AN: Quick note. If you haven't read my other stories you don't have to, but I was looking over my stories and I realize the way I wrote this story previously I didn't like as much. I also was looking at my ocs and I realize I love Eli and Dean, but I also like Athena Dixon from my other story, Dixon Hearts, so I'm going to throw her into the mix too to change things up a bit. I also didn't like how I wrote the other story as much, rushing things a tad bit and not having enough Daryl and Carol in it, so I'm going to add more Daryl and Carol and change a few things up. That's all I have to say for now, so I'll continue on with my story.

-Haylee, TrueRoyalChaos.

(Elijah's pov)

My name is Elijah Dixon. I prefer Eli, however. This is my story, but not just mine. This story is that of me and my family. Stories usually begin with the main character being born or some boring beginning about how the character woke up. This is not the case for my story. You see, my story and my family's story doesn't begin when I was born or even when the world was normal. No, my story really begins the day the world ended.

It had started out as simply a cold. People starting getting sick and the news says it was just a virus or a cold, but it turned into something much worst. What started out as nothing to worry about became the only thing any of us worried about. It only took a few weeks before that simple virus/cold became an epidemic. My sister, Athena, she's only sixteen and shortly after the disease started parents stopped sending their kids to school until finally the schools were shut down. People stopped leaving their houses and stopped going to work. Everyone was so afraid to even walk outside.

The town I lived in Drewberry was quick to be taken over. This sickness wasn't just people throwing up and having dizziness. No, this was a disease that killed you except you didn't stay dead. When people got sick they died and came back as the living dead. They didn't remember who they were or who their family and friends were. The only thing they thought about was their hunger and they weren't just hungry for a burger and fries. No, what they hungered for was living human flesh. The bite is what got you infected. A bite or scratch from them made you just like them. People started calling them walkers and a hoard of them could take out an entire family. They were normally slow, but a group of them is dangers.

Shortly after the death toll came up the government started setting up safe places for people to go to. My family opted out of that. These safe places were in the cities where the food would more than likely run out and such a large group of people would no doubt draw walkers. Plus if someone was bitten and tried to get help there then that would only lead to more problems. My family decided on a better method of survival. Us Dixons were made for this world. We grew up on very little. We had to fight for we had and we often had to fend for ourselves even before the outbreak. My family did what we always did, we took to the woods. In the woods, there's food, water, and safety. If a hoard of walkers came we would climb trees to get to higher ground and keep safe.

This worked for a long time until we stumbled upon groups. My uncle, Merle, always had the idea to join the groups and steal their supplies, but there is one group that we couldn't do that too. What made this group special? Simple, there were women and children in this group. Us Dixons might be hard people, but even we knew better than to steal from children and women. Uncle Merle had wanted to just leave them and move on, but I'm like my dad. I don't believe in leaving people to suffer and fend for themselves. If I can help then I will. These people needed help. None of them knew how to hunt, how to track, how to defend themselves. They were like newborn babies, unable to feed and care for themselves. After much arguing between my uncle and father we've decided to join the group and that my readers is where my story begins.

(3rd pov)

There wasn't much to this group. There were very few men and most of them didn't even know how to hold a gun nevermind use it. The group was rather painful for the Dixons to look at. The Dixons like to joke in saying that they were born with a hunting knife in one hand and a gun in the other. Generations after generations of Dixons learned how to hunt, track, and shoot the second they could walk. It was something that the current Dixon brothers kept to.

The brothers, Merle and Daryl, were hunting this morning for the unfortunate group. When they had found the group they were half-starved and a lot of them were sick because they didn't know to boil the water before drinking it. The group was lead by an ex-sheriff deputy, but the man was a complete idiot because he knew nothing on basic survival. The Dixons have been with the group for two weeks now and only now are they starting to get the idea of what they have to do to make sure they survive and not die from dysentery.

Only now does the Dixon brothers feel it's okay to leave them unattended to go hunting. It was as if every time the Dixons turned their backs the members were doing something stupid like building their fires so high that the entire state sees the flames or drinking unboiled and contaminated water. The brothers sons had done most of the hunting for the past two weeks to allow the brothers to keep an eye on the group, but Daryl Dixon has been itching for a hunting trip and he was finally able to have one with his brother, while his son, Elijah, Eli, kept an eye on his daughter and nephew who all too much like Merle Dixon.

Athena Dixon was Daryl's daughter, but Daryl isn't surprised that many think she's Merle's. She has the Dixon temper and Merle's love of fighting and has his loud and unfiltered mouth. Dean is also like this, a mini version of his father. Turn your back for a second and both are getting into trouble. It is only worst when they're together. They encourage each other and make each other ten times worse than normal. Eli always has to keep an eye on his older cousin and younger sister, he's the only one other than their fathers that can get them to back off.

Today is no better. Eli was growing tired of how many fights he broke up and it's only noon time. The members of the group disliked the Dixons mostly because of Dean, Athena, and Merle. The three were racists, sexist (minus Athena of course), and everything that came out of their mouth was either sexual or insulting. The group sees the Dixons as no more than white trashed neanderthals.

