A/N: This is my first TWD fanfiction and first time publishing a fanfiction to this website. I'm generally very nervous about allowing people to read my work, but I'm facing my fear by doing it. I suppose this chapter is a little boring but it gets a little more interesting in the next chapter. If you enjoyed it - please review, it would be great to know if publishing this was worth it.

For being a forest where there was a good chance of turning around and finding a flesh-eating monster trying to kill you and eat you, it was awfully quiet. Dangerously quiet to be honest. Nothing but the innocent sounds of nature and the putting of a black Frisian horses hooves trotting slowly on the forest floor.

No walkers in sight, just trees, bushes, weeds, leaves on the ground, beautiful and fresh nature. It was almost… peaceful…

…Until the alive and healthy human riding the horse looked down, seeing a path of horseshoe prints that she knew in fact didn't belong to her own. These days you had to be carefully curious in order to survive, but that trait came naturally and she was forced to follow them.

They led to one of the hillsides that held a wide creek between it. Atop of the very high rock, she realized the footprints had changed their pattern a bit. It appears that the horse that had left them was first trotting, then paused, kicked back on his hind legs and ran away leaving deeper prints from stomping.

But as far as the owner of the Frisian knew, there wasn't another soul residing anywhere within 40 miles, give or take. Could it just be a passerby? She dismounted quickly to further inspect, every fiber of her being hoping that someone else was near, someone who was breathing and alive.

And as her gray eyes wandered over the ravine, they stopped and lingered over what could have perhaps been the answer to her prayers.

Faster than she ever had before, she tied a rope to connect her horse to a tree, making the knot as strong as her hands would let her in such a hurry. Without skill, the human skidded and slid down the steep ridge, nearly losing balance once she reached the bottom.

Her black boots splashed a bit in the creek before she could step on the large branch that crossed over to the other side of the flowing, muddy pool of water. Her heart raced, feeling like it could burst through her chest any moment now as she approached him.

He couldn't be a walker, she thought. There's no way. His flesh is peach, his face doesn't look decayed. But it worried her that he was lying in the mud and appeared to be unconscious. That didn't mean she wouldn't make sure, if he really was… alive… she felt like she herself could faint.

Retrieving her 14' machete from the leather sleeve on her belt, she armed herself while taking a few quiet steps toward the man on the ground. She couldn't tell how long he had been there, or why he was there, but she wanted to help him. If he was alive, it wouldn't be alright to just leave him there.

With extra caution, she knelt beside him with a hand still gripping the machete. She could see the slight rise and fall of his stomach as he breathed and it took everything in her not to cry out of joy. Her cheeks brightened to a red as she bore the happiest smile she'd worn since the weekend before the infectious outbreak of corpses.

But it still wasn't promised that he was only sleeping, taking a nap on the earth's floor. After pulling on a pair of thin leather gloves, her skilled hand gradually reached out till her fingers softly brushed his dirt smudged cheek.

No movement.

"Hey… Sir, hello… Wake up?" She whispered, raising her voice a little more with every syllable that rolled off her tongue.

The young woman inched closer, her knees now knelt right beside him and only an inch away from brushing against his rib cage - that happened to have an arrow lodged against it.

His wounds made her want to wince. His wrist was bent out of shape and judging by the direction in which his left foot was pointed, she figured he had a few breaks or sprains at the least.

Her hands wandered across his forehead until she stopped and lifted them to examine the bloody gash on the side of his head, right next to his hairline. Then her head turned to the right, looking up at the inclination a few feet away from her and the blacked out body in front of her. The dirt and leaves were scattered, leaving a slight trail and evidence that someone had tried to climb the narrow steep.

Then her eyes directed back to the man lying in front of her. Before making a decision, she poked at him a bit more, to make sure he wasn't just asleep. He wouldn't wake up even when she did a AVPU procedure. Not alert, not talking and not responding to pain. Unconscious he was.

Still no movement.

