"Proposition: what if no one is ever alone? What if every single living being has a companion? A silent passenger — a shadow? What if the prickle on the back of your neck is the breath of something close behind you?"
-12th Doctor; from Doctor Who (2014)
"Nia, you need to sleep."
"'m not tired."
"What did I tell you about not sleeping."
Silence.
"Nia."
"...It makes you weak."
"Exactly."
"But you're still awake."
"I have to be, so no one tries to hurt us. So go to bed and be quiet."
"But I'm not tired."
"Do you want the corpses to get you?"
"No."
"What about the people? Do you want them to get you?"
"...No."
"That's what I thought. Now sleep and shut up. Corpses are drawn to sound."
"And the living are hard to tell."
"Exactly."
A sigh. "Goodnight, auntie Skye."
"Goodnight, Nia."
O.O.O.O
Skye Dominguez liked to sit back and remember her family. Her adoptive family, at least. She had no recollection of her biological one. Though Skye didn't really remember it, she'd been taken from her real parents just before her first birthday. Her birth parents were negligent, incapable of taking care of a child when they couldn't even take care of themselves. The couple had a drug addiction, one that seemed to worsen since Skye's birth. It had been through a concerned neighbor that child services even intervened. After being in foster care a few years, Skye was eventually adopted by a woman named Katya Pavlov. After everything was finalized, the young girl's new mother introduced her to her six, new, older siblings. Each one of Katya's children were adopted, each child from a different walk of life. Iris, the eldest, came from the Philippines. Walker, just a year younger than Iris, was Ethiopian. The twins, Quinton and Sonja, were Lebanese. Hana was Indonesian. Jayce was Malaysian. Katya was passionate about taking in children, since she couldn't have any of her own. But as Skye got older, she came to see her adoptive mother's passion as a bit...unhealthy. Her siblings felt the same.
The way the Pavlov children saw it, Katya's need to bring in more children could be compared to someone's need to have the latest upgrades. She'd adopt a child for as long as they were new and adorable. But once that child didn't seem as important in Katya's eyes, she'd scope out a new one. That was the reason Skye had been adopted. Jayce didn't come across as important anymore; he wasn't exciting in their mother's eyes anymore. That did lead to a bit of uneasiness between the siblings, but it worked itself out in the end. Regardless of Katya's views on them, the Pavlov siblings got along well and developed a close bond. Sadly, Skye's time with her eldest sister, Iris, was short-lived. At eighteen, the eldest sibling chose to move in with her boyfriend, though she promised to keep in contact. That had only been two years Skye got to spend with her. And it seemed Iris' decision to leave made Katya want to adopt another child. Her last one, a young Cambodian boy named Léon.
Eight adopted children. While many people supported Katya's dedication to bring in that many kids, others had questions and concerns. How could she support eight children on her own? What were Katya's living conditions like? Were the kids getting equal amounts of attention? Question after question, it felt like they were never-ending. Skye sometimes found herself feeling overwhelmed by it all, and she tried her best not to take it so personally. But after Léon became an official member of the family, the young girl knew she'd have to do everything in her power to protect him from the overflow of questions. The tidal wave of unnecessary attention. It almost felt as if people saw Skye and the others as some kind of charity case. They were the poor little orphans; the sad, defenseless, struggling kids from bad backgrounds. Then came Katya, who swooped down and took them in without so much as a second thought. In all honesty, it pissed Skye off. She had no control over how her parents would turn out. She didn't ask to be the child of drug addicts. And she sure as hell knew her siblings didn't ask for the conditions they were born into. So when people asked them questions, or congratulated Katya for all her work, or even threw sympathetic and pitiful looks the kids' way, Skye's blood would boil. She wanted to scream at them, to do something to let them know she and her siblings just wanted a stable family life. Nothing more, nothing less. Katya gave them a home, she gave them each other, but her company was limited.
And as the years went on, it came to everyone's attention that, as they got older, Katya was steadily detaching herself from their lives. They were no longer the cute little kids she'd adopted. They were young adults, becoming more independent and developing their own personalities. They were living their own lives, still keeping in touch with each other whenever necessary. Iris eventually married and gave birth to a daughter named Nia. Walker went to school to become a lawyer. Quinton dropped out of high school to travel while Sonja joined the military. Hana had married and became a physical therapist. Jayce became a doctor. Skye became a piano teacher and Léon a librarian. The Pavlov siblings were doing just fine. Katya had minimal contact with them once they moved out, and that was fine with them. If the woman who took them in wanted little to do with them as adults, then they'd have little to do with her. And for a while, things were looking good. Everyone living their lives, doing what they needed to do — and then came the news. A strange, unknown virus was on the rise. No one knew where it came from. No one knew what kind of virus it was. Was it a strain of an already known illness? Was it a mutation? No amount of research led to anything useful. Skye tried getting in contact with her siblings, to get a feel on how they were doing. Iris and her family were doing fine; Jayce reported feeling a little sick, but claimed it was probably nothing. Quinton never reported back and Sonja didn't have enough time to reply. Léon said he was doing okay, with Hana and Walker claiming they were fine, as well. For the most part, they were pulling through.
Obviously, the virus was infecting people. It was actually spreading at an alarmingly fast rate. Doctors and other medical professionals weren't sure what medicines to prescribe, considering the symptoms varied from person to person. The only common symptoms were fever, coughing, and fatigue. Other than that, different people reported experiencing it differently. Some said they got aching joints and muscles, others said they were experiencing sore throats and blurred vision — it was grueling, trying to find the right medication to give to people. Later on, Jayce started calling his siblings reporting he was being put on medical leave. He'd contracted the virus, and he was too sick to be around other people. Sadly, that meant he had to stay at the hospital he worked at to stay under constant supervision. The virus, after being in the public eye for just a couple months, was starting to evolve. A lot of patience were having their symptoms worsen. In the beginning, it was almost flu-like symptoms. Now, it was borderline life-threatening. Fevers ran dangerously high, coughing became so severe some people were finding blood. Some people found themselves unable to move, function, sometimes even losing consciousness, due to the horrendous fatigue. Everything seemed to be falling apart. And it only seemed to be getting more disastrous.
