Hey everyone! This is my second fanfic and I'm really excited about it! Please review, and leave suggestions for the story. Enjoy!

I had been running for hours, getting nowhere. I had no idea where I was going, or what I was going to do. I was separated from my group a few hours ago; we got overrun and pretty much everyone was dead. Now, I'm running through some forest hoping to find other survivors.

"Sophia!" I heard someone yell. It sounded like a man with a thick southern accent. I made my way over towards the voice. "Sophia!" He screamed again. I stopped behind a bush so I was well hidden, so I could see who this person was. I saw two men, the one who yelled had a crossbow in his hands, and he had short brown hair and light blue eyes. The other man was in a sheriff's uniform, and he had short dark brown hair. I figured I'd hide for a little while longer; I can't trust them. As I shifted my weight, a branch snapped from under my foot.

"Shit!" I whispered.

"Sophia?" The man with the crossbow called. After receiving no answer, he raised his crossbow and made his way over to the bush I was hiding behind. I decided to stand up and reveal myself.

I had my hands in the air and I stood up slowly. "Who the hell are you?" The man asked.

"I'm Jenny." I replied.

"Put all your weapons on the ground." He said.

"I ain't got any." I said. "I was separated from my group a few hours ago. We got overrun, and I got nothing now."

The man in the sheriff's uniform stepped forward. "I'm Rick, and this is Daryl." He said while pointing to the man with the crossbow. "Daryl, put your crossbow down, she's just a little girl."

The man named Daryl hesitantly put his crossbow down. "Where was your group?" Rick asked.

"Just outside of Atlanta. We had a little campsite, but all of a sudden a shitload of freaks appeared and for all I know I'm the only one that got out alive."

"We came from Atlanta; from the CDC. It's gone now." Rick said.

"Seems like everything's gone now, doesn't it?" I replied.

"Well, if you'd like you can come back to our group."

"Hold on a second." Daryl said. "We can't trust her! We don't even know her!"

"What do you think I'm going to do exactly?" I said.

"Daryl, relax." Rick cut in. "She's just a teenager, she's all alone and she's got nothing."

"If you don't want me in your group then I'll just look for another one." I turned around and started walking away. I felt someone grab my wrist and spin me around. I looked up to see Rick grabbing me, and I froze with fear. What if he was going to hurt me? This was a horrible idea.

He felt me tense up, so he let go of my wrist and I relaxed a little. "Don't be silly!" He said with a smile. "You're welcome to stay with us."

Daryl looked really pissed off, and started heading off in the opposite direction.

"Come on, our group's probably worried." Rick said.

Daryl was no longer in sight; he was really far ahead of us. Rick was trying to be nice, but I was still uncomfortable being with him. "So, how old are you?" He asked.

"15." I replied.

"I have a son that's about 12. He'll be happy to have another person around his age!" He looked sad for some reason. "We um… we just lost a girl, Sophia. She was my son's age."

"Is that who Daryl was yelling for?"

"Yeah, we just lost her. Our group's stopped on the highway and a huge herd passed by. A few walkers chased her into the forest and now we can't find her." Rick had a sad look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry to hear that." I said.

"Well, we're almost there." We continued walking for about 2 minutes until we reached the highway. Daryl was nowhere in sight, but I saw a lot of others staring at me and Rick as we made our way up a hill.

A lady with short gray hair looked hopeful, but then she started crying and ran away. We stepped over the guard rail and were surrounded by people. Rick walked over to a lady with long brown hair, and a boy younger than me and hugged them.

"Who the hell is this?" A man with curly brown hair asked.

"This is Jenny." Rick said. "We found her in the forest. Jenny this is Shane." He pointed to the man who asked who I was. He pointed to an Asian man, "That's Glenn." He said. "There's Andrea and Dale." He gestured towards a blonde haired woman and an old man with a white beard. He pointed at a large black man who was bleeding heavily from his arm. "That's T-dog." He said. "And this is my wife Lori, and my son Carl." He gestured towards the woman and boy he hugged earlier. Daryl stepped out of an RV and walked over to the crowd; he seemed like he calmed down a bit. "You already know Daryl. Carol's in the RV, she's the one with short gray hair." Rick said.

I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do.

The silence was broken by Glenn, the Asian, who asked, "So… what happened to you?"

"Well I was with this group. We had a campsite but a few hours ago it got overrun, but somehow I got away. I had been running in the forest for hours when I came across Rick and Daryl." I explained.

"Maybe it was the same herd that passed through here." The woman named Lori suggested.

I was surprised. I didn't expect everyone to be so welcoming. The crowd dispersed, and the blonde woman, Andrea walked over to me. "Let's go inside the RV and get you cleaned up." She said.

We entered the RV and I saw Carol crying on the bed. Andrea led me to the bathroom, got a washcloth and wiped the dirt off my arms. "What happened to Carol?" I whispered.