But he was alive. When she heedfully unbuttoned the small buttons on his filthy, dingy red shirt and pulled back the damp fabric, revealing his equally unclean chest, her mind could barely comprehend what she had felt under her hand.

There it was. The rhythmic and soft thumping of the inactive but living body's heart.

The feeling, the feeling of assurance that she wasn't the only human being within 50 miles that had organs and healthy skin, a functioning brain and working lungs, the feeling of knowing you're not alone anymore.

She found herself fidgeting, fighting the urge to scream and cry, jump and tackle the man in front of her with new found glee.

It was unbelievable. But when she gingerly placed her ear to the middle of his chest, it was clear as day. The beautiful beating of the blood pumping underneath his flesh. To say it was music to her ears would be an understatement. The feeling of very slight movement from the vital organ cradled the side of her head while she stood still and concentrated on the amazing, flawless sound of this stranger's heart.

But something interrupted her blissful affair.

A rustling not from the midnight horse.

Rapidly, she lifted her head up, standing to her feet and grabbing her machete with both hands.

10 feet behind her stood an old woman. A groaning, moaning, damaged and dead old woman. Even before this being had been infected, she must have aged quite a long time. With a missing arm and a huge hole where her hip should have been, she didn't put up much of a fight. Seemingly just wanting to find some "food", the actually lively woman supposed, she wasn't going to get it with two left feet that she tripped over each time she took a small step forward.

These ones were always the hardest. The ones that look somewhat innocent, the ones that you wish you could help and resurrect, heal. Contaminated roamers like this one weren't all that easy to kill. Not because killing the undead happened to be a difficult task, but because the quiet, shameful ones make you forget that they're dangerous.

As the active and breathing being walked closer to the opposite, going the same pace until they eventually met in the middle. She eyed the dead woman as they stood a foot away from each other. The balding, blistering creature was still for a moment, her mouth drooping open, eyes facing the machete.

But before the walker could be provoked, the animated human sliced the top half of it's head off, causing the corpse to fall to the ground with a thud. It felt weird to end something that you wished so badly to save. She knew she had to though even if it wasn't attacking her. Better to get the job done before it got any harder.

After doing a 360 eyeshot check to make sure there weren't anymore following the last one, her attention directed back to the other human, the one on the ground.

Obviously she couldn't leave him there. Not when she knew he had a chance at stay alive. She didn't want to leave him anyway. Not after he had just given her all the hope she needed to continue on in the world, doing her best to keep her head up and survive.

It started with a wrap to the head. Some gauze circled around his head wound after she cleaned up the partially dried blood around it. Then a stronger wrap to secure his wrist and keep it from twisting farther beyond repair. A padded wrap went around his ankle after she struggled to get his boot off, then of course she had to put it back on. As for the arrow in his side, she had to roll him over a little to pull it out, making her wince once again.

When she had patched and bandaged him up as best as she could, being out here and away from home, she realized that she had forgotten one important detail of taking this stranger back to where she resided.

How would she actually get him there?

He looked to be about 150 pounds or so, not extremely heavy but definitely not light at all. Her only answer was to pick him up and set him on the horse in a way that she could also ride and direct the steed.

And that's what she did.

After guiding the horse to stand beside the end of the branch that serviced as a bridge, she managed - after 3 tries – to pick the unconscious man up as well as she could, she laboriously carried him to the end of the branch. She could have sworn she'd drop him on accident at least once, but to her surprise he made it all the way to the horses back with no falls.

She couldn't lift him high up at all so luckily there was a pile of sturdy stones by where she positioned the horse for her to stand on while placing his body on the back of the saddle.

Climbing atop the horse without knocking him off of it at the same time was truly the hardest part though.

After mounting her Frisian she quickly tied a rope around them, securing his torso to hers and his head to the back of her neck. Once she was sure he wouldn't fall off while the horse took them back to her home, she gently nudged the horse to walk along the side next to the bottom of the incline.

The black animal trotted out of the ravine and further into the forest while the girl's mind turned in thought and question.

Who is he?