Dixons never cared much for other people opinions and that wasn't going to change simply because the world was over. Eli just hoped his family would just stop antagonizing the group so much. "Look at the cocksucker, thinks he's all high and mighty because he's fucking that loose piece of pussy on olive oil." Eli sighs as he hears his cousin, Dean going on and on.

"Why the fuck do you care?" Eli asks with a tired voice.

"I care when that piece of shit talks down to us because of it. If I wanted I could get all these bitches giving me their pussies." Eli rolls his eyes and ignores his cousin as he works on sharpening his arrows.

"Bet he has more diseases than the walker do." Athena jumps in to say. Eli nearly groans when he hears his sister. Most people think Athena is an angel when they first meet her. She looks like one. She gets most of her looks from the bitch that is her mother. She's small, barely five feet tall with wild red curls, big baby doll blue eyes, and soft porcelain skin. She's skinny and ways probably no more than a hundred and twenty pounds, but most of that is muscle. Eli knows better than most that his sister is no angel. She might be small, but she packs one hell of a punch and has a mouth of a sailor. The second her temper rises or she opens her mouth the facade of her being an angel disappears. Her favorite things in life are fighting, drinking, and antagonizing people. She loved to get Dean all riled up and watch him lose his temper and start fighting, but Dean does the same thing to her, so in a way, it's only far except for Eli who always is the one to break up the fights.

"If you even think about fighting one more time Dean I will kick you in the balls." Eli says. "And Athena," She gives him an innocent smile. "Keep it up and when dad gets back I'll make sure he knows that you weren't on your best behavior." Athena is all the way a daddy's girl and the very idea of making her dad mad cause her to shut her mouth and help Eli with cleaning up the latest kills.

"Spoils sport." Dean mumbles.

"I really hope they come back soon." Eli sighs. "I'm about tired of dealing with you two's bullshit."

"Fuck you, Elianna, I'm two years older than you, dick sucker." Eli glares at Dean.

"Yeah, you are, so act it. You act like a five-year-old instead of a twenty-one year old." Dean flips Eli off as Athena grins.

"Eli was telling me-"

"So being an instigator." Eli snaps, causing Athena to pout.

"You're no fun." Eli rolls his eyes before hearing Dean growling.

"These fucks never learn. Goddamn it." Dean curses before storming off.

"Hey, where are you going?" Eli calls, but Dean ignores him as he walks over to the dumb bitch that they were just talking about.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Dean asks, the entire camp turning their eyes to watch. The woman was just going to grab a cup of water from the unboiled water barrels until Dean stopped her. She turns to Dean, putting a hand on her hip, cocking it out and scowling up at him.

"Who says I have to answer to you?" Dean glares at the woman, boiling inside, his eyes looking for a fight.

"I do. This water hasn't been boiled or do you not care about getting yourself sick and forcing us to take care of your useless piece of ass?" Dean snaps, causing the woman to glare right back.

"Who do you think you are Dixon, talking to me like that." Dean snorts at how she is talking as if she is so much higher up than him. Like it mattered in this world. There is no upper class and lower class anymore there is survivors and moochers.

"Listen here, olive oil, because I will only say this one. This is a new world and no matter who you fuck with your used and abused lose pussy you'll never be anything more than a cheap pathetic whore." Everyone around them gasps in shock at what came out of his mouth, but the biggest surprise was when she slapped him. The sound echoed among the camp, the slap so powerful that it snapped Dean's head to the side and made him stumble. His blue eyes glowered like an oncoming storm. The entire camp was dead quiet and tense.

"You did not just hit him." Everyone expected Dean to snap, but in fact, it was the raging redhead behind him that did. The small sixteen year old was looking at olive oil as if she had just insulted her. A raging fire burned in the young girl's icy blue eyes.

"You should watch your mouth-" Before olive oil could finish Athena punched, not slap, but punched olive oil right in the face.

"If you ever raise a fucken hand to my family again I will beat your boney fucken ass. You got that, olive oil?" Athena towered over the woman, who laid on the ground in both shock and pain. "Answer me!"

"Shit." Eli sighs before hurrying over and grabbing his sister's arm. "Back of, Athie."

"Let go of me!" She snarls.

"She learned her lesson, now back the fuck off." Eli whispers harshly to her. "Do you want to piss dad off more?"

"Yeah and who the fuck's going to tell him?" Athena snarls.

"No one has to." Athena anger slips as she turns and sees her furious father standing behind her.

"Shit."

Hehe, an interesting start I think. I hope you guys like the first chapter. As I already stated there will be some changes in the book. Dean and Eli will still be the entertaining Dixon boys, but with the rather crazy Athena thrown into the mix and Merle and Daryl will still be the same interesting Dixon men, but I'm going to make a few difference in this. This will have DarylxCarol, SophiaxOC, CarlxOC, AndreaxMerle, and MaggiexOC. I'm going to try to have a bit of each relationship, but it'll mostly focus on Dary and Merle's relationships. Hope you guys don't mind me changing things up, but I wasn't liking how the other was going and I felt I got off track with my original plan for the story. As always reviews are appreciated and I hope you enjoy this story. :)

-Haylee, TrueRoyalChaos