"Just go, Piper!" The girl commanded, shouting over the nearly deafening sound of countless moaning corpses. Piper held the hunting knife in her shaking hands as she heard the terrifying sound of glass cracking under immense pressure.

"Dammit, Annabeth! I'm not gonna leave you! Come on!" Piper yelled back defiantly. The storefront window shattered and the two girls looked horrified as countless corpses spilled into their once safe haven. Several rotted faces stared up at them from the floor as the dead crawled closer. The standing ones shambled over slowly, some of them tripping over the fallen ones.

"PIPER!" Annabeth screamed over the noise. The brunette turned her attention back to the other girl, just in time to see one of the dead grabbing at her ankle. Piper sprang up and stabbed at the corpse in a wild frenzy.

"NO! Leave my sister alone!" She screamed. The dead didn't understand; didn't comprehend. But it just made the girl feel better and helped get her frustrations out.

"Piper! I need you to go!" Annabeth exclaimed, stopping her sister from her stabbing tyraid. Piper stared silently at her sister, before another corpse began clawing at the girls. "Dammit, Piper! Just listen to me for once!" Annabeth shoved her sister away, towards a nearby window. Piper looked out and saw the dumpster below.

"No, Anna... I don't wanna go! Come with me!" Piper pleaded.

"They're looking for us together! We have to separate!" Annabeth kicked the heads of several nearby crawling corpses, giving them a few more precious seconds. "I'll find you. You KNOW I will!" Gunshots sounded from somewhere close by. The sisters looked at each other with fear in their eyes.

"Please..." Piper tried once more to convince her sister to come with her. She wrapped her arms around her sister and squeezed her tightly. Annabeth squeezed her back before pulling away.

"Just keep running." Annabeth instructed her. She pushed the duffle bag out of the window and it fell into the dumpster below. "I love you. Be safe." She kissed Piper's cheek before pushing her out of the window as well. The brunette screamed as she fell backwards, bracing for the pain of the impact.

"ANNA!" Piper sat up and screamed. Her heart was racing wildly as her eyes darted around her surroundings, quickly adjusting to the darkness that engulfed her. Instinctively, she grabbed the handle of her hunting knife and quickly assumed a crouched position. Similar to that of a snake before it lunged at its prey.

Nothing. No sound, no movement. Just complete darkness.

Piper stayed as still as she could; knife in hand, ready to strike. It was almost as if she was trying to will a threat into existence. Just to give her an excuse to stab something. If something didn't come along soon, she'd have to resort to stabbing herself... She'd be lying if she said the thought had never crossed her mind.

Ever since her parents died... Annabeth was all she had. Now, she didn't know where she was. She knew her sister was alive. She just had to be. Piper refused to believe anything different. Besides, she could...feel her sister. They weren't twins, but Piper knew they had some kind of sibling connection. In her heart, she knew Annabeth was still alive.

A sudden rustle of branches nearby caught her attention. She crept over towards the window of the small run-down cabin she had taken refuge in. As she peered out into the darkness, a Walker smashed its face against the glass. Its teeth hungrily gnashing at air as it smeared its face against the window. Blood and chunks of rotted flesh peeled away from its face.

Piper sighed softly and opened the window just enough to slip the blade out and into the Walker's mushy skull. The feeling and sound made her a little queasy and she looked away as she withdrew the blade and closed the window.

She headed back towards her makeshift bed on the floor and grabbed a cloth from the bag. With a quick swipe, the blood disappeared from the blade and Piper put the cloth back in the bag. One thing was certain. She needed to find fresh water soon. Her supply was getting dangerously low, and she didn't know how much longer she was going to last.

Piper laid back down and tried to get some a little more sleep. She didn't know what time it was, but guessed it was probably around three-thirty in the morning. The plan was to get moving again when the sun came up, and don't stop until it went down again.

That had been the plan for the past fifty-eight days...

LINE BREAK

Piper slowly opened her eyes and blinked several times. Her vision was blurry as her eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the nearby window. She squinted, trying to figure out what was smeared over the panes.

"Oh, yeah..." She rolled her eyes as she stood up and stretched. In a fluid motion that seemed extremely practiced, she rolled her makeshift bed together and tossed it into the duffle before carelessly slinging it over her shoulder.

Piper opened the cabin door slowly, poking her head out and surveying her surroundings before stepping out into the daylight. The sun was a little higher in the sky than it should have been. She frowned, coming to the realization that she had slept a little longer than she intended.

As she walked through the woods, she made sure to stop every so often to strain her ears to try and hear anything. Running water, Walkers... Even other people. Though sometimes, the people were more dangerous than the Walkers. She had run into her fair share of looters and men who wanted to take anything and everything she had. And not just supplies...

She wasn't sure how long she had been walking. Though she was certain at least two hours had passed, judging by the position of the sun. Her stomach growled loudly and she held her hand over her abdomen.

"Of course..." Piper muttered in annoyance. She had eaten the last of her rations before she went to sleep last night. Despite having them, there was so little left that it barely did anything to satiate her gnawing hunger. Now, she was desperate to find any kind of store, or town, that she could rummage through.

Some time later, Piper had managed to find a main road. It made her uneasy because of the dangers that were associated with it. Especially if it was the LeBlair Highway. When she was still together with Annabeth, they had stumbled upon it and crossed paths with a group of...less than friendly people.

They called themselves "The Slicers", and they were the ones that forced them to separate. Piper just remembered Annabeth waking her up in the middle of the night, panicking about how The Slicers had found them somehow and they needed to find somewhere to go.

As Piper walked down the road, she heard it. The sound she had been waiting for.

Water...!

The young girl took off running towards the sound. She bolted through the trees, her heart pounding in her chest. The sound was getting closer; louder. Piper could practically feel the water running down her throat, and her mouth started watering. Soon enough, she came to a clearing that was home to the most beautiful thing she had seen in a long time.

There was a large pond that had water pouring into it from a small waterfall that was only about five feet above it. The pond emptied into a small stream and kept going. Piper didn't know for how much longer. She was too overjoyed at the fact that she had found water. By some...miracle, she had found what she was looking for.

If only Annabeth were here... The thought crept into her mind for a moment before she dropped her bag by the edge of the water. In a rush, she took off her shoes and waded into the pond. The water drenched her clothes and she completely submerged herself. It was cold, but she didn't care.

She came back up for air and gasped loudly with a smile on her face. Piper cupped her hands together and swallowed several handfuls of the water. It felt so good going down her throat. Even better than she had imagined it would. Finding the water was like some benevolent force had decided to smile on her that very moment.

Piper made her way back to her bag and rummaged through it to find all her empty bottles. She grabbed them and wasted no time filling all of them to the brim. Granted, her bag would be a little heavier now. But that was the last thing on her mind as she shoved them into the bag and zipped it back up. As much as she wanted to stay, she knew she couldn't. She needed to find somewhere safe to call home before it started getting too dark.

"Well, well!" A voice startled Piper, causing her to drop her bag to the ground. She turned around and saw three men standing just beyond the clearing. One of them was leaning against a tree and there was a man standing on either side of him. "What do we have here?"

Shit...