The moans and groans of the dead never ceased in this world. Even when she was asleep, the sounds of their gnashing teeth never left Charlie's mind. Much as she refused to admit it, the world belonged to them now, and she was the prey.

The situation she found herself in at present was no different. As she held the doors of the rickety old barn together by herself, she ordered her brother to look around for something, anything, to board up the place and give her arms a rest. He frantically searched through the horse pens and among some discarded tools as Charlie put all her weight onto the double doors. Only a bit of wood separated her and dozens of lurkers that surrounded the barn, clawing at its boards and moaning their terrible moans.

"Alex, come on!" she shouted again. "Anything!"

He dug around a bit more before he finally presented her with a long rake with a metal handle. She snatched it from his hands and quickly stuck it between the door handles and took a step back from the door.

"You think that'll hold?" she asked.

"It'll have to, right?" Alex replied with a question of his own, sounding very uncertain.

Charlie nodded silently, and drug her feet towards the back corner of the barn, where she sunk down to the floor in exhaustion. She propped her arms up on her knees and rubbed her forehead with one hand. Alex moved to sit down next to her, his hand on her shoulder in a meager gesture of comfort. She patted it affectionately.

How long had it been? Charlie never thought to keep track of the days, focusing only on keeping herself and her younger brother alive. But she didn't even remember how old he was now. It was starting to get cold again, for maybe… the third time since everything started. She wasn't sure. But she guessed Alex was about 18 now. Thinking this, she buried her face in both her hands. He could have made it to his high school graduation. He could have gone to college, like she never did. He was always smarter than her. He was a good kid.

With that weak math done, Charlie herself was about 25 now. Almost 26. Her birthday was during the coldest part of winter, she knew that much. It wasn't so heart wrenching to think about her own losses, though. She didn't lose much when the world went to shit. But her younger brother lost his whole future, and she was all he had left in the world now.

"You okay?" Alex mumbled quietly.

Charlie rubbed her forehead again, feeling a headache settle in. "Yeah," she replied. "I'll survive."

They both glanced at the door and listened to the sounds coming from the other side. The loud grunts and groans were beginning to die down now, although not by much. There was still a herd outside, and although most of it paid them no mind, they needed to stay inside until it passed completely.

"I don't know if I can do this," Alex said suddenly, very quietly.

"Don't," Charlie spat sharply at him. "Don't even start saying things like that."

Alex sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just… Who are we anymore, really?"

"What?"

"I mean," Alex began, "I don't do anything I used to do. All I think about anymore is survival. Like I'm just an animal without the capacity for abstract thought. I can't even remember the person I used to be."

Charlie glanced at him, furrowing her brows together. He was always a bit less optimistic than she, but never had he said something quite like that.

"Sorry for waxing poetic," Alex laughed bitterly.

"No, it's… it's okay," Charlie replied. "I know it seems that way, and maybe it has more of an effect like that on you, since you had to kind of… grow up in all this. But you're still you."

She didn't have quite the way with words her younger brother did.

"Sometimes I think I might as well be one of the lurkers," Alex said quietly.

"Don't fucking say that, Al," Charlie spat. "Don't say that."

"Sorry."

They sat in silence for a while longer individually pondering the events leading up to their current situation. The groups they'd been with before… they weren't bad people. They had actually had good luck in finding several groups of well-off, decent human beings. But as fate in the end of the world will have it, things always fell apart one way or the other. Charlie wasn't so sure how keen on finding more people she was, but she knew Alex would rather have more human interaction than just his sister. But at the end of the day it was the two of them before anyone else. They both knew that.

"I'll stay up and watch," Alex said. "You get some rest."

"You sure?" Charlie asked.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. I'll wake you up for your turn if we can't get out of here by the end of the night, but for now, you look exhausted."

Charlie agreed to that and did as she was told, lying down to rest her head against her brother's leg. She fell asleep almost instantly, the irregular footfalls of the dead outside never bothering her.

