Cover Luke:

'I knew Bonnie was gonna get us both killed, but she continued to walk over to me regardless of the consequences. When the ice gave way the current took me down the lake, once I had gained control I swam to the top. My efforts of trying to smash the ice were pointless, I was panicking too much to do anything, until Clementine came over and started to smash the ice. Every time I saw her hit the ice, I felt myself drifting away and then… darkness.

Help Luke:

I wanted to get out but I didn't want to risk Clementine's life. I wanted her to go back but, she didn't. The ice broke under her weight and sent us both under. I tried to gain control, once I had, Clementine was in my eyesight again but I saw a lurker approach her. I grabbed the lurker from behind and pushed it below me. As I swam up with Clementine the lurker got a hold of my bad leg and dragged me down. I could only feel panic and my death closing in, I tried to fight its weight but it did no good. I saw Clementine look at me with those saddened eyes once again, the eyes that looked at me in the same way back at the cabin. I felt myself drifting away and then… darkness.

After the darkness I felt warm, it was a strange feeling to go from being so cold to a pleasant warmth. When I opened my eyes, there was a fire next to me, no one else was there. Just me, a fire and a notebook and pen. I pulled out a damp notebook from my pocket, the pages were stuck together and the pen was missing. I threw it into the fire to keep it going, I got the other notebook and instantly I knew what to do with it. How I got out of that lake remains a mystery and why I was alone with only a notebook was even more confusing.'


Luke closed the notebook, he flicked to the back of it and start to write franticly. The four back pages were covered in numbers, they were all the months from November right up to July. November had some crossed out dates and one was circled.

Luke attempted to get up, the day was young and if he hurried his group might still be there. As he got to his feet he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Luke fell to the ground. A line of blood rolled down the back of his neck.

The house had a couple of inches of snow in it, the air was cold, the sun was in the middle of the sky and there were no clouds to be seen.

The back of Luke's head and his cheek were throbbing, he shook his head and opened his eyes. When he realised the situation he was in he began to struggle.

Luke was somehow in the house, he was tied to a chair and the fireplace behind him was lit.

"Oh? You woke up, it's about time. You've been out for a day. I thought I might have killed you when I gave you a scar." said a stranger that hadn't taken his eyes off Luke since he woke up.

Luke quickly turned his head to the man who was sitting on the stairs opposite him.

"Aw, shit." Luke said as he realised who the man was.

"I can't be that bad."

"You're worse than Carver, Tristan."

Tristan's face was young like a teenagers, although he had burns and scars his face showed innocence. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, with a gun holster on his waist.

Tristan looked at a pipe on the ground and then looked back at Luke "That might be the case but we were once friends and friends help each other, that's why I helped you out of that lake and why I gave you that notebook for a birthday present."

"You were stalking us!" Luke exclaimed.

"Yes, but good friends don't just leave each other behind."

"We ain't good friends that ended when you started to fill Carver's head with the worst ideas and stopped me from-"

"From what? Getting a toothbrush. You're hilarious Luke, but seriously it wasn't just pay back for doing what you did, it was about you having perfect teeth." Tristan said craftily.

Luke looked down at the pipe, he knew if he said something that was out of line it would be the end.

"No not the toothbrush, you stopped me from having food for a week. And I did what I did because…" Luke's words trailed off, his face was full of guilt. There was a good reason why Carver wasn't surprised Luke ran off and that was it.

"We lost ten people that day because of you, because you were a coward, you were once like me Luke." Tristan chose his words carefully so that they would get under Luke's skin.

"I was never like you! You escaped from Carver's camp long before me, you're the coward!"

As the conversation continued, Luke was getting closer to undoing the knot that was keeping his hands behind his back.

"I'm glad you think that, but I'm not the coward. I know you Luke, you might be trying to redeem yourself by protecting that little girl, but she almost got you killed and I couldn't stand by and let that happen." Tristan got up from the stairs, slowly he walked over to Luke. "You might think you're a good man but you aren't, I could kill you right now but I won't. If it was the other way around I would already be dead." Tristan crouched down by Luke.

"I'm not trying to redeem myself, I'm just trying to lead people in the right direction." Luke looked down at the pipe again instead of looking at Tristan.

