Hey guys I just had to get this fluffy slightly angsty 3000 word one shot out of my system enjoy!
Anna rounded the corner of the canned food aisle in the grocery store and ducked down. Footsteps. Her heart started beating faster and for a split second, she thought it was a biter. Dead ones couldn't have made it in here. Her heart beat faster still when she realized that people were there. "Take what you can find and let's get out of here, there's only a few things we need," she heard a man say.
"Glenn! I found the formula jackpot!" she heard a woman exclaim. They have a baby. Maybe they're good people. Anna knew the idea was far-fetched because no one was good anymore, not like they used to be. People didn't help you anymore, so she didn't know why she began to hold onto this hope for no reason. Suddenly, she stumbled backwards a bit in her kneeling position, causing a can to fall, blowing her cover, and killing her for sure.
"Come out!" the man yelled. "I know you're there! Come out, drop your weapons, and we won't hurt you, but we'll find you either way!" So, with no choice left, Anna came out into the open.
"I've heard that lie before," She said, looking up at the strangers defiantly with her dark brown eyes before taking her knife and gun out of her belt and throwing them on the ground. Her gaze fell to the red basket full of formula and baby things, then back to the man and woman, who were now on edge, prepared to kill.
"Are you alone?" the woman asked.
"Yes."
The man nodded and his expression softened. "We have a pretty good setup at a prison, if you want to join us."
"How do I know I want to?" Anna asked.
"We can't prove it to you," The woman said, giving Anna her weapons back.
"But we'll have to ask you some questions first," The man finished.
"Shoot."
"How many walkers have you killed?"
"I don't know, a lot."
The man's face suddenly wore a serious expression. "How many people have you killed?"
"One"
"Why?"
"I couldn't watch them eat her," Anna said, voice breaking.
Glenn nodded solemnly in understanding. "You can come with us. I'm Glenn and this is my wife, Maggie. What's your name?"
"Anna."
.
.
When they arrived at the safe place, Anna marveled at what she saw. It was a prison, true, but it was so much more. There were people, children, and guarded fences. A community, Anna thought to herself in awe. It was all she ever wanted after the world turned, but then her family turned with it. After the deaths of her mother and sister, she was empty. Some days she didn't even know why she still tried. Maybe it was all just leading up to this. All of her suffering, loss, loneliness, maybe it was so she could end up here.
Glenn pulled up to the gates, which were promptly opened upon his arrival. "Good haul?" a man asked him.
"The best. Tell Rick that we have a couple extra." He motioned toward Anna with his head. "Name's Anna." The man nodded back to him and they parked the vehicle not far from the gates. As they exited the car and started toward the prison, Glenn asked, "It's my shift on watch, you okay to settle her in?" Maggie nodded at him and they shared a short, chaste kiss before parting directions. Anna followed curiously as they headed to a building labeled "C BLOCK."
"So, who's Rick?" Anna asked, looking for a way to break the silence.
"Rick is the man in charge. I've known him since…well pretty much since this whole thing started."
"Oh," Anna nodded.
.
.
When Anna got settled into her own cell, she decided to do nothing, because it had been a while since she'd been able to do that. Watching through the bars of her cell, there was someone who caught her eye. It was a boy, who looked about her age, with dark brown hair. He looked very concentrated on taking apart and cleaning his gun.
Honestly, he was the most attractive boy she'd ever seen, both pre and post-apocalypse. She'd never really thought that way before, so this surprised her. Then again, when she was nine, she didn't think that way either. She supposed that the opportunity just never presented itself.
She suddenly saw a man walk in. He was tall, with a long scruffy beard and curly hair. He walked over and hugged the boy. Then, a girl with blonde hair handed him a baby. So that's the baby!
They can afford to have a baby. Everyone is safe. We're safe now.
.
.
After a nap, Anna noticed that there wasn't anybody roaming the cell block anymore. It was still daytime, so she couldn't understand where they might've gone. She opened her cell door and noticed that the boy was still there, except now he was reading comics.
"Hi," she said approaching him suddenly. He looked up. "Do you know where everybody went?"
"They're at lunch…I could take you if you want. It doesn't look like you know your way around yet."
"No, I'm not hungry."
He looked up at her disbelievingly and chuckled a bit. "Yeah, sure."
"Okay, so maybe it's more like I'm not ready to eat yet." Changing the subject, she asked, "Why aren't you at lunch?"
He shrugged at her. "I like it when it's quiet."
She pointed to the spot beside him on the bench. "Can I…?"
"Oh, yeah." He moved over a little.
"I'm Anna, by the way."
"Carl."
After a few minutes of silence with Anna simply staring off into space, Carl had to ask what she was doing. "I'm making an imprint," she said absentmindedly.
"A…what?"
"Oh, sorry. I've never really explained it before. Every so often I like to make what I call an imprint. It's when I take a moment and memorize where I am, how I feel, who I'm with, that sort of thing. That way, sometime in the future I can compare then to now. If I have a reference point I can see how things have changed and how quickly time has passed. I don't know, it's weird. Sometimes when I'm in danger I just tell myself that later it will be over, and it will feel like I fast-forwarded through a scene in a scary movie, because of how quickly time passes. But, unfortunately, I can't do that unless I face the danger, and in slow motion too."
Carl just stared at her.
"Yeah, I get it, I know I'm weird."
"No, it's just that I think it's an interesting way of looking at things."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand the inner-workings of my head anyway."
"So…why make now a reference point?"
"I don't know. I guess this is the first time that I've felt safe in a long time. And, it's the first time we've met."
"Why is that important?"
"Because I can tell that we're going to be friends."
"How do you know?"
"Because I like you." After a moment, she started again. "I hope you know how lucky you are. You have your dad, and your little sister, and probably a whole group of people who you consider family. Your dad's the guy in charge isn't he?"
"You don't know me, you just met me. You don't know how hard it's been."
"You're right, I don't. I'm sorry. I only know how it's been for me. I've been alone for going on four years now. In and out of groups, and it all ends the same way. The ones that take others in, they're close-knit and they only protect each other. Protecting the others might be important, but in the end I'm always expendable. You're lucky, because you're not. People care what happens to you."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. Nobody cares about me."
At this moment, Carl was tempted to say "I do", and he didn't know why. He didn't know why she was pouring out her soul in front of him. He didn't know why he kind of wanted her to continue, even though he sensed she was done. "The time thing works both ways, though. I feel like we, or rather I, have been talking for an hour. It's only been about fifteen minutes." He didn't know how she read his mind. Anna wasn't the kind of girl that you would call "pretty" or "beautiful." For the most part she was plain, but her personality was intriguing.
Footsteps and chatter began to echo in the hallways. "Sounds like they're back from lunch. So are we friends now?" It was hard not to notice the pleading look in her eyes. It was as if she would burst into tears if he said no. Carl wanted a friend his own age. He liked Anna. She was different.
"Yeah."
Anna grinned. "Good. I haven't had a friend in forever."
Rick, holding Judith, walked up to Carl as Anna left. "Who was that?"
"A…friend."
.
.
[Two Weeks Later]
"So what's going on between you and Carl?"
"Oh, c'mon, Glenn we're supposed to be on watch," Anna complained. "He's my friend. That's it."
"But you don't want that to be it," Glenn concluded.
"It doesn't matter anyway. It's not like he could ever like me as more than a friend."
Glenn frowned. "Why's that?"
"I'm me."
"So?"
"You just don't get it."
"Anna…"
A walker scratched at the fence. "I've got it." She shot it in the eye. After a while, she asked, "Glenn?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I go on runs? I'm starting to feel like a captive animal."
"Sure."
After that, silence took over, and Glenn knew there would be no more talking.
.
.
"Anna, can I come in?" a voice asked her from outside her cell. She recognized it as Carl's.
"Yeah."
Carl sat down next to her on the bed. "Have you been avoiding me?"
"A little."
"Why?"
"Why do you care?"
Carl frowned. "Because we're friends."
"Carl, I've been avoiding you because I like you."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, Carl. I thought you were smart."
"Oh."
"Yeah, I get it. You don't feel that way. I wouldn't expect you to." Anna lay down on the bed, facing away from him. "You can go now."
Carl did as he was told, but stood by her cell for a moment. His heart sank at the sound of her muffled sobs. He really did want to return her feelings. But doing so while unsure, he knew, would just make a mess of things. And what was really tragic was that she still felt so unloved and unimportant.
.
.
Anna manned her watch station, waiting for Glenn to join her. She was surprised, however to see Carl come up next to her. She tried to ignore him, but finally without looking at him she asked, "You switched shifts with Glenn?"
He nodded at her. "I had a shift with Maggie, so…. Also, he strongly advised it."
"Ughh! What did he tell you?"
"Enough."
"So, all of it?"
Carl chuckled bitterly. "Yeah, pretty much. Glenn's not really the best at keeping secrets."
"Oh." She focused her gaze in her scope rather than at him. She killed five walkers, one after another, before looking up again. "You know, I don't even know how I got to Georgia. I'm from Richmond, Virginia. I guess I just kept walking. I didn't know where I was going. I guess I didn't really care after…." Tears rose to Anna's eyes. "Sorry," she said, clearing her throat.
Carl put his hand on her shoulder. "What happened to you?" he asked softly.
She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
"No, it does matter. It makes you who you are now."
"Fine, but another time you have to tell me what happened to you."
"I will."
Anna retook her stance at the gun so she wouldn't have to look at him. "I was ten. There hadn't been school in a few days and everything on the radio and the TV said to leave. So we did. It was supposed to be safer in the city, but by the time we got there, it was overrun. We didn't know what to do so we just drove. We stocked up on gas. Every time we hit a couple dead ones, we ran in the other direction. It was me, my mom, my sister and my brother. It was hard not to assume that my dad was dead. He lived all the way in Northern Virginia. I hear that it was evacuated, so I still don't know. Andrew did all the killing. But that made us weak, so we couldn't help him when he was being attacked… We had to leave him there. We couldn't bury him, there was hardly anything left." Anna's voice broke and she began to cry. "We had nobody left to protect us, so I had to. Even though my sister was older, she couldn't. She would get afraid if she saw a stink bug, let alone a dead one. I had to learn how to kill the dead. We only had one gun. Thank goodness Andrew taught me how to use it before he died. That was a last resort. I had to learn how to kill one with a knife. So we would find one that was alone, made sure the car was close by so I could run away. It took forever, but I finally learned not to be scared. And I killed one, then another, then another. I learned that there were ways to slow one down by breaking its bones. I was confident, but my mom, my sister, they weren't. We went on like that for a year. Then my sister got bit. Catherine. I should have just put her out of her misery because I couldn't stand to see her die. But I waited until she turned. After that, mom just gave up. I tried to protect her. One day, there was one that I was fighting off, and I was losing. She lured it away and let it take her. She said she was sorry and that she loved me, and then it ripped her apart. I shot her in the head. Then I killed it. After that I just snapped. I was going crazy. I started walking into herds, letting them surround me, then it took them all out with a knife. I was surviving, but I wasn't living. I almost gave up. It was like that until Glenn and Maggie found me."
Carl nodded in understanding, his mouth slightly ajar. "I had to kill my mom too." Anna didn't notice, but all the while she was talking, Carl edged closer to her. When she finally turned to face him, they were inches apart. They stood like that for a moment. Then Anna did something. She hugged him.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for listening, for caring." She pulled away and smiled at him. She shifted her gaze to the horizon and noticed the setting sun. "Our shift is over."
.
.
[One week later]
"Can I come in?" Anna smiled at the sound of Carl's voice.
"Yeah," Anna said, not even trying to hide what she was writing in.
"What's that?" Carl asked, sitting beside her on the bunk.
"It's a diary. I've been writing in it since the Beginning. This is volume three."
"Three?!"
She shrugged. "I write big. I never kept one before because my days were always so uneventful. I figure if the world ever goes back to normal, they'll publish it and I'll be famous like Anne Frank."
"Is there anything about me in there?"
"Of course there is. And a little about every person I've met here."
"But more about me?"
Anna chuckled. "Yeah, there's more about you." She put down her book and pencil and scooted closer to him. "What do you want to do?"
"Nothing."
She turned to face him. "We could play a game."
"Like what?"
"What about 'I've Never'?"
Carl chuckled. "Isn't that a drinking game?"
Anna shrugged. "It doesn't have to be. Whenever it's something that you've done," Anna ripped an empty page out of her diary, "you make a tally for yourself. The person with less tallies at the end gets to decide what the loser has to do."
Carl nodded. "Okay." Anna divided the page into two sections by drawing a line down the middle. She put an "A" on the left side and a "C" on the right side.
"Alright, I'll start with an easy one. I've never called a dead one a 'walker'."
Carl smiled and made a tally on his side. "I've never called a walker a 'dead one'."
Anna made a tally for herself. "I've never slept on a top bunk."
Carl made a tally. "I've never killed a walker with a rock."
Anna didn't move. "I've never been on an airplane."
Tally. "I've never been off the east coast."
Anna didn't move. "I've never shot anybody who wasn't related to me."
Tally. "I've never been alone out there."
Tally. "My dad's never saved me from a dead one."
Tally. "My sister's never come back as a walker."
Tally. "I've never liked anyone except for you." Carl didn't move, and he looked into her eyes.
"I've never played 'I've Never' before."
Tally. "I've never seen a walker eat someone I don't know."
Carl didn't move. "I've never had an older sibling."
Tally. Anna looked at the tally sheet. "You win. What do you want?"
Carl thought over his answer. "I want to kiss you."
"Me too." They edged closer together until they were inches apart. Carl took a deep breath and pressed his lips against hers for a moment. They smiled at each other when they pulled away.
Carl was happy that Anna finally understood that he cared about her.