A/N: This is an OC story, mainly focusing on a strong Michonne/OC friendship and (maybe, if I'm in the mood of experimenting, or you guys want me to give it a try) an asexual Daryl/OC romance eventually. The prologue is kind of a summary, but the other chapters will be different. I'm not a native English speaker, so please excuse the possible grammar errors. If this sounds like your thing, I hope you enjoy the story and please leave a review. Thanks!

Prologue

At first, it was just a couple of weird videos on the internet. People were arguing about whether they were fake or not. Life went on. My brother, Daniel, came to visit me in my apartment—I had left D.C. for college five years ago, then moved to Atlanta after graduation to put a distance between me and my parents , but I still loved my brother—with his wife and daughter. We watched the concurrent riots in different cities on TV as we had dinner. We knew something was seriously wrong when one of those evenings the electricity began going off and on for the rest of the night and the screams of terrified people filled the streets.

That was when I got a call from Father. He told me that the army would soon start setting up camps and we should go there. He gave me the location of the nearest one. Lastly, he apologized for his part in this mess—I had no idea what he was talking about—and promised me that it would end soon, because he had a solution.

We took the most essential items to help us survive, and left. I somehow ended up as the leader of our small group, probably because of my ability of quick thinking and martial arts skills. However, what they had forgotten was that I only knew how to protect myself, not to lead others. By the time we got out of my apartment, the pandemonium had already broken loