Setting: 15 years, give or take, after Terminus. Walkers aren't much of a problem anymore. The problem is the living. Sure, everyone is still infected. Every once in awhile, a town of survivors gets turned when someone dies unexpectedly and spreads that death. An occasional herd of 20-40 walkers can still be seen throughout parts of Georgia from these newly turned communities. The massive herds from years past, herds of hundreds of walkers, no longer existed. Starvation led to the majority of the original walkers to rot themselves out of existence. This post turn world is the only world Judith knows.

She felt like she lived in the mud. Ever since Providence turned, her father died, and she lost track of her mother and brother, she'd been living on her own out in the forest. Thankfully, her dad and uncle Daryl made sure she knew how to survive. Things were better than her vague memories from when she was a little girl. And from the stories she heard around the fires, things were much better than when the turn first happened. Her brother Carl used to tell her stories about how their family survived, how her real mother died, and how they continued to survive with her as a baby. Stories about all her loved ones.

She didn't know what happened to most of them. She saw her father die. She knew he was dead. She saw a few others killed as well. Her family, which wasn't actually her family but a core group of survivors from the beginning, had been dispersed in mass confusion when a fellow citizen of Providence died 6 months ago. Susan died in her sleep at only 32 years old. She bit her husband. As he died, she got their children. Both ran off to get adults to minimize the damage, as the town had been taught. Both died before they could reach an adult. Over and over again, until her father woke her from her sleep. Living in this world, you prepared for everything. She grabbed her backpack and ran. Carl no longer lived with them, but down the road with his wife. She didn't see him that night.

Shaking her head to clear it of the memory, she scooped more mud from the creek, smearing it all over her body and hair. Unlike Carl, who inherited mom and dad's brown hair, her hair was bright, coppery, red. It was terrifyingly easy to spot. And being easy to spot was a one way ticket to dead. She kept reminding herself this as she coated the red with muck. The mud was for multiple reasons. One, there were still stray walkers. It covered her scent. Two, there were bad people in this new world. It camouflaged her person. Three, predators had come back. It covered her scent and camouflaged her person.

Deeming herself covered enough for her day, she picked up her compound bow (a gift from Uncle Daryl) and her quiver. She remembered when she first got her compound bow. It was her fourteenth birthday, and Uncle Daryl gave it to her, saying he'd get her a real bow once she was strong enough. She knew he meant a crossbow like his. He'd taken her out shooting numerous times. Unfortunately, she couldn't draw the crossbow on her own more than once. Smiling as she began tracking a deer, she remembered other gifts from her uncle. He was the one who got her weapons. He had scavenged a child's bow and arrow kit from a Bass Pro Shop when he did a scouting trip to Florida. That was her gift for her sixth or seventh birthday. An adult bow and arrow was given to her when she was eight. Not on her birthday, but rather the day he found it. The compound was her fourteenth birthday present. She was turning sixteen soon, and had been strengthening her arms in hopes he would give her a crossbow. But then, Susan died.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she sighted the deer she'd been tracking. Stopping, she brought her bow up. Inhaling, she aimed. A shot rang out and the deer ran chaotically a few steps before collapsing. Nice shot, she thought. Slowly, she lowered her bow and waited. Four men approached the deer a mere 15 fifteen from her position. She'd seen them before a few times. She wasn't sure if the men in the group did the hunting and the women stayed behind, or if there were only men in the group. She'd bet money there were only men. She was a good judge of character, and these guys set off inner warning bells. She'd never spoken to the men, but she'd observed them on numerous occasions such as this one. Unfortunately, she was not as good at detecting others around her. She looked around, but if someone was camouflaged, like these men were, she sometimes failed to see them. Her uncle would've seen them. Her lack noticing details was made up for in her ability to camouflaged herself. These men gutted and field dressed the deer with her standing 15 feet away and hadn't a clue she was there. They joked amongst each other, finishing their task, then hauled the deer away. She stayed put for an hour after they'd gone just to be sure she wouldn't be discovered. The sun was already dipping lower in the sky, so she gave up tracking. Heading back to her camp, she shot a few squirrels for her dinner.

After cleaning them, she quickly cooked her squirrels and ate. Packing away what she didn't eat in a small bag, she headed to the creek to wash up. This was the most dangerous part of her day. She cleaned herself off at the creek every night before settling in. It was full dark when she reached the creek. As quickly as she could, she cleaned herself up. Grabbing her things from the ground beside her, she sprinted to her camp.

Her camp was a small hunting platform her and Uncle Daryl had used. Uncle Daryl had built it years ago, along with many others throughout the forests and abandoned cities in a 5 mile radius of Providence. This one was about half a mile from town, and the only one he'd taken her to. It was nicely camouflaged and built high up in a tree. There was no ladder; nothing to identify the platform as being there from the ground. Looking up from the base of the tree, even knowing it was there, it was hard to find. It took her four days after Providence to find it. On her hunts, she kept an eye out for others, but had yet to find any.

The platform was minimal. It didn't have a full floor. Merely a shelf here and a plank there for support and storage. She was lucky enough to scavenge a green tarp after the newly changed walkers had left town. Using that and some rope, she had a hammock tent her uncle had shown her how to make. She settled into it for the night, glancing longingly at the few books beside her. It was too dark to read, and she had hoped to catch enough game to skip hunting a few days to catch up on her reading. She got her love of reading from her Aunt Carol. Where Uncle Daryl would give her weapons and teach her to survive, his wife taught her to read and encouraged her to read as much as possible. She smiled, thinking back to her old life.

Originally she stayed close to Providence hoping that if anyone else were alive, they'd come back. Now, she stayed because it was familiar. If anyone she loved had survived, they weren't coming back.

After reading a bunch of these fanfic's, I thought it would be really interesting to skip way ahead of the show and tell Judith's story. Not much happening in this chapter, but I wanted to establish her character a bit before getting into too much action. Hope you enjoyed!