For the record, I sadly do NOT own any characters from the Walking Dead.

Chapter One: Sightings From Afar

I had gotten very good at hiding. These days, it was a necessary skill to survive. The world had gone insane and everything was different. Atlanta was overrun almost completely now.

Some people were fighters, but that was never my style. I was never strong enough to fight anyone off, let alone someone that didn't feel any pain. When the zombie outbreak began, I think even my family looked at me as a liability. I was the weak one; the one that everyone thought would be the first to go. They never said that, but I could see it in their eyes when I caught them looking at me while we all watched the violence unfold on television.

A few months had passed and I was the only one of my family still alive. Who would have thought, right? As it turned out, strength didn't matter when there were so many of the undead. They didn't feel pain and they didn't get tired, so fighting was often useless. At least, it was useless for them. They didn't last more than a few weeks.

I, on the other hand, was still here. Whether or not that is a good thing, I haven't decided. I was alone. Always alone, but it was almost better that way. It was easier to stay alive when I didn't have to rely on other people.

My strategy was hiding and running. It sounds simple, but it took a lot of wit and strategy. I never stayed in one place for long, but I always made sure it was a good spot. That meant it was hard to access by the undead and shielded from the sight of other survivors. People, dead and alive, were dangerous these days.

I always had everything I needed. I had found a couple of key places to sneak off to for supplies. Feeding just one person was easy if you knew were to look. So far, I was doing pretty well. I knew eventually food and clothes would start to become scarce, but for the time being, I was set.

For the moment, I was holed up in an old apartment in a high rise. It was a hike to get up to the eighth floor, but it was worth it for the added protection. A lot of other scavengers won't bother with a place in such an inconvenient location and a few well-placed barricades will keep any undead stragglers for surprising me in the middle of the night.

I was kept in stock with by scavenging through the other apartments and so far it seemed like a good plan. Apparently most of the people in the building had tried to flee when the outbreak started because most of their stuff was left behind.

There wasn't much to do these days when I wasn't searching for supplies. I spent most of my time looking out the windows of the bedroom. I watched the former citizens of Atlanta wander around aimlessly in the streets below. Sometimes I made up stories about who the people were before all of this happened. I think about what kind of jobs they might have had and what they may have liked to do in their spare time. Doing this makes me feel both better and lonely at the same time; it was a world that wasn't real anymore and never would be again.

This particular day, I was standing by the window making up another one of these stories about a woman I saw down on the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement down the street. It immediately caught my attention because it was much faster than a walker could ever move. It was most certainly a living person.

I watched as a man darted in and out of doorways and alleys. He seemed to know what he was doing as he kept out of the sight of the walkers. It struck me as unusual that he was alone. Besides myself, scavengers usually traveled in packs with loud weapons that drew attention. This guy knew how to stay quiet and sneak around the undead.

He climbed a fire escape and slipped into the second story window above the pharmacy across the street from me. There wasn't much left in the store after the initial panic and fleeing of everyone in the city, but there were still a few forgotten items that were not deemed as being important.

A few short minutes later, the man appeared on the fire escape again. He finished tucking some things into a backpack and then looked out to survey the street. I was impressed at the way he was going about everything. He was careful, not reckless like most of the other living goons I see running around the street.

As I was standing there, wondering where this mystery man was living in the city, something sent a shiver of fear down my spine. He looked straight up at me. I was far up in the building and usually out of sight, but he saw me. The big windows don't attract the attention of the dead, but someone as observant as this stranger obviously was able to see my hiding spot with no problem.

The man held up his hand and waved right at me. It was a friendly gesture from an old world that I did not quite trust anymore. I shrunk back from the window slowly, my heart beating so fast I felt like I might be sick. I tried to collect myself before I moved back to the window to glance down again.

I managed to look just in time to see the man race across the street and into the alley along the side of my building. That alley was a dead end with a door that was unlocked. It was the same door I used to enter the building.

Thank you for reading! Any suggestions or reviews would be amazing and greatly appreciated!