Author's Note: This is the last of my TWD AU prequel arcs and roughly the second one chronologically. This takes place several days after Glenn's arc begins and a few days to a week prior to Carl's arc starting. (Think mid-way through season 1 of FTWD once the outbreak got going but before everything totally went to shit.) The character of Michonne presented here is an amalgamation of both the TV show and comic portrayals of her with a bit of my own stuff mixed in there. Will probably leave this one hanging for a while until I get Glenn's arc caught up to this time frame as both of them are in Atlanta for the purposes of not spoiling anything for those of you following Glenn's journey. This will also be the longest of the prequel arcs running up until the point in which Michonne comes upon Andrea in the woods at the end of Season 2. (If I decide to do a full blown AU of the series upon completion of these 4 prequels that will be where this joins the main cast as well.) Let me know what you think, any advice/criticism that can help me improve my future writing is appreciated. Cheers!
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Chapter I:
Michonne ran terrified down the street of a well to do neighborhood in Atlanta, her long dreadlocks swaying in the air that whooshed past her as she sprinted in full stride, bouncing up and down from behind her hot pink bandana with the impact of each foot upon the ground. Being in tip top physical shape she outran many of other residents, the polo shirt and khaki crowd and the somewhat portly men and women who comprised a sizeable portion of the residents of this neighborhood. She was an avid follower of professional sports, particularly the NFL and kept herself in such condition that she could have even played on a team if she so desired to break through that glass ceiling. For the moment however he had remained but an admirer. Nonetheless her conditioning regimen allowed her to escape the terror which pursued the living aggressively to the grave.
This horror, a blight which had spread from obscure pockets of contamination beginning in modest to low end neighborhoods around the Atlanta airport and spreading outward from there. The terror she was fleeing was a highly virulent outbreak, one which had a silent incubation period of many years by which it had spread undetected through large swaths of the population. Though dormant for a very long time, some say twenty or thirty years based on the limited studies that had been conducted since the massive outbreak had sprang up, as the disease went around the world when it manifested itself the disease dealt a heavy death toll within the first few weeks. What was worse was the fact that those who perished did not remain dead but instead reanimated as cannibalistic corpses and turned upon the living as a new strain of top predator in the food chain which human beings had dominated for so long. Those who had been devoured or had received as much as a bite or a deep scratch to expose the active strain of the infection to their bloodstream also rapidly turned into the same undead wights and in turn went out to hunt their own victims.
The Georgia State Police along with the Atlanta PD and the CDC had set up a secure perimeter just south of the I-20 corridor to keep the spread of infection from penetrating into the northern half of the city. National Guard units had been activated and were in the process of further reinforcing those lines and screening all those who passed through for signs of the incurable deadly disease. Michonne would be going there as all smart people within the quarantined zone would seek to do but first she had to go south and east first. There were still people she cared about whom she had left behind at home when she went to the office one last time today only to find the law firm abandoned and locked up. Up until now she had continued to live life as if nothing had happened. For the first nine days the outbreak was still confined to a small patchwork of areas and people continued to go on living their daily lives assuming they were not in the affected spots. By now however Atlanta was in a state of emergency as of 1PM this afternoon. It was now 3. Michonne had to abandon her BMW sedan before she got to her neighborhood after some jerk carelessly fleeing the walking dead had T-boned her vehicle. Fortunately the traffic density had made this a low speed collision which Michonne easily walked away from. Her car however was a different story, leaking fuel and antifreeze from the impact. With the way traffic was flowing she was probably better off on foot anyways; she could run just about as fast as she could drive. She was almost home, just a few more blocks to go and then she would be there and could make ready for her departure to the safe zone north of I-20.
She lived in a high end luxury apartment complex on the south side of Atlanta with her boyfriend Mike and his best friend Terry. Together they had raised Michonne and Mike's baby boy while at the same time allowing Michonne to continue her full time career as a reputable defense attorney specializing in white collar cases. Her career along with Mike's job as an art appraiser allowed them to live a lavish lifestyle in these stylish apartments across the street from a well to do housing development. Though they could have owned one of these houses the aesthetics of this complex appealed to them more. Both Michonne and Mike were admirers of fine art and in fact their love of great works was how they met and later became involved. This wasn't Michonne's first go around with a live in relationship; She and her husband Dominic had divorced a few years earlier and he had taken her two daughters Collette and Elodie to live with him out in the suburbs. At the present time they were outside of the affected area and she had not heard from her ex-husband for several months prior to the outbreak so at the present time she could not be concerned with the fates of her older children. She could only do what she could for those closest to her right now. She knew her two male roommates. She knew they would be hanging around the apartment still. They lacked much in the way of intense drive and motivation; in fact Michonne made up for the lack of ambition in the entire household. She was the head, the heart and the will of the trio; for all intents and purposes Mike and Terry were just there for decoration, a couple gentlemen to help with the baby, critique fine art pieces and watch the big game with.
