This is my first fanfic! I worked really hard on this and I hope you guys enjoy :) Oh, and please write a review if you can! I want to hear what you think.
A breeze whisked by the lone and empty small clearing in the forest. It was getting cooler, that's for sure. No more warm and comfortable days in the apocalypse for a while. The fire that was made here the night before was holding onto the last few embers that were still alive. It had served it's purpose.
The young teen that was laying on the small green blanket near the base of the tree slowly cracked his eyes open at the sight of dawn. Rubbing the tears from his eyes, he slowly sat up and took a brief look around his surroundings, scouting for anyone or anything.
"Nope, no one in sight. Good."
Getting up from his slumber, he unwrinkled his shirt and yawned. Walking over to the remains of the fire, which were now sending lots of smoke in the air, he stomped on the embers to prevent any more smoke from rising. Looking up into the trees, he felt a breeze flow past him, and the tree leaves rustled. Turning around to where he slept, he walked over to the base of the old tree and crouched down. Grabbing his navy blue school bag, he opened it and pulled out the small note that his past self had left him.
"Tyler, this is your past self here, and I know you only did this for a school assignment, and you think it's corny and stupid, but I just wanted to wish you luck for the years to come. You've got the rest of middle school and high school ahead of you, so just set aside the people and problems that bother you, and go straight for the gold."
Tyler read this note every time he felt that he needed a push in the right direction. When he felt like he needed some motivation, he read the note. Oddly, it worked many times.
"Well, guess I should get moving. Actually, first, I think I'll get washed up over by the river, then I'll set off."
Before going to the river, Tyler grabbed his pistol, a USP45, and made sure it was loaded, in case he ran into anyone down there who wasn't passive. Setting his backpack in the grass, he turned around and started down to the river.
Tyler loved the outdoors when he was a kid. He used to go in the forest behind his home and spend time there climbing on dead trees and exploring. Forests don't really scare him, even at night. In fact, he feels comfortable there.
"Ah, there's the river."
As he approached the moving stream of water, he knelt and splashed some water on his face. The cool temperature cleaned the dirt off and also woke him up. He also scooped some and drew it to his face, drinking some.
Feeling quenched and clean, he started walking back to camp. "Alright, plans for the day. Grab your bag and head out to the forest. Hopefully you'll find a place fit for a shelter and you'll find something to eat. Oh, and speaking of food, you're running low, so make sure to scavenge shacks and such. Hopefully you'll find some friendly survivors soon. It's a hard world out there without people you can trust. Oh and-"
However, he soon started hearing rustling noises the closer he got to camp.
"The hell is that?"
When he got close enough that the noises were, without a doubt, footsteps, he crouched down and slowly snuck up to his camp. Using bushes as cover, he stealthily peeked his head through the bushes. He saw two scavengers, one holding a shotgun, the other holding a knife. The one with a knife was looting his bag, while the one with the shotgun was keeping watch. And Tyler noticed something about them.
They didn't look friendly.
Quickly going back into the bushes, Tyler started to think to himself.
"Okay, first of all, calm down. You're gonna be fine. You just need a plan. Alright, your life is more important than your belongings. Just sneak away, you'll find new things sooner or later. And if anything goes wrong, you got this." Tyler gripped his gun.
Tyler started to crawl away, and he was going good. They hadn't noticed him. At this rate, he might just ma-
"CRACK!"
Tyler stepped on an empty, plastic water bottle.
The two men immediately noticed him.
"Shit!" Tyler muttered.
Tyler dashed to the nearest cover he could find. A rock. Diving behind it, he grabbed his gun and prepared himself for the battle that was about to take place.
"BANG!"
A shot rang out from the shotgun the man was holding. It hit the rock, but not Tyler. Deciding to switch to the offensive, he got up and aimed for the man with the shotgun. Ranged is more important than melee these days, after all.
Tyler shot, but it missed the man by a decent amount. He quickly dove back down, but not quick enough.
Another shot rang out, and this one did not miss. It hit Tyler in the shoulder.
"AGHHH!" Tyler screamed as he gripped his shoulder, which had started bleeding. He felt like someone was burning his shoulder with a blowtorch. Determined to not give up, he took a shot at the man with the shotgun. Luckily enough, it hit him square in the forehead, and he fell to the ground.
The man with the knife grabbed Tyler's bag and blanket and ran off. Tyler took a few shots at him, and even ran after him, but he was too slow, and the man got away.
"Shit! Just fucking GREAT!" Tyler shouted in anger, before regaining his senses and shutting up. The sound would draw walkers, after all.
"Walkers! Oh shit, the gunshots probably alerted them. I need to leave, now."
Stuffing his pistol in his pocket, he decided to quickly loot the man with the shotgun. He had seen many corpses before, so this one didn't bother him. The first few times he killed, he was sick to himself. He even threw up once. Now, he was used to it.
He checked to see if there were any bullets left. "None. Damn!" he said to himself. Soon, he started hearing moaning. Walkers were approaching. Fast. Tyler grabbed his shoulder and started off into the forest.
After walking for what seemed like hours, Tyler started to feel increased pain in his wound.
"Ow! God, what's going on? Oh god, I hope it's not getting infected…"
Continuing to walk, it started to get dark, and soon enough, it was dusk, and to make things even better, it started storming. "Are you SHITTING me? Why does all of this happen to me all of a sudden?!" Tyler started to cry. With tears in his eyes, he kept going.
After some walking, he started to make out what looked like the outline of a house. Wiping his eyes and walking some more, he started to see what was ahead.
A cabin.
It looked warm and friendly enough, and there weren't any trees around. The lights seemed to be off, and it seemed empty.
"Oh, thank god!" Tyler said to himself, and legitimately smiling. Walking to it, he noticed a shed nearby.
"Guess I'll check out what's in here." Tyler said to himself. Walking up to the doors, he opened the shed, and stepped inside. Searching for anything useful, he came up empty-handed.
"Shoot. Well, better check the cabin. It has to have SOMETHING in there."
Walking up to the front door, Tyler knocked on the door, and waited for a good minute. Nothing. He tried opening the door, but it wouldn't open. It was locked.
That's when Tyler realized something. "People probably live here…" he thought. Walking out to the side of the cabin, he tried to open the windows. They were all locked. All, but for one. It slid up, and Tyler managed to climb in. Shutting the window after him, he found himself in a bedroom. It was dark, so he couldn't see much. He searched the best he could and turned up nothing.
"Better check around, they must have something of use." As much as he hated stealing, he had no choice in this situation. Walking out, he found himself in the living room. It was nice, they had a sofa and a few chairs. Even a television, although there wasn't any power here. Going up the stairs, he turned to the right, and opened the door on the right. It was another bedroom. Tyler walked in and looked around. There was a book sitting on the bed. He picked it up and read the title. "The Guurgles." he said to himself. Setting the book down, he walked around the bed and found something. A bottle of peroxide. "Yes!" Tyler said, as he knelt to pick it up.
"Now I just need some bandages, I guess. I could probably fix myself up." Tyler exited the room and opened the door across the hall, which was a bathroom. After briefly searching it, he found nothing of interest. Moving to the room at the end of the hall, he opened the room to find another bedroom. Walking up to a desk inside, he opened it. It contained a gold watch. Tyler picked it up and examined it. It looked pretty nice, but he didn't take it. It probably belonged to someone. Opening a wardrobe, he saw nothing useful except some clothes. Leaving the room, he began heading down the steps to explore the rest of the cabin.
He heard a noise. The front door being unlocked.
"Shit! Shit shit shit!" Tyler thought. Sneaking back to the previous room he was in, he shut the door and hid in the closet.
"Don't panic, Tyler. It's going to be okay. If someone finds you, just say that you were hurt and needed help. Wait, oh, yeah, they won't mind that I'm in THEIR HOUSE!" he yelled in his mind. He decided to just stay silent and wait for something to happen. For a few minutes, all he heard were footsteps downstairs, along with muffled voices. He sat there for a while, before deciding to sneak out the window. As he opened the closet door, he started hearing footsteps coming upstairs. Re-shutting the doors for a minute, he waited for the footsteps to go to a room. They did.
To the room he was at.
The door opened, and someone came in. The person spoke, and he found out it was a man. "Jesus, Pete really needs to back off. I'm not a kid anymore, for Christ's sake!" The man sighed, and opened the window in the room. The sound of rain became easier to hear. For a bit, he just heard the rain. Just when he thought that it was safe to sneak out, the closet doors opened. It wasn't Tyler's doing, either. Tyler gasped, and before he could do anything else, he felt himself get smacked in the face with something. And, with that, Tyler blacked out.
…
…
…
"...it doesn't matter what the hell the kid was doing! He was stealing from us! He had a bottle of peroxide in his hand!"
Tyler cracked his eyes opened. He was laying on the sofa in the living room. A group of people surrounded him. Without them noticing, he noticed who they were. There was a Spanish man, looked around maybe in his 40's. There was a man with a machete on his back, who looked younger than the Spanish man, maybe around his mid 20's. There was an African-American woman, who looked in her mid 30's. She seemed to be pregnant. There was a man who was standing next to the woman, who seemed to be around the woman's age. Tyler assumed it was her husband. And then there was a man, who was holding a rifle, and was wearing a cap. Tyler then recognized him as the one who had hit him when he was in the closet.
Everyone was talking about Tyler.
Tyler, not knowing what to do, started to talk, and help his hands up.
"Wait!"
Everyone stopped talking, and looked to the teen on the couch.
"Please, just hear me out. I'll tell you what happened, just don't hurt me."
The African-American woman stepped up.
"Oh, really? You expect us to hear you out after you were caught stealing from us?"