Tristan got up and turned around and picked up a mirror that was lying on the floor. He swivelled around, to show Luke how his face was. A scar, still seaming with blood went from the side of his forehead, past his eyebrow and down to the bottom of his cheek.

"Do you like your make over?"

"What the hell did you do?"

"You needed to pay."

"Pay for what?

"For having sex with Jane. You cheated on Bonnie."

Luke looked down at the ground, away from the mirror. "I apologised."

"Hmph." Tristan began walking back over to the stairs, dropping the mirror as he did, making it break into a million pieces. By then Luke had untied the rope and desperately tried to do the same for his legs before he saw.

"Luke, I know we can be friends once more, all you have to do is find and kill that little gir-" Luke cut Tristan's speech short by kicking him in the knees.

Luke grabbed Tristan's neck, he whispered into his ear. "I would never kill her, we ain't alike." Luke threw Tristan down, he walked over to the pipe, flipping it as he picked it up.

Tristan got up from his hands and knees, desperately trying to plead. "Luke, just put down the pipe and all this can be forgotten about."

Luke looked at Tristan, looked at the pipe and then glanced at Tristan. Luke hit him with the pipe once to knock him out.

"Don't worry, I will forget about this."

'Maybe Tristan was right. I'm not a good man, he's now the one tied to a chair while I sit here and write in this notebook. I'm not the same, I think being under the lake has left me with brain damage. I wish Carlos was here so he could check. It's getting harder to be myself, sometimes I feel like I'm losing who I am.'

Luke once again closed the notebook, pushed it down into his pocket and stood up. Next to the stairs was a backpack full of food and medical supplies.

"Heh, you were always prepared." Luke swung the backpack onto his shoulders and walked outside the back.

His leg was still giving him some trouble, making him limp however his ribs were more painful than before. The air was still crisp, the sun was now beginning its journey to set on the horizon, while Luke started his long journey to find the group. As Luke began to walk on the untouched snow he saw something red. He knelt down and brushed away some of the fresh snow. Under it was a pool of dried blood, a piece of a light blue jacket and adjacent to that was a bullet.

Luke closed his eyes as a tear fell from his face into the blood, when he opened them he looked around for a grave or some sort of hole that would confirm Luke's suspicions. Yet with all the evidence supporting Clementine being dead he couldn't find anything, he examined the area once more and found some tire marks that had almost been completely covered up.

"Well, they must have left in a car." Luke said confidently.

Luke followed the tire tracks as quickly as he could, time wasn't on his side.


Two days later


'I'm starting to lose sight of the tire tracks they are almost covered up by fresh snow, I know that they would still be heading north, to Wellington. It's gettin' cold and dark, maybe I will find something soon, something that will help me find them.'

Luke had walked for miles, the good thing about a car is they can go for miles in no time at all. As he kept walking and writing, he spotted something in the distance. A line of cars. Luke ran in that direction as quickly as his leg would let him, as he ran, snow started to fall. It was like one of those dramatic scenes in a movie, but sadly this was real life. When Luke got close enough he saw a sign saying Rest Stop 1 mile.

"They had to go there" Luke said as he ran past the sign.

Luke burst into the Rest Stop and looked around for any signs of the group being there, they had to be at least two days ahead of him, which left him little time. He went outside to a playground area and saw something that could break anyone.

Jane's dead:

'I looked in disbelief, the one person other than Clem that I wanted to find was Jane. But there she was standing not too far from me with a knife in her chest, pale grey skin and blood dripping from her. I drew out my machete and with one strike to the head she was gone for good. I think I sat there for at least 10 minutes next to her lifeless body. I couldn't help but think what the hell happened here.'

Kenny's dead:

'I thought I saw Kenny, but it wasn't him. Well it was, but not anymore, he was a lurker. It pained me to do it but I had to kill him. I drew out my machete and put it right in the middle of his head. There was a gun shot in the side of him, I think something really bad happened here. I really hope Jane didn't go crazy and do this, I'm startin' to get worried about Clem.'

Both are dead:

'At one side there was Kenny with a bullet in his head and on the other was Jane, with a knife sticking out of her… she was a lurker. I had to kill her, it hurt more than it should've. After seeing that, I knew a fight must have occurred. I just hope Clem wasn't involved and I hope more than anything else that she didn't shoot Kenny in the head, killing someone that was about to turn and killing someone because of a fight are two different situations, one changes you, the other just makes grieving worse.'

