My gun only has one bullet. Even after all of this started I never learned how to use the weapon properly, my family dying in the initial panic -except for my brother who I hadn't heard from since the phone lines failed- and each group I stayed with being too weary of giving one to a twelve year old girl. That sort of mentality made sense in the beginning, when people still thought that things would someday go back to the way they were, when the dead wasn't coming back to life and eating people. Now, I realize that all it did was ensure that the only weapon I could use was my hammer.
The only purpose the gun serves is to free me from a situation where my options are death, or something worse. That something worse came and stole my gun, and me.
I'm not really sure what I would have been doing in this moment if the world had never ended, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been this. Virtually covered in the rot and gore that used to make me want to vomit but now just makes me numb, I used to walk amongst the dead, shuffling alongside the herds, protecting myself by surrounding myself with what I used to think were the scariest things about this new world.
The dead killed my family, overtook the military and refugee camps, and destroyed every subsequent group I've been with since. I used to pity the people who died, mauled and bitten by biters. I kind of wish that I had died along with them, now.
The truck suddenly hits a bump in the road, sending me falling to the metal floor as a litany of curse words escape me. "Goddamn it!" I struggle to my feet and make my way from the center of the back of the moving van over to the sides.
I slump down, still grumbling curse words at the pang in my side and the pounding of my head that I've been trying my hardest to ignore. They hadn't tied me up before throwing me in here and I'm thankful for that; it'll be much easier to gouge out one of their eyeballs with freed hands.
They caught me when it was storming. Rain's my greatest weakness because it washes away my camouflage and no longer masks my scent from the dead. I had been holed up in an abandoned house, letting myself sleep because I hadn't seen anyone else alive in weeks. They'd also been looking for a place to hunker down, waiting for the storm to pass by before continuing driving in search of a better shelter and some food, and I'd been unlucky enough to have them find the same place I was stashed in.
When I had woken up, surrounded by four men loaded with weapons -my own in the hands of their leader- I had thought I was going to die. They didn't kill me, but I wish they had.
We stayed in that house for two weeks, my screams muffled for fear of the hordes hearing us, before they packed up, threw me in the back of the moving van, and continued on their way.
Now I'm here, ribs aching along with my probable concussion from where one of them thought I needed a lesson in discipline. I'm hoping one of them accidentally goes too far in their attempts to 'train' me and I die, but I know they'll be careful to purposefully not break their toy.
A sharp pain blooms from the tip of my finger and I look down to realize with some amount of surprise to realize that I've bitten my nail down to the quick. A droplet of blood wells up to the skin and I watch, oddly fascinated, as it runs down the cleanness of my hand -I'd been careful to keep my hands and any cuts free of bits of the biters so I wouldn't accidentally contaminate myself- and mingles with the gore that starts at my wrist.
I'm startled from my thoughts by the sudden braking of the van, sending me slamming into the floor again. I pick myself back up while the men in the front shout at each other and whatever managed to spook them.
"They came...nowhere...dead...too many to…" What I can hear of their shouts does nothing to soothe me. It sounds like the persistent fog that have blanketed the nights since the storm a few weeks ago covered up a horde, and we managed to drive right into the middle of it.
I can hear their doors slam shut as they jump out of the front and then gunshots, and I fear that they're going to leave me locked back here until someone saves me. Or until I die.
My fears are assuaged by the sound of footsteps rounding the van and then someone fumbling with the lock. I go to the door, eager to escape this sort of death despite my macabre thoughts.
The door opens with a loud rattle and I don't resist when the one who saved me -the leader, I realize- roughly grabs my arm and yanks me out. Now that I'm out of the complete darkness of the van and in the moon-lit night, I am horrified by the mass of the biters surrounding me.
If the group of men hadn't been surrounding me, making a ruckus by shooting blindly at the horde and shouting at each other, I'm confident that I would have been ignored, my scent still that of one of the dead. Now, I'll be eaten by association, the biters smelling the living men and their scent hovering over me because I'm so close to them.
In a flash, an idea hits me. It makes me queasy just thinking about it, the loss of an essential part of me, but if I don't do it, I'll die.
I thought I was ready to die, but I'm not.
The men aren't paying any attention to me, focused more on making their way out of the horde, but I can't slip out because they've formed a circle with me in the middle. One of the men stops to reload his gun, and I strike. The shove isn't enough for him to trip or fall over, as I'm too weak from malnourishment and dehydration, but he is taken by surprise, and turns to yell at me. His lack of vigilance is enough to seal his fate, and I watch, unsure of how to feel, as one of the dead takes a bite out of his shoulder.
He goes down, screaming, the rest of the group turns toward him, breaking rank, and I run into the midst of the dead.