As she expected she bumped into Terry in the commons area outside their building. "Where's Mike and Dre?" Michonne asked him in between quick panting breaths.
"Damn girl you look like you just ran a marathon. Your lover and your baby boy are fine. They're sitting upstairs in the room." Terry replied.
"Damn it Terry, don't call him that." Michonne rebuked him.
She hated when he used that term to describe her's and Mike's relationship; it made it seem like it was purely based on sex which it wasn't. Their relationship went deeper than that, in fact the sex was entirely the frosting on the cake; the real meat and potatoes of their relationship was on a totally intellectual level. Calling Mike her "lover" cheapened that sentiment and also gave her the embarrassing feeling that Terry was in the bedroom with them. That was something she wouldn't mind as Terry was one good looking man, smooth dark mocha skin wrapped tightly over moderately ripped arms, pecs and thighs. Terry had a slick shaved head and face and seemingly glistened in the sunlight. Judging by the tight jeans he often wore he had the outline in his crotch that he was sporting a mighty fine package as well. Regardless it would have to be something that Mike was ok with first; she respected her boyfriend too much to spring a thing like that upon him with no prompting. All in all she found herself surprised and ashamed that she was thinking about Terry's tube steak at a time like this. She was here to get her child and close companions out of harm's way; that is what her mind needed to be laser focused on.
"Come on; let's go get them before the shit finds its way here." Michonne told Terry.
"Shit's already here Mishi." Terry replied playfully. "Mike and the baby's got to get packed if we're gonna get going. I'll go upstairs and get him. If you want to help you can check the neighbors I heard some screams coming from the house where that punk ass kid lives just a minute ago. If shit's going down that's where it'll be." Terry continued.
"Alright I'll see what's up. You be ready to go the moment I get back ok?" Michonne told him.
"Will do. You want to take my piece with you over there?" Terry offered Michonne his handgun.
"Keep it. I'm just going over to check on them not pop a round off in them." Michonne declined.
She then ran across the street avoiding a sparse crowd of fleeing persons making their way out of the neighborhood and proceeded to go check on her neighbors while Terry went to get Mike and the baby ready for departure. She didn't particularly care for these neighbors as their son would routinely torment the neighborhood dogs which kept her up at night; plus she wasn't much of a fan of animal abuse though no one ever called the cops on that kid. Still these people were people and she couldn't help but not want any ill will to come to them. Michonne approached the house; a two story off white Victorian with yellow and gold trim which in and of itself gave off a rather creepy vibe. It was like the kind of place one expected a serial killer to live and well the way the spoiled brat that lived there behaved he very well could have been one in the making. She walked up to the front door down sidewalk path through the well-groomed bright green lawn lined with daisies in full bloom. The door was peculiarly left ajar which prompted Michonne to enter in to investigate further.
"Hello?" Michonne called out. "Is anyone home?" she asked into the air.
She turned the corner from the living room into the dining room beside the stairs. "Ma'am, sir, are you. . . "Michonne began to call out again when something caught her by surprise.
