(Author's note: After writing this first chapter I became aware that in the game Sarita says something that implies that Kenny had a beard when she found him, meaning it was a while after Savannah. Since I was already done with this chapter when I found this out and it's just one small line in the game, I simply chose not to care. One mildly contradicting line in the game will not ruin the experience of reading this fan-fic.)

After what had felt like hours of running, Kenny ducked into an abandoned restaurant he was passing and finally stopped to catch his breath. He felt very weak, and didn't know why until he looked at his arms and realised how scratched up they were. He wouldn't have been surprised if he found out that he had been bitten during all the commotion. Kenny began thinking about the rest of his group- Lee, Omid, Christa... Clementine.

Just as he was thinking this, Kenny felt a surge of pain in his legs and fell over. His arms weren't the only thing that had been damaged, and now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, the pain from running more than he had ever run before was catching up to him.

Kenny heard voices outside. There were people there, talking to each other. They didn't sound like anyone he knew, so he perceived them as a threat. He pulled out his pistol, only to remember that he had spent the last bullet already. After a quick mutter of "Fuck", Kenny saw a corpse hunched over a table with a shotgun in its hands and a shotgun-induced hole in its head. Kenny stood up, leaning on a table for support, and walked painfully towards the table with the shotgun beside it.

The strangers' voices were getting louder. The strangers entered Kenny's field of view before he could take the gun. There were three of them- two men and a woman. Kenny took the shotgun and tried to aim it at the strangers, but it was very heavy, and in Kenny's weakened state he dropped the gun almost immediately. He began to feel sick. His vision got blurry and out of focus. The woman seemed to be saying something to him, but it was incomprehensible to him. Kenny closed his eyes...

-The Strangers-

A group of three was walking along an old, cracked road. "I'm fucking hungry", James moaned, breaking the silence. "We all are", Sarita replied, "There's an old abandoned restaurant just up ahead, we can see if there's something we can eat there". "But", interjected Jack, James' brother, "wouldn't the meat have all rotted by now?" James let out a low growl, followed by his blunt response of "I don't give a fuck 'bout what we eat, long as it's not rat shit".

"Yeah, I knew we shouldn't have refused those mormons offering food" came Jack's reply. Sarita smirked. "Oh, and you'd have been willing to listen to them talk about their religion for an hour? In all honesty... I never thought door-to-door missionaries would still be a thing in the zomb-"

Sarita paused as she saw a scruffy-looking man point a shotgun at her and almost immediately drop it. Suddenly, the man's eyes went out of focus. Sarita tried to prevent the man from falling unconscious. "Hey, stay awake! Who are you?! I'm talking to..."

The man collapsed. "Well!", James exclaimed incredulously. "That was... something. So, this is the place, yeah? All fuckin' right, time for some food!"

James ran into the back room like a small child in a toy store. Sarita was still looking at the unconscious man on the floor. "Maybe we should take him with us", said Sarita. Jack was shocked. "But... he tried to kill us!" "Correction- he pointed a gun at us. He was scared... wouldn't you be scared too? He seems to be in really poor health; maybe we should take him to the room". Jack was about to object again, but Sarita interrupted before he could say anything. "When you two and your sister found me-"

"Don't... fucking... talk about her...", said Jack through gritted teeth. "...Fine", he said, "Let's take him back to our place. But if he just gets up and tries to kill us-"

"That won't happen".

"If it does happen... we're kickin' you out of the group. Deal?"

Sarita bit her lip. Was it really worth it, to save this one man's life?

"Deal."