I bump into a number of biters in my mad dash to escape my tormentors, but none pay me any mind, too focused on the scent of freshly spilled blood.
When I'm slightly more confident in my level of safety, I stop sprinting -now more like halfhearted jogging- bent over with my hands on my knee, gasping wildly for breath.
The sun's been up for a half hour now and I'm back on the road. The woods were nice for hiding from people, but having to exert the energy to swerve around trees and step over branches wasn't worth it at the moment. I can walk in the middle of the road and not have to go around any of the abandoned cars on the side.
I'm in a rich neighborhood now. The houses are bigger and look like they were abandoned at the very beginning of the end of the world, the rich not usually smart enough to grab all of their surplus of supplies before jumping ship.
I could have stopped at any of the number of safe looking houses and tended to my wounds, but I want to get as much distance from my captors today as I can. There's no guarantee that they managed to live and escape the dead, but I don't want to take any chances.
My legs feel like jelly when I manage to convince them to continue moving, but I don't stop. I'm strangely lonely for someone whose last interaction with other living beings involved kidnapping and...well. Despite what has happened to every single group I've been a part of, I want to find another one.
As if my prayers have been answered, I see a wall. It's huge, really sturdy looking, and I can't stop my jaw from hitting the ground. My steps quicken, shuffling around the biters impaled on wooden spikes. I can hear people shouting inside the settlement, assuring me that there are still living people, but I freeze in fear when I glance up and see a gun aimed at me from the top of the wall.
For a second I feel my hope for seeing decent human beings sinks into the pit of my stomach, and then I realize that they must think I'm one of the biters. I certainly look the part, in tattered clothing and still mostly covered in rot, and I'm sure my slow shuffle is reminiscent of the dead.
I throw my hands up in surrender. "Wait! I'm not dead, I'm alive. Please, help me!"
I see the person shift the gun away and peer at me in disbelief before shouting down to whoever's at the gate. "It's just a girl! Let her in."
The first layer of the gate rattles open and I almost sob in relief at what I can see through the bars. There are people, three of them with more appearing, and they're clean.
I don't run towards them, as I can see their weary expressions, but when the second layer slides open, I can't help the wobbling step forward I take.
That step appears to have been my undoing, because I fall to my knees, vision graying and blackness seeping in. The last thing I see before I slump forward and fall onto my face is the group of people running towards me.
I wake up in someone's arms, the foreign sensation of being close to another living being and not being afraid for my life enough to shock me back to consciousness.
My body tenses instinctively, and the arms, disappointingly grubby looking -maybe they don't have running water- tighten around me. "Calm down. We're not gonna hurt you."
Eyes flying open at the southern accent, they land on the face of the man carrying me before sliding around to take in the crowd surrounding me. Only two of them, a man and a women, carry their weapons at the ready, the rest apparently not perceiving me as a threat. And it's true, that I was lonely, but being this close to a man so soon after escaping the last group is freaking me out.
With more energy than I thought I had in me, I twist out of his arms, landing on my feet and quickly putting some distance between me and the rest of the group. The crowd backs up in surprise except for the two with weapons, who raise their guns, and a man. Their leader.
"Whoa there. We're not trying to hurt you. We were just gonna take you to our infirmary, fix ya up."
There's even more people around us now, at least twenty, and it's not helping my nerves. The leader tells the man and woman with guns to put them down, smooth voice soothing me a little bit.
He notices, warm brown eyes peering intently at me. He takes a slow step toward me, and then another when I don't do anything.
"What's your name?"
I hesitate, opening my mouth and blushing slightly when nothing comes out. I clear my throat and try again. "M-my name's-"
"Riley?!" My head shoots up at the sound of my name from someone else's mouth. There's a man pushing through the group of people, and based on the looks on everybody's faces, I'm not the only one surprised at his outburst.
Suddenly, I can see his face, and even with the obvious signs of aging and the ridiculous wisp of a moustache and the bulkier build, I can tell it's him.
"Oh my God. Glenn?!"
Tears fall from my eyes and I can see them gathering in his as well. I don't have the time to step towards him before he's rushed to me and I'm gathered in his arms.
He's murmuring things to me, half-formed questions falling from his lips and barely discernible answers falling from mine. We stand there, wrapped up in each other, until the leader clears his throat. There's a woman standing behind him, really pretty and looking at Glenn like he's hung the moon.
"Glenn, you know her?"
He nods, beaming at the people surrounding us, then me, then the woman, before responding. "Yeah, I know her. Rick, Maggie, this is Riley," he pauses, seemingly choked up.
"My sister."
Yes, this will be an eventual Carl/OFC. It's set about 600 days after the outbreak, which is 62 days after the group reaches Alexandria and in the time span between the mid-season premier and the next episode.
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