Time went on, and the virus started to get more dangerous. Doctors and scientists announced the unstable conditions of the infected. Patients were experiencing symptoms so violent, so unpredictable, that it was starting to kill them off. No amount of medication would help them, which made the situation even more frightening. In the beginning, when the virus' symptoms were milder, medication worked to numb it. In the more severe cases, medication didn't even make a dent. That frightened people. Knowing that, it made them wonder what else could happen. The virus had spread quickly in the beginning, and it was still spreading at a relatively steady pace. Newly infected individuals were required to go into quarantine. The uninfected were ordered to clean, stay alert for any signs of illness, and be as careful as possible. Even with those instructions, however, people were still panicking. What if quarantining the sick wasn't enough? What if cleaning and playing it safe didn't work? People still got sick, even under the new, strict regulations. People were still panicking, becoming even more fearful. The idea of not knowing what was going on, of not knowing what to expect, struck an almost primal sense of fear in everyone.
Skye was no different. Her brother was one of the infected. Neither she nor any of her other siblings were allowed to visit him at the hospital. As far as any of the Pavlov siblings knew, Jayce was still alive. No alerts had been sent out saying otherwise. But that didn't ease the fear and apprehension that bubbled in the pit of Skye's stomach. It didn't make her feel any less agitated.
O.O.O.O
It was a relief, when Nia's breathing evened out. Skye still had trouble convincing the young girl to sleep, even after all the time the passed. Near the beginning of the apocalypse, during the final riots that signaled the end of the world, Nia witnessed her parents' murders. It had been brutal, almost animalistic in nature. Skye had come to visit from Georgia, to see how Iris and her family were doing in the wake of the panic. It hadn't been long after when safe-zones were put into effect and the uninfected were gathered like cattle. When the survivors overthrew the military, just months later, a group of looters broke into the home Iris shared with her family and Skye. The small family were trying to pack their belongings so they could escape, and the break-in was both expected and a surprise. Homes, stores, any building within walking distance was looted. Anyone who got in the way were either killed or held prisoner. Or, if they were desperate enough, any survivors found chose to join the group to save their skin.
Iris and her husband, Marc, tried to fend off the looters, but were ultimately killed. Nia was huddled in the corner of her parents' room, her eyes wide and her skin pale. She heard every sound, from the sounds of their cries and screaming, to the weapons being used on their bodies. It was something that stuck with the six year old long after the ordeal ended. Once it became apparent her parents were dead, Nia decided she had to escape. It was risky, but it was something she knew she had to do. When the ix year old made it to the staircase of the house, she found Skye halfway up, a knife in hand and a nearly crazed look in her eyes. The shouts and hollers of the looters could be heard, and that was when aunt and niece decided to leave. Neither had any supplies on them, but it didn't matter. they had to get away as quickly as possible. Skye and Nia knew if the looters caught up to them, they'd be dead in no time. That was not an option.
Peering out a nearby window, Skye let out a breath. She and her niece were currently residing in an abandoned house, in an abandoned neighborhood somewhere in Georgia. Before the outbreak, Skye had been living just outside Macon with a boyfriend, and hoped visiting her sister's family in Virginia would make things easier for her. It didn't. The twenty-five year old still dealt with panic and apprehension, even in the safe-zones. After the final rioting and the military's abandonment, Skye decided taking Nia back to Georgia would be their best course of action. At least that way the duo would be long gone from the horrors they faced in Virginia. While Skye found a sense of comfort being back in Georgia, Nia was undergoing a lot of changes. Witnessing her parents' murders caused the six year old to be very quiet. The little girl refused to speak during the following weeks since the incident. Then came the restless nights and the refusal to eat. When it came to Nia's silence, Skye tried taking it slow. The twenty-five year old knew she couldn't force her niece to overcome such a trauma overnight, but once the six year old started eating less and refusing to sleep, that's when it became an issue. When Nia started talking again, she claimed whenever she closed her eyes, she'd see the looters and her parents' dead bodies. When Skye asked why she couldn't eat, she didn't have a definite answer. And that was even more worrisome.
It also didn't help that, after escaping their old safe-zone, the duo started encountering the corpses. At first, neither were sure what to make of it. Dead bodies that came to life? It didn't seem possible. But, that's what happened, and it seemed to have driven Nia even further into her self-destructive tendencies. There was no doubt in Skye's mind the corpses reminded her niece of Iris and Marc. That meant the older woman had to become her niece's protector. She already knew Nia needed protection from the new world, but after what she went through, Skye promised herself to always be there. To always protect her niece from the new world's horrors. The dead, the living, their own minds — everything was a threat. Safety no longer existed. Survival was key. Sticking to instinct seemed to be the one thing keeping Skye and Nia alive. Kill the dead, avoid the living, and things should be easy sailing for the two of them.
(A/N):
I know some of you guys expected the first chapter to be up instantly, and I apologize for that. Work hours have been crazy and I'm a bit of a procrastinator, so those were the big reasons for the delay. Other than that, I hope you guys at least tolerate this chapter. Let me know your thoughts, too. Constructive criticism is always helpful.
Nothing in TWD belongs to me. All I own are my OCs, my subplots, and a strong desire to take a nap. If you've got ideas for OCs/subplots, be sure to leave a review or PM me. I'd like to know what you guys have in mind.
On that note, see you guys on the flip side.
Rudie Fenton