Luke looked up from the notebook and realised the weather was getting worse. The Rest Stop he had been staying in while he wrote in the notebook was starting to let in snow. Luke got up from the floor, threw his backpack onto his back and continued his journey.

The sky was white and the snow was getting deeper. It was getting colder and the snowflakes that were hitting Luke in the face to the point where it looked like Luke's facial hair would fall off were causing him some pain. He jogged down a road into a wood and disappeared in the distance as the snow kept falling.


Thirty days later


The sun was almost completely out of sight on the horizon, the moon was rising and Luke was setting up camp in a dense wood.

Luke approached a fire he had just lit and sat on the ground next to it. He flipped to the back of the notebook and crossed off a couple of days.

"Wow, 22nd of December, it's almost Christmas." Luke sadly said, he had been walking for a full month but the group was nowhere to be seen "I hope you made it to somewhere safe Clem."

Luke closed his eyes, for the past few days he had no sleep, it was dark and cold but the fire had melted enough snow to keep Luke warm. Before he knew it, he was flat out on the log.

When Luke woke up an alarm clock was going off, he was lying in a double bed in his old room, it was vibrant, full of colour from paintings he had studied. Dazed and confused he looked around his room, it was exactly how he left it on the day the apocalypse started.

"Could it have been all a dream?" Luke questioned as he circled his room.

He staggered down the stairs, he could hear his parents talking in the living room. Just like they were when it started. When he opened the living room door, his parents hugged him, which is what they did at the start of it all. The TV was playing the News in the background, it showed helicopters flying around Atlanta, and fires occupied buildings. In the distance a police car was driving out onto the highway, close to an estate. His parents backed away, they looked like lurkers, with their skin grey and rotten, they bit him on the arm and all his dead friends came through the door, crowded him and ate him alive, tearing him apart.

Luke jumped up, this time he was really awake. The fire had burned out and snow started to fall again. It was early in the morning, the sun was beginning to rise and birds could be heard all around. He stood up from the log and reached in the backpack for a can of food.

Luke sighed "Not much left now, only a few more cans." He looked at the can "Another can of parsnip soup? I hate parsnips." Luke complained.

Luke picked at the tins hook he lifted it up and pulled the top off. He thought back to one distinct Christmas.

Nick and his family came over for Christmas dinner, our families were always close but it was the first time they came over for Christmas. Nick and I were only 14 years old and we were too busy playing with a new Gameboy I had gotten for a present instead of helping with dinner. Once dinner was ready our families swarmed over the table grabbing all the food they could. Unfortunately our parents said we could only have pudding if we ate all of their parsnips. Something we made a competition out of, whoever ate them first got a bigger slice of cake. I couldn't even eat one so Nick ended up with not only the bigger slice but almost half of the cake. The families took pity on me so they ended up giving me a small slice of cake. But now I have to eat parsnips to stay alive, which is difficult since I gag every time I start to eat one.

He started a new fire and began cooking the soup in a chipped as well as broken bowl. "I never want to cook like this again." Said a frustrated Luke.

"I always thought cooking was easy." Luke joked, but realised no one else was there, the smile Luke had created was wiped straight off his face. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Fuck."

Luke packed away his belongings in the backpack, he had to pick up from where he left off. Walking in the same direction for thirty days seems logically but not a single house nor structure has been in his path. The last time Luke saw a lurker was well over a week ago and the last time he saw a survivor was about three weeks ago but they had been bitten and shot themselves in the head before Luke even got close.

A few hours since Luke had left he got to the end of the wood, in front of him was a vast snow covered field. Crows were flying overhead, the sky was light blue, with clouds breaking up.

"Please let that be the end of all this snow" Luke said in a hopeful voice.

His walk turned into a run, his sad face was now smiling and Luke dived face first into the snow. Maybe Luke had finally lost it but with nothing but snow for miles he couldn't help himself.

Not even ten minutes had passed, but the unscathed snow was now covered in snow angels and pathetic, small snowmen.

When Luke finished being mentally five years old. He brushed off the snow, rubbed his arms to try and warm himself up and looked into the distance in all directions. An important decision had to be made, which way?

Left looked hilly, right had a river and forward was the rest of the field.

After about a minute of debating, Luke chose right.

