The Walking Dead: The World We Live In
Prologue
"Hey Lee, wake up man, we're almost home," Lee Everett's brother, Bud said slightly nudging Lee's shoulder.
Lee groggily opened his dark brown eyes only to be blinded by the sun shining in face, "Yeah, I should've put the sun visor down for you huh?" Bud asked sarcastically.
Lee grunted but sat up in the passenger's seat of his brother's car. "That would've been an excellent idea."
Lee could see Bud grinning in his peripheral vision, "What time is it?"
"Almost six thirty," Bud said looking at a frowning Lee, "What vacation didn't last long enough for you?"
Lee shook his head watching as a wailing police cruiser shot past them and towards the city of Atlanta, Lee also noticed there was a traffic jam heading out of Atlanta and almost no cars entering. As Bud pulled into the turnoff off of the interstate and to Macon Lee spoke, "Not really, I'm not too excited to grade my student's research papers."
"You should've stuck around at the pharmacy, you know it's a family business," Bud said keeping his eyes on the road and avoiding Lee's questioning stare.
"You know I love history, Bud. And I loved working at the pharmacy but-"
"But you wanted to teach history, that's cool. It would've been nice if you stuck around is all," Bud said placing his left hand on the wheel and using his right to pay his older brother's shoulder.
Lee nodded, "Yeah, it's going to be nice to see mom and dad again."
"Oh I bet, mom wouldn't stop saying how much she wanted to see her 'baby boy'," Bud gestured with his right hand, "I had to listen to her for fifteen minutes on the phone talking about how much she and dad had wanted to see you."
Lee laughed, "We never should have convinced her to get a cell phone huh?"
"I swear, Lee, that woman is on that phone all day now," Bud said shaking his head.
Bud looked at Lee and began to speak again, "Yeah she's been bothering dad too about the whole cell phone thing and-"
Lee looked away from his brother and set his sights on the road. Lee blinked several times as his brother was unknowingly sending the car barreling into a man who was wandering on the road.
"Watch out!" Lee shouted to Bud.
Everything seemed to have happened so fast, the car struck the man allowing Bud to lose control and send the car veering into a stalled vehicle on the side of the road.
"Shit Lee, are you okay?" Bud asked gesturing to Lee's forehead which was now sported an oozing laceration.
Lee's eyes fluttered open and he could now see double, "I think so, shit. We have to check on those people."
Lee shook his head and became dizzy. The cut that lay above his right eye oozed blood around his eyebrow and down to his eye. Lee, using two fingers, brushed the blood away from his eyes and smeared it on his jeans.
Bud nodded with his hands still firmly planted on the black steering wheel, "Okay, I'll go check on the guy in the car. You get the one on the road."
Lee nodded, pulling his phone out to call 911 as he approached the unmoving man. Lee was baffled as he had no cell reception, they were close to Macon, he should've gotten a signal being this close. He shook his head putting his phone on the road as he knelt down next to the man.
Lee flipped the man who looked very pale over onto his back, Lee jumped back in alarm as the man had no jaw and was bleeding severely from the injury. The man's eyes were glossed over and a pale shade of blue, he hissed at Lee and began to stand up.
Lee stumbled backwards in panic and tripped over his own feet. He fell on his hind and stared up at the man who was stumbling towards Lee, hair disheveled and skin peeling he growled hungrily. The zombified life form looked up as footsteps could be heard racing down the asphalt road, before Lee could react more blood was splattered onto him.
The corpse of the former human. Being collapsed to the ground while severely bleeding from its temple. Bud stood behind the fallen creature breathing heavily.
Lee looked up in horror at his younger brother's bloodied hands, "What the fuck was that?"
Bud swallowed dropping his pocket knife to the ground and collapsed to his knees burying his face in his hands, "The news reports- emergency broadcasts," Bud took a deep, shaky breath, "It's all gone to shit, Lee."
Bud looked at his older brother, "Mom, dad. What if they-"
Lee crawled over to his younger brother and embraced him, "Everything is going to be ok, I promise," Lee said, much like he used to console his brother when they were younger and their parents argued.
Lee rubbed his brothers back and released him, "Let's just check the car, ok? See if it can still run, sound good?" Lee asked fighting his fear to stay strong for his brother.
Bud nodded quickly, "Yeah- Yeah sure, that sounds good, yeah," he said standing up and walking with Lee to the black car numbly.
Lee climbed into the drivers seat and turned the key, the car whined and the engine sputtered before finally giving out. Lee slammed his hand against the wheel and got out, "Son of a bitch!"
Bud, still in a daze looked at Lee crookedly, "We need to get into Macon."
"I know, we need to find someone and see what exactly is going on," Lee said agreeing with his brother.
Lee walked to the trunk of the car hearing the wailing of other zombies far off, "For now " he pulled out their hiking bags and began filling it up with basic supplies, "We need to go find some place to stay for the night, if everything is like the emergency broadcasts said, then there may not be too many people around. Chances are they all up and ran to the hills."
"That's what I would've done," Bud said nodding and taking the backpack Lee handed to him.
Lee cleaned the wound on his forehead and put a bandage on it before rolling up the sleeves of his blue button up shirt, "Let's just keep going straight down this road, you remember that neighborhood up ahead?"
"Yeah, I remember that place. One of our regulars lives down there, name was Ed I think," Bud said shrugging.
Lee too a few steps and looked as far as he could see down the narrow road, the sun was setting now and it wouldn't be too long before it was dark. They might have another twenty, maybe thirty minutes left of sunlight. Bud stood next to Lee, looking down the road he sighed.
Lee put his hand on his brother's shoulder, "We'll be fine, I promise you. I'm going to keep you safe, I promise," Lee said to Bud who returned his words with a sad smile.
Lee closed his eyes and took a breath pushing back his emotions to attempt to stay strong, Lee could tell now, it was going to be a long journey.
AN:
Hello people of the internet! I've been wanting to write this story for a long time now and I've finally got around to it, I hope you like this introductory chapter even though it's short. And don't worry, I won't be throwing in Lee's brother into this story and not letting him have an impact, I don't want that for this story. I want the whole dynamic to change, I want Bud to be able to twist TellTale's original story into something different. But we'll just have to see how that goes in Chapter 1: Clementine and so on. See you guys later and feel free to let me know what you think and leave suggestions for what you would want to see in this story.