"Her daughter just disappeared." Andrea stated.

"Oh, Rick told me a girl went missing."

We were silent then, and when she was finished cleaning me off she left the RV, leaving me alone in the bathroom. I stood there looking in the mirror, wondering how I got here. Not just here in the RV, but in this world. Before the world ended I never got into trouble, I was a good student, and I was nice to everyone. The apocalypse changed me though, now I was a bitch with trust issues. I suppose everyone has trust issues nowadays, but I still didn't like the person I turned into.

Lori poked her head in the bathroom. "Hi Jenny! Do you want to come out and join us?"

"Um, sure." I said.

We walked out of the RV and I saw that the whole group was gathered around one of the cars. "Shane, you and Glenn will go East, and Daryl and I will head West." I heard Rick say.

"Uh, what's going on?" I asked.

"Oh hi Jenny, we're just going out to look for Sophia."

"Do you want me to come too?"

"No, thank you. We've got it covered." Rick said.

Shane, Glenn, Daryl and Rick all disappeared into the forest. The boy named Carl came up to me. "Hi I'm Carl!" He said with a big smile on his face.

I smiled back at him. "I'm Jenny."

"So do you want to explore with me?" He asked.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I looked at Lori for approval.

"It's fine, just stay within Dale's sight." She said.

"Alright, let's go Carl." We walked through the mess of cars, looking through them for any salvageable items. There wasn't much, just some old clothes.

"Jenny! Jenny, come look!" Carl yelled.

I ran over to him, and he was pulling a black bag out of a car with a freak in the driver's seat. "Be careful Carl! That freak could still be alive!"

"He's not, trust me. Is that what you call them, freaks?" He asked.

"Yeah, what do you call them?"

"We call them walkers, because all they do is walk around."

"That's true."

He finally got the bag out and opened it to reveal dozens of weapons. There were knives, guns, baseball bats, a lot of stuff.

"Oh my God!" I said.

"Can I keep one?" He asked me.

"You're going to have to ask your mom about that."

We carried the bag back to the group. "Hey guys, look!" Carl said.

Everyone was stunned by the weapons. It was nice to have a sense of security.

"Where did you find these?" Andrea asked.

"Carl found them in one of the cars." I explained.

"Mom, can I keep one?" Carl asked Lori.

"Absolutely not. You could hurt yourself."

"But please mom? I'll be careful I promise."

"No Carl. It's too dangerous."

Carl stormed off, unhappy. Then Shane, Rick, Glenn and Daryl stepped out of the forest. Carol came running out of the RV, only to be disappointed seeing that Sophia wasn't with them. When they saw the weapons they all looked shocked. "What's all this?" Rick asked.

"Carl and Jenny found them." Lori said.

"Well, it was really just Carl, you should thank him. I just carried them back." I replied.

The men still looked impressed. "Alright everyone take a weapon." Rick said. Everyone picked their weapon, but I didn't take any. "Aren't you going to take one Jenny?"

"Um, I guess." I picked up a long bladed knife, and slipped it into a holster that came with it. I wrapped the holster around my leg, so my knife was always with me. I looked up and saw Carl glaring at me.

"Dad, can I have one?" Carl asked.

"I already told you no." Lori replied.

"Your mom's right Carl, you could get hurt." Rick said.

"But Jenny gets to have one! She's only a few years older than me! And I found them anyway." He complained.

"She's still more responsible, and I'm sure she can handle a weapon. You're not getting one, end of discussion." Lori said.

Carl sighed angrily and walked off again. I followed him through the cars, and when I caught up to him he glared at me. "What do you want?" He said.

"Carl, I'm sorry about that. It's not my fault, I agree with you. You need to be able to protect yourself, they just don't see that."

He looked up at me, his expression changing from angry to forgiving. "Thanks Jenny." He said.

"No problem, now let's get back to the group." I said. We started walking back; we were pretty far out. Carl and I were separated by a car, but I kept an eye on him.

All of a sudden Carl started screaming and I looked over to see him lying on the pavement. A walker was grabbing his leg and was trying to bite him. I kicked into action, sprinting around the car. I could hear the group yelling for him, but I was just focusing on killing the walker. I grabbed my knife from the holster, and stabbed the walker through the head. I heard more growling and turned around to see two more walkers coming for us. I killed the first one, but my knife got stuck in its head. I was unarmed, and the walker was dangerously close. "Carl, run!" I yelled at him. He ran as fast as he could while I distracted the walker. I ran around the cars trying to find anything I could kill it with. I finally found a decent size rock on the edge of the road, and I jumped at the walker and smashed it's skull in.

The group finally appeared, shocked at the sight of me and three dead walkers. Carl was crying and everyone was shocked. "You're welcome." I muttered under my breath. I stood up, pulled my knife from the walker's head, slipped it into the holster, and walked back to the RV, leaving everyone speechless.