Chapter One

The sun shone bright down in the forest. The leaves caused some shadows to flicker across bark, making the young girl turn quickly and see what was there. She was only thirteen and had been surviving by herself in the zombie apocalypse.

On her back was a purple backpack with the name Emily sewn onto it. It contained the things she had looted and scavenged throughout her wandering. In her hand was a 9mm pistol, loaded and ready to shoot if need be.
Her wavy blonde hair was hanging loosely on her shoulders in two pigtails. She might have seemed small and helpless, but she had survived for over a week on her own. Somehow, she had gotten herself lost in these dreaded woods.

There was a slight twig snap and Emily's head snapped towards the noise. She raised the pistol, aiming it at the area the sound had came from. She knew what the zombies looked like, horrible, awful, rotten, bloody creatures; but she was not afraid of them at all. She knew how to defend herself and that's exactly what she planned to do.

She took a step backwards, her eyes and gun still fixed where she had heard the snapping twig. She gasped as her ankle got caught on some thorns, drawing blood. She swept the area around her in one look. The blood pulsing from the small prick points would only attract more of the undead.

She saw nothing, so she knelt down to untangle her foot. She had to keep going. She had to make it. It was a driving need that had fueled her ever since the outbreak. Emily ripped her foot from the bush, taking in a small yet sharp breath as the pain of the brambles struck her. A thorn still remained in one of her wounds so she pinched her two fingers together, setting the gun down to do this, and removed it.

She turned towards where the sound was and her eyes grew wide. Walking towards her was one of those dreaded creatures. It stumbled stupidly on it's own feet and fell, grabbing the girl's ankle. She screeched in terror as she saw the snapping jaws of the creature.

The blonde kicked it in it's rotted face and stood up. She grabbed her gun, but fell on a nearby branch. Her side snagged on a rock, pain slicing through her as the rock cut through her shirt and scraped her side. It was a decently deep gash, blood instantly pulsed out of it.

The creature crawled towards her, it's hunger growing. She reared back, her head smacking off of a tree trunk. This was not her lucky day. A bump rose on the back of her head, a trickle of blood flowing from the wound and staining her blonde hair auburn. Her gaze went fuzzy and she could hear more footsteps coming towards her.

She reached over for her pistol, grabbed it, and aimed the best that she could. She could hear a heavy Southern accent talking in slurred words as the bullet reached the zombie's brain. It went limp and she let her gun fall out of her hands. Her gaze dotted black and faded more. She felt weak from the loss of blood; she was only thirteen, it was a lot for her.

She felt herself being lifted up, thinking that this was this end for her. She had been bitten or she blacked out and she was dead. She had thought that for a good terrifying yet joyful second or two until she vaguely heard more slurred words. Then, she was moving. She looked up and before blacking out the last thing she saw was the icy blue eyes of Daryl Dixon.

"Is she awake yet?" A fatherly toned voice spoke.

Emily's head was throbbing, the pain in her side a close second. She wanted to open her eyes, to find out where she was, but her head protested. She felt that if she so much as squinted a peek at the world beyond the black of her eyelids that she would explode in pain.

"Nah," The same Southern accent replied to the fatherly one. "Not yet."

She heard a door creak shut and then the sound of a knife hitting wood. Emily now let her eyes flutter open, and she observed the world around. The ceiling was a beige color, lit up by candlelight. She went to sit up, but bolts of pain shot up from her side. Ignoring whoever was in the room at the moment, she lifted up the end of her shirt, which she now noticed was not the same one she had been wearing in the woods, and looked at the source. Stitches now lined the wound from the rock and it was surrounded in black and blue. It stung to the touch (she had inspected the stitches closer by lightly putting her fingertip to it) and it looked horrible to her.

She remembered that there was someone in the room now. She turned her head towards where she had heard the Southern accent. At the end of the bed was a chair, and in the chair was a man with brown hair and blue eyes. The eyes seemed to spark a memory, but she couldn't really remember so well. He was sharpening a stick to a point and next to the chair was a crossbow, a strap hanging off of the weapon. The shirt the Southern man was wearing had no sleeves, making his muscles show. He looked up from what he was doing, now noticing her.

"Where am I?" Were the first words to leave her mouth.