Michonne found three bodies lying in a spattering of blood upon the marble tile floors of the dining room, all of which had been gnawed upon but more or less intact in various stages of consumption. Two of which she recognized as the neighbors and one was a young man she hadn't seen before, a friend of their son's perhaps. Looking for the missing family member, she walked into the master bedroom and found another body, this one with its head sliced clean off. It wasn't the annoying teenager that tormented the neighborhood dogs however; that boy was nowhere to be found. Michonne looked on the wall beside the bed. There next to a recognizable oil painting were a set of three samurai swords mounted on display, only one of them was missing. She knew the painting to be a replica but still couldn't help thinking about how much she would like to have it for her own. Regardless of her passion for fine art she followed in kind after what the neighbor's son must have done and took the more utilitarian item from the wall. She grasped the longer katana of the two remaining swords and removed it from its wall mount. She unsheathed it and felt it out with a few slashing and parrying moves in the air. For being a display piece it was remarkably well balanced. She had taken up fencing as a hobby for four and a half years in college so her skill with the blade was markedly better than the average person who happened to pick up a sword. Though it may need sharpened she thought katanas held their edge remarkably well and clearly another in the collection had proven itself to be capable of severing a man's head. While she was admiring the blade the severed head she reflected upon had reanimated and started gasping for air while chomping done on nothing attempting to turn itself in the direction of Michonne. Michonne turned back and walked towards the head observing momentarily it's futile efforts to move itself towards the sound of her feet. It was a pathetic creature, lacking in the cognition of the man it once was, now appearing to be driven blindly by instinct with its dead brain much like a worm or a sea star at best. If this person, whoever he was, was still in that decapitated skull this was no life to live. The kindest thing Michonne could do for him was to put him out of his misery. She scowled down at it with a look of both pity and disdain on her face before stabbing the severed head in the face. The blade entered and exited the disembodied head cleanly leaving only a darkened reddish purple blood stain along its length which she wiped off on the bedsheets beside her. She went throughout the house with the sword at the ready looking for the boy. When he was nowhere to be found she assumed that he had fled the home on his own and was probably on the way to the safe zone, the place where she needed to be. She started towards the stairs and stopped when she heard movement below. She heard misplaced steps and bumping against the walls and tables, knocking over cups and plates that were laid out as if a drunkard had stumbled into the room.
"Hello?" Michonne called down the stairs.
She was greeted with a guttural growl and raspy hissing sound like that of a man writhing in agony struggling to breathe. The singular noise was then joined by another, and then another slightly different hideous sounding noise in a chorus of dry raspy wheezing sounds. Michonne cautiously picked up a vase from an oaken shelf adjacent to an upstairs window and tossed it down the stairs. When the vase shattered at the base of the stairs it drew the attention of those making the revolting gasping noises. To Michonne's surprise but not entirely shock it was the slain trio that had been lying on the kitchen floor. She had assumed they were too far gone to be reanimated or that they had already been put down a second time but apparently not. They could not have died long ago for them to have just arisen now. They were freshly deceased, pale, lacking in the redness and vibrancy indicative of blood flow with loose half eaten organs hanging out of gaping holes in their torsos and necks. Michonne allowed them to come up the stairs after her so that she could deal with them one on one. She was a fair enough match for a trained swordsman so a stupid clumsy zombie would be nothing for her to take on if she faced them one at a time. She found herself impatient with the speed the walkers lumbered up the stairs, bumping into each other and jockeying to be the first one up in the process pulling the others down and getting stuck along the railing. The second man was pushed over the side railing back into the dining room while the pair, a man and a woman surged forward towards Michonne. The first one up, the man Michonne sliced in half through the stomach which had been chewed up considerably and weakened being held together by severed tendons, flayed internals and disjointed muscles and bones. The two halves of the man tumbled back tripping up the woman which allowed Michonne to chop downward onto her skull, cracking a few inches into the brain matter which resulted in the cessation of movement in the undead wiry blonde haired female. She noticed the man which she rent in twain was still moving, well at least his upper half was.
"It's the brain." she muttered. "You got to take out the brain; that's what stops them." Michonne noted.
She started down the stairs and hacked up the upper portion of the man before kicking it aside. Then stood her ground and impaled the face of the remaining zombie when it again attempted to move up the stairs. She walked down the stairs and kicked the zombie off her blade and onto the dining room floor. She went into the kitchen, wiped off her blade on a dish towel and took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator and quickly downed it to quench her thirst. Michonne then sheathed the blade and clasped it in her right hand as she exited the room and the house to rejoin her "lover" and his friend outside their own apartment.
"Nice sword. So you a ninja now? Wooooaaaaaah!" Terry joked around with Michonne using a terribly executed Bruce Lee impersonation upon seeing her wield the Japanese style sword.
"Cut the crap Terry. We got to get out of here." she rebuked him. "Dre all packed up?" Michonne turned and asked Mike.
"Ready to go. We've got water, formula and some spare diapers in my backpack." Mike replied. He wore a yellow backpack with cartoonish zoo animals on his back while carrying baby Andre in one of those chest caddies in front of him like a kangaroo.
"The things you heard about on the news, the freaks that go around munching on people, they're here now so be on guard. We should be good once we get to the safe zone but until then anything could happen so don't you dare fuck this up, either of you. We're all getting there alive you hear?" Michonne sternly warned the two men.
Terry nodded and took out his gun while mike made sure Andre was secure. Together the three of them set out on their journey north through a city in full social collapse to a promised oasis of peace just across the 20.