A/N: This is my first Fanfic story. Please review. I don't own anything other than my OC and her story.
"Where the hell am I goin'?" Her thick North Georgian accent even sharper than normal due to her exhaustion, and that small bit of fear that she is desperately trying to pretend isn't there. She looks around her at the ransacked stores and the abandoned streets that used to be the heart of Atlanta. With the sweltering summer sun scorching down on her copper brown hair, tied back in a pony-tail, she begins rummaging through her worn out knapsack.
"I know that damn book is in here somewhere," she mumbles under breath.
Finally finding it and pulling the small notebook out, she opens the cover and starts flipping through it. She continues walking down the street with her nose in the book, trying to find the page that she is looking for and paying little attention to her surroundings. That is, until she hears the moans and shuffling that could only be made by one thing. The Walkers.
Looking up, she sees about a dozen of them, clothes and flesh torn and rotting, coming at her from the left, so pulling her compound bow from her side, she flees to the right. As she rounds the corner all she can see is a wall of abandoned cars and walking, rotten flesh. That's what she has to see them as now, just flesh, not people. If she thinks of them as what they once were, she wouldn't be able to do what needed to be done. Turning back around, she quickly realizes that she's surrounded. Dropping the book and pulling an arrow out of the quiver on her back, she begins to fire at the heads of the moving corpses around her. Soon she determines that she would have nowhere near enough arrows to take them all down. Not ready to give up just yet, she trades in her bow for the hunting knife at her hip. She makes quick work of the Walkers closest to her, but finds she still isn't able to keep up with the masses surrounding her. She's beginning to think that this was going to be it, the end. Then she hears a voice call out of nowhere.
"Hey, Princess!"
Still fighting of the dead, she quickly looks around trying to determine where the mystery voice came from.
"Princess! Over here!"
Looking over to where the holler originated from, she saw a young Asian man in a baseball cap waving at her from the fire escape in the nearby alley.
"Come on!" he yelled again.
Figuring that going to him was her only chance, she begins to run towards the alley, stabbing decomposing heads as she goes, trying not to look into the faces that were once living people. Reaching the base of the fire escape, with the Walkers fast on her tail, she realizes that the ladder leading up to the platform, where the man is standing, just so happens to be missing and the platform itself is a good 4 feet above her 5'0 height.
"I can't reach!" she exclaims, traces of fear evident in her voice, as she looks between the Asian above her and the hoard of dead approaching from behind.
"Jump!" he yells while kneeling on the platform and reaching a hand down to her, "I'll catch you. I swear."
Knowing that this was it, either trust this stranger to catch her or get devoured by the dead now mere feet away from her, she sheathed her knife, extended her arms and jumped. For a brief moment she thought that she was going to fall back to the ground, where decaying creatures would be quick to grab her, and then she felt his hands grip her own and begin to pull her up. As soon she could reach the platform, she begins to pull herself up. Once up, the young man grabs her arm and quickly pulls her up the stairs. When they reach the top floor of the building he pulls her through an open window, into what appears to be an empty loft with blankets and food cans scattered across the floor. At that moment, she pulls herself out of his grasp, notches one of the few arrows she has left into the compound bow still hanging from her side, and aims it at the now very shocked and confused looking man.
"Jeez, Princess! What are you doing? I just saved your ass!" he exclaims, hands lifted above his head in surrender.
"That don't mean I gotta trust you. I don't even know who the hell you are." her voice still quivering slightly from fear, no matter how hard she tries to hide it.
"Look, I'm not even armed." his voice trying to be as reassuring as it could, with an arrow still pointed at his head. "Just take it easy, Princess."
"Well, that's just dumb. You should at least have a knife or somethin'," she says finally lowering her weapon back to her side cautiously, "And why the hell do you keep callin' me Princess? Do I really look like a princess to you?" looking down at herself and then back up to him with a sarcastic, yet puzzled look on her face.
Rubbing the back of his neck, the man begins to sheepishly explain. "I saw you from up on the roof. You were walking with your nose in that book and with that outfit you have on, well, you reminded me of that princess from that movie. Beauty and the Beast."
Examining her outfit, consisting of a once white shirt, now covered in dirt, sweat and blood, a denim vest, that was most likely a coat once upon a time, blue jeans and black cowboy boots, she figures out what he was referring to and begins to laugh. "Ya mean Belle? Well, that's slightly ironic I guess."
"Why's that?"
Chuckling she replies, "Rosabelle Dixon, at your service. Most people call me Rose or Rosie, but if you want to stick with Belle, than go right ahead."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Belle. Honestly, it's a pleasure to meet anyone. I haven't seen a living person in at least a week." Sinking to the floor he exclaimes, "I'm Glenn Rhee by the way."
"So, you on your own too?" Rosabelle asks.
"Yeah, have been since the beginning." Glenn replies, "Belle, how old are you? You look to young to be out here on your own."
Turning her back and walking to a window she answers, "I'm 14, and I don't really have much choice about my circumstances." Rose walks back to where Glenn is sitting and takes a seat beside him. "I was separated from my dad, grandfather, and my Great-Uncle Jesse about two days ago now. We were headed into Atlanta, from the mountains, to meet my uncle at some tweaker's house that he was holed up in. We had set camp for the night along the road and Will, my grandfather, and Jesse went into the woods to get us somethin' to eat. Not long after that, we heard screams comin' from the direction that they had gone in. My dad went after them, hell knows why, and told me to stay where I was. Within a few minutes of him takin' off, the damn Walkers showed up at the camp. I tried to stay and fight but it was no use, so I grabbed my bag and bow and I ran. Once I was away from those corpses, I knew there wasn't much point of heading back to the camp, so I kept walkin' to Atlanta to find my uncle. I knew that if my dad had made it out he would be headin' there too." She pauses for a moment to try and stop the tears that were threatening to escape her sharp grey-blue eyes.
"You know that book that I had?" She says suddenly. Glenn nods to her in affirmation. "That book had the address of the tweaker's house in it. And you know what; I dropped that damn book out there, in the middle of that disgusting mass of Walkers. There is no way in hell I'm ever gonna find that house now and now there is a shit chance of me ever seeing my family again. God dammit!" she stops out of breath, with tears streaming down her cheeks, trying to desperately wipe them away with her hands.
Glenn sat there for a moment and then took the girls much smaller hand in his own. Rose tries to pull away at first, but gives up without really trying. She likes the feeling of having a living person so close, even if she doesn't know him from Adam. They sit there for a few moments in comfortable silence.
"Well…, I suppose since neither of us has anybody else to look out for us, we could… you know… be like each other's family." Glenn awkwardly stammers out, "I haven't had anyone since I left my parents and sisters in Michigan a year ago, and I wouldn't mind having a ... you know…little sister again."
Rosabelle slowly looks up with a small, sad smile forming on her face. "I don't think I would mind having a big brother too much either." She begins to softly laugh then, "Even though you are a Chinaman."
"I'm Korean!"
"Whatever!"