Even though it had been a month since Luke fell in the lake, he was still scared to go up to rivers. His fear now wasn't as bad as it used to be. When Luke had to get water from a river before that, it would take him at least an hour to even approach it, he was scared to fall in, to feel the panic again. It was something Luke couldn't deal with. Eight days prior to that he almost fell in, but with fast reactions he managed to stay on the river bank.

Luke knelt down by the river and pulled out his bottle from the backpack. The river was very fast flowing, which was good for clean water but not good for Luke's confidence. He cautiously looked behind him. Not a single living thing in sight. Luke was relieved, he didn't have to worry about something pushing him in. He brought the bottle back up, carefully he put the lid back on and turned it tightly closed. Luke picked up his backpack, he observed the area. Further down the river there was a small wooden bridge, he crossed it and looked up at the sky.

"Okay if the sun is there and it's still rising, north must be, this way!" Luke said thoughtfully.

He still hoped Clementine had found Wellington and that she was safe. Maybe Luke could do the same.

The sun ascended to the middle of the sky, it was now midday and the snow covered field didn't look like it was going to end. For the past month Luke had to sleep next to a fire, but there was always the risk he would wake up with a bite mark or he might not wake up at all, shelter was his main priority at that moment.

There couldn't be that many fields without one house coming into Luke's view.

"Is that a house?" Luke questioned. "It is!" Luke said excitedly, as the house came into his view.

Luke ran as fast as he could. The thought of a warm house was something Luke needed to keep him going.

When he made it, Luke judged the house. No lurkers were around but there was one sign that Luke would see a lurker that day. A big red cross covered one of the windows. Big red crosses only meant one thing in a virus outbreak… whoever was there became infected.

A couple of the windows were boarded up and the other two at the front were wide open. There were no signs bandits had looted it, but two years into an apocalypse someone at some point had to have looted it. Luke walked up to the door, he tried to open it. He reached for the handle, carefully turning it and pushing it open, the door was unlocked but there were no signs it has been broken into.

The house had a strange layout. A long corridor ended with a kitchen, to the right there was a door leading to the living room and to the left there was some stairs. Upstairs had a door at the top of the straight stairs, leading to a bedroom. To the right was another bedroom. On the left, there was short corridor, that ended with a bathroom and to the right of that door was the master bedroom.

Luke pulled out his machete and walked around the house, opening each door with caution. Downstairs was clear but upstairs… This is the point where a lurker jumps out and nearly kills Luke but, nothing. No lurker was in the house. So whoever got infected either left or their lurker left.

Luke sat on a bed in the master bedroom, he pulled out his notebook once again and wrote about the past day. Soon after that he turned to the back and crossed off the next day.

"Christmas Eve tomorrow" Luke sighed as he realised he was definitely going to spend this Christmas alone. It would be the first time he was alone on Christmas. Even during the apocalypse he had friends with him during this special holiday.

Before Luke started another emotional torment with himself he went downstairs to search the kitchen for some food. No blood was in the house, no smashed windows or doors, everything was in place maybe the owner just left after finding out they were infected.

The cupboards were filled with food. Some was rotten. Bread, cheese and rotten fruit made the kitchen smell awful. Rubbish bags sat in the corner scrunched up, Luke threw all the rotten food in the rubbish bag. He went outside to the back garden to see if he could find a shovel.

The garden was small, it was a square with a fence surrounding it, there was patio at the front and the rest was grass, or snow. In the corner of the garden was a shed.

"There has to be a shovel in that shed, hah shed…" The word shed still brought back bad memories, Luke never wanted to lock Clementine in the shed but somehow they had to keep their loved ones safe. Just in case it wasn't a dog bite.

Surely enough there was a shovel in the shed. Luke spent more than half an hour digging up the soil. The rubbish bag was full, heavy and smelly. The person who lived here had plenty of fresh food. That's great for your diet in a normal world but not in an apocalypse when the only food that lasts long enough is canned. Luke threw the bag into the hole and pushed all the soil back into it.

"Hopefully that doesn't attract any rats, or lurkers"

The sky was a lovely shade of purple, with orange and pink amongst it. Luke entered the house again, he went into the living room and collapsed on the chair.


