught her keys in the depths of her worn with use handbag, pushing every thought about Susan aside and got into her car. Starting the engine she waited until the electronic devices of the car came to life. Driving onto the streets she used the hands-free kit. "I'm on my way. Will take me twenty minutes though!" "Could you make it in ten?" "That urgent?" "I'd say so, yes. See you later!" The disembodied voice fell silent and Lyn grimaced. While turning on the radio she hoped that there had been no complications of the circumstances. The first tunes of the song that now penetrated her ears made her frown instantly. "You got to be fucking kidding me, don't you?" Neither radio nor song bothered to respond. Instead, the latter simply went on.
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when
I tried so hard
and got so far
but in the end
it doesn't even matter**
Annotations: * Sentence taken from: The Walking Dead, season 6, Episode 8.
** Songlyrics taken from: In the end by Linkin Park, released in 2000.