Tyler started to feel guilty about taking the peroxide. "Look, I'm sorry. I took this peroxide, and I'm sorry. I'll tell you everything."
Tyler told them everything, about how he was raided, how he got shot, how he found the cabin, and how he got in.
"...and that's what happened. I'm sorry that I took supplies, but I just need to fix the wound in my shoulder. It hurts, and I'm afraid that it's getting infected."
The Spanish man spoke up. "Were you bitten? Did you come into contact with any lurkers?"
"No, I didn't. I just want my shoulder to get fixed. I don't mean any harm."
"Are you carrying any weapons?" the man with the machete spoke up.
"Yes, I am. Just a pistol."
"Can you hand it over?"
Tyler pulled out his pistol and gave it to the man, who put it in his pocket. "I'm not keeping it, I'm just going to take it for now, okay?"
"Okay."
The man with the cap muttered something under his breath and went upstairs.
"Nick? Nick, wait!" The man with the machete followed him.
For the first time, the African-American man spoke up.
"Carlos, the kid needs some help. If what he's saying is true, then he could die. And I can't stand to see a kid die."
Tyler was going to object to the man calling him a kid, but he realized that wouldn't be the smartest thing to do.
"Fine," Carlos said, "I'll help him."
"Thank you so much."
"Follow me." Carlos said, and Tyler followed him into the kitchen. He heard the woman from the living room speak.
"I can't believe this. That kid attempts to steal and we HELP him? I'm tired of…" Tyler couldn't hear the rest.
He sat at the table, and the man disinfected the wound with the peroxide, and bandaged it. "Thank you so much." he said to Carlos. "It's fine." the man replied, and he walked out of the kitchen. Tyler sat there, looking at his now patched up shoulder. He wondered what he was going to do. Suddenly, he heard the door open, and the man with the machete came in the kitchen.
"Hey." the man said.
"Oh, h-hi." Tyler replied.
The man sat across from him, and Tyler just looked down at the floor for a minute, unsure of what to say.
"So, uh, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Luke."
"Tyler." he said in reply.
There was another minute of silence.
"So, did you, uh, have a group or anyone?"
Tyler thought for a second. He never had a group for a while, almost a year ago. He had survived, all alone, for a year. He just realized that.
"Yes, but not for a long time. I was living with a small group for a while, but they all died. I've lived by myself for about a year."
"That's… well, I'm sorry about what happened with your group."
"It's okay."
Again, there was silence. Then, Tyler thought something crazy.
"Can I stay with you guys?"
"What?"
"Look, again, I'm sorry we got started on a bad note, but I lost my supplies and I really have nowhere to go. At the least, I could stay with you for a bit while I get everything sorted out. I know the others probably will disagree, but I just have been real lonely. I've had no one for a year."
"Well, personally, I'm kind of the self-appointed leader of this group, and I'm not willing to leave a kid stranded in the middle of a world gone to hell. I'll talk with the others and I'll see if they are willing to let you in. And if they don't agree, they'll just deal with it."
Tyler smiled. "Thank you."
"No problem."
"Oh, and one more thing, Luke."
"Yeah?"
"Not to be rude, but what's wrong with the guy with the cap? He's the one that knocked me out when I hid."
"Oh, Nick? He's… well, he's just had it rough. Very rough."
"Oh."
"Well, I'll go talk to the others."
Luke left the kitchen and went to the living room. Tyler heard some mumbling, and after what seemed like forever, Luke came back to the kitchen.
"So, I just talked to them, and I think they're okay with you staying."
"Okay. Thank you."
Luke left, and Tyler sat there thinking to himself. "I guess today didn't go so bad after all. You met new people, and they seem happy with you staying. Well, almost everyone. But they'll hopefully get-"
The man with the blue cap, Nick, walked into the room, and walked over to Tyler.
"Hey. I just wanted to say sorry, for… um, smashing your face in with a flashlight. I'm just… it's a long story."
Tyler felt like telling Nick off for all the shit that he pulled, but he forgave him.
"It's fine. I'm not a kid."
"Well, thanks. I'm just on edge."
All of a sudden, a man Tyler never saw before walked in.
"Oh, so this is the kid that's staying, huh?" The man said to Nick.
"Yeah, Uncle Pete."
Pete walked over to Tyler. "Well, hi. I'm Pete."
"Hi, I'm Tyler."
"Well, I'm just coming in to say that it's time to turn in for the night."
"Alright, Uncle Pete." Pete left the kitchen, along with Nick. Tyler followed.
Luke was standing near the stairway.
"Hey, Tyler, we kinda are out of rooms, is it okay if you sleep on the couch?"
Tyler looked to the sofa. "It's way better than the ground." he thought.
"Yeah. In fact, I'm happy. I've slept on the ground for who knows how long."
Luke smiled. "Alright, well, try to get some sleep. Night."
"Night."
Luke headed upstairs, and Tyler went over to the couch. He laid down, and for once, he fell asleep with a smile on his face.