Meanwhile


6th of December

With Jane: Clementine hated being at Howe's as it brought back good and bad memories of her dead friends. That family never came back and since then nobody had come close to the camp. One day Jane left to find supplies and never returned. She was nowhere to be found, just gone. Clementine then had to set off on her own with AJ, a little while after she left she found Jane riddled with bites with blood dripping from her head, Clementine investigated only to find a bullet hole in Jane's head.

With Jane and family: The family were very helpful, they rebuilt some of the expansion and helped find supplies. But the family should have never been trusted because one night, Randy had started a fire burning all the food, he shot Jane and his family when they tried to intervene. Clementine fled with AJ when Randy was killing his family and she never looked back.

With Kenny: Clementine refused to go to Wellington without Kenny, for a couple of weeks they had been travelling together going back south. Clementine was worried about Kenny, but he always said he was okay. Until this one time. Kenny went into a rage about AJ, Clementine had forgotten to clean him which made cry late at night causing Kenny to wake up and become angry. Once he had calmed down he forced Clementine to leave him because he didn't trust himself any more. Clementine reluctantly left with AJ, she didn't want to leave but she had to for AJ's sake.

In Wellington: Wellington might have been the safest place to go maybe a few months ago but now, it was overcrowded, food was running low as Edith kept giving away food without permission. Wellington was starting to crumble, fires were set every night along with people rioting, stealing and murdering each other. The safe haven was in anarchy. One night Clementine found a hole in the wall after the crane fell into it, with a way to escape she left with AJ and just kept running.

Alone: After getting through multiple herds of walkers Clementine wasn't bothered when walking through a herd anymore, she hardly used her hatchet either. She kept walking in any direction as long as it had supplies and water it didn't matter which way she went.

Only a few weeks after that, Clementine found a vast snow covered field with a river to the right, hills to the left and straight in front was foot prints, snow angels and small snowmen.

"Seems like someone had a lot of fun here AJ, I wish you were old enough so we could play together" Clementine rocked AJ back and forth smiling at him.

"But first I want to follow these footprints maybe I can sneak up on the person and get their stuff. It only looks like one person" Clementine said.


Meanwhile


Luke sat on the chair for a while. It was comfortable, more comfortable than a log would ever be.

On the arm of the chair was a remote.

"TV…" Luke said quietly. Luke thought to himself.

Almost everyone in the apocalypse misses TV it was the one thing that could send you into a fit of laughter and make you cry all in the same hour. It was something that could bring families together and was very educational for people that liked art history, for example. Getting lost in thought was a bad habit however, if Jane taught him anything useful, it was that.

Luke got up and went to investigate the house again. Under one of the cupboards in the kitchen was a box, inside of it was a coat. The coat was dark brown with no hood, it was short – it only went to the waist – but it had big pockets good for food and gun magazines. Well, whoever lived there, they stuffed a coat into a box. Luke searched the rest of the box to find out why it was there. Eventually he found a note in one of the pockets.

If anyone finds this, this coat has some bullets stored in it, I wasn't supposed to have firearms anymore although I always kept these bullets just in case I needed them, but it's too late for me now. Julia Hudson.

The note was signed with a snowflake at the bottom.

"Julia…? Julia Hudson! Snowflake Julia?" Luke said to himself.

When Luke was sixteen he moved to Ohio for a short time, when he was there he met a girl called Julia Hudson. She always signed everything with a snowflake at the bottom. They were good friends, maybe a little more than that. He had returned home before it became 'more'. He had forgotten about Julia until that moment.

Luke stared at the name sadly. "Julia… how can you be dead…?" Luke questioned

Even though the note was signed with Julia's name the coat wasn't a female coat, it was a male coat. It said so right on the tag. Luke examined the coat once more, he looked at the tag again. Written across it was Luke's name. "It's my coat… she kept it…"

With no one else there to comfort him he put the coat at the end of the banister. Luke looked behind him the door had a glass oval in it. He looked outside the sky was pitch black and stars were clearly seen all around.

The house was dark, Luke looked around for some candles but he couldn't find any.

"I guess I'm just going to have to manage being in a dark house." Luke mumbled to himself.

Yet again he entered the master bedroom, he sat on the edge of the bed for a while, staring at the wall.

"This is all my fault, I shouldn't even be alive…" He admitted to himself.

Before Luke could cause himself more pain, he lay back on the bed and drifted off.