Emily mentally scolded herself for asking such an obvious first question, but remembered that it was a good one. She had no idea where she was, who this man was, and the world was ending. Correction, it had ended. She had thought she was all by herself here in this barren land, but it turns out there were at least two other people alive also.

"Georgia." The man answered simply.

Georgia? Georgia? She had gotten that far? Emily's last known location was Alabama. She had made it across a whole state in about a week. Amazing.

"Georgia?" She questioned, making sure she had heard him correctly.

He nodded, a small smirk growing on his face.

"So...who are you?" She asked. Another stupidly obvious question.

Before he could answer, the door swung open. A woman with short gray hair popped her head in from the hallway outside.

"Daryl-" She stopped talking when she turned her head towards Emily. "Oh."

Carol looked at the girl, memories of her own Sophia flashing through her mind. "She-she's awake." A sudden motherly instinct swept through the woman and she went over to the side of Emily's bed. "Hello, dear." She said calmly. "I'm Carol and this is-"

"Daryl. She was just askin' 'bout my name." Daryl interrupted Carol.

"Does she remember anything?" Carol asked him.

Emily was silent. She felt a little uncomfortable around Carol. She wasn't really sure why, she just was. Maybe it was the sudden motherly role that intimidated her. She hadn't had a mother's love in quite a while.

"I don't know. But she did just get the shit beat of out of 'er not too long ago so I wouldn't keep my hopes up."

"You need anything, um..." Carol looked at Daryl for the girl's name. Emily remembered then that it was Daryl who had saved her after she blacked out alone in the woods. She knew now why it was his eyes that sparked memories; she had seen them when he was carrying her back here.

"Emily." Daryl answered, turning back to sharpening the wood into arrows.

Emily thought how he would know her name. Then it came to her- her backpack had her name on it. So many questions began to form in her brain now.

"You need anything, Emily?" Carol repeated, using her name.

She shook her head, her blonde waves bobbing slightly. Her pigtails were out and her hair was brushed. It had been a while since her hair was brushed also. But who had done it?

"Ok. If you need anything, just ask." Carol left and shut the door behind her, going to tell everyone else that the little girl Daryl had rescued was awake and okay. She figured Carl would be happy now that there was someone near his age to keep him busy.

Emily waited until she was sure that Carol was gone to speak again.

"So why have you stuck around? I don't mean anything to ya." She said.

"Well, for one, I figured you might remember my face if you ever woke up. Two- I'm kinda curious about how you could survive on your own when this group can barely survive together." He answered. When he had heard the scream, a slight glimmer of hope lit up in him that it might be Sophia- that he had found her. Half way to her, he remembered that Sophia was dead and that she would not be back ever. That just peaked his interest more to who the scream belonged to. When he reached Emily, she was shooting a rotting walker through the head. The girl had some guts.

"Is there more of you? I heard another voice- beside Carol and you - when I was just getting up. Plus, you said that there was a group."

Daryl nodded. "There's plen'y of us."

There was a knock at the door, causing both of their heads to look towards the noise. To Emily, it was just instinct from being on her own. Carol came in again, followed by several others.

Emily could see a Chinese man, a man with black curly hair, a boy that looked her age, a woman with long wavy black hair, and an old man with a Hawaiian shirt and a hat on. Others followed them, flooding the room.

"I brought everyone so you could see who else is here." Carol told the thirteen year old.

Daryl got off of the chair and grabbed his crossbow, setting the arrows in the holder on the bow. He put the chair into the corner to make room for everyone else.

"I'll leave so you all can meet 'er then." He said, walking towards the door.

Emily glared at him. She didn't want him to leave. Having Daryl leave would just make the whole thing ten- maybe one hundred -times more uncomfortable. She could swear she saw him smirk at her tauntingly before he left. Great. He understood her problem with people and decided to make it worse. Stupid redneck. She looked at everyone in the room, feeling more and more overwhelmed. She felt hatred towards Carol (as well as Daryl). She understood that her intentions were good, the woman just wanted her to get used to the other people there, but she didn't want to. She didn't really like meeting and talking to new people and the apocalypse situation didn't make it any better. That's why it was odd with Daryl. She was comfortable talking with him. She shoved the thoughts out of her mind and began to think of a way to make this any better and less awkward.

Nothing came to mind.

How was it? Please review for me, this is my first Walking Dead story and I want to know if I did good on it.

Thanks!