Charlie was abruptly awoken by the sound of multiple unfamiliar voices. She sat up quickly and blinked her eyes rapidly, trying her best to whip her mind back into shape as fast as possible. Alex was already on his feet, talking to a mustachioed man and a red-headed woman who were inside the barn with them.

"Yes, sir," she heard Alex say. "We were just passing through this area and we were holed up here waiting for the herd to go on by."

"So you haven't seen anyone matching that description?" the man asked.

"No, sir," Alex replied. "Haven't seen anyone alive for a while, in fact. It's a bit of a relief to see some new faces."

Charlie stood up and walked towards her brother, running another gaze over the faces of the two people now in front of her. The woman said nothing, only held her gun in front of her waist silently.

"You two're not with a group, then?" the man asked.

"No, sir," Alex answered.

"Tell you what, boy, I like you," the man replied. "Why don't you and your sister come and join my camp? We've got plenty of resources and I can always use extra hands."

Alex lit up like a candle, but turned to Charlie for reassurance. She, however, was getting eerie vibes from these two people. The silent woman looked oddly uncomfortable to her, but the man… she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Whaddaya say, girlie?" the man asked her directly.

Now she looked at his face more closely and it hit her. The horrifying aura this man gave off. She still didn't know exactly why, but she didn't think she could trust him. Normally Charlie would want to give in to Alex's urges for more human contact, but she was too on edge around these people to do so this time. The man cocked his head at her, waiting for a response, and she looked into his eyes.

There was nothing in them.

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "We were actually planning on heading farther north. We think it'd be better to get up where it's colder and the lurkers are slower."

"I understand that," the man said, running his hand across the lower half of his face. "You wanna stick to your original plan. Not very trusting, are ya?"

"No, sir," Charlie said, a very bitter smile plastered across her face.

The man simply nodded at her and then looked back towards Alex. "Nice meetin' you kids." And then he turned around and showed himself out of the barn, the silent woman following closely behind him.

Alex chose now to protest. "Sis, really?"

Charlie threw her hands up in defense. "Look, I was getting some seriously bad mojo coming off that guy. Did you see his eyes?"

Alex smacked his own forehead in exasperation. "Are you serious? He said they had resources. And obviously they have weapons. That could have been the place for us."

"Yeah, maybe," Charlie responded, bending down to pick up her backpack from the barn floor, "but you've gotta trust me on this, okay? I never listen to my gut because of you, even though my gut is always right. Just let me this once."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Fine. But what's this plan about heading north?"

"You know, Wellington?" I said, recalling something former group members of theirs had talked about. "Now that's the place I really wanna be."

"If it isn't just a pipe dream," Alex responded sarcastically.

"Anyway," Charlie said, looping the straps of her backpack onto both shoulders, "let's get the hell outta dodge and see if we can't find something to eat, huh?"

"Sounds good."

A/N: hey! okay, so, i've got some splainin' to do. i used to have two other (now discontinued) fanfics up of the TV series twd (You Are The Blood and Long Road Ahead), but i have since deleted those from the site. they can, however, still be found on my TWDFF account (only because i can't log back into it hahahah), so if you want to search for them on that site, you can read them, as long as you're okay with the knowledge that they won't be continued.

i'm way, waaaay more into telltale's walking dead game, because it was my introduction to twd franchise. so i hope some people will read this fic and enjoy it (and i hope i can find the inspiration to actually continue this one)! please tell me what you think about charlie and alex, also. i want to make sure i have realistic and well-developed characters (well, it's a bit early for that, but maybe as i go on tell me what you think hahaha). basically tear me apart in the reviews, please.

i'm THINKING about making this an eventual luke/oc fic (whoops spoiler warning!) but i'm still not 100% concrete on that. i know there are more fics for him than most characters, so... we'll see.

anyway, i hope someone in the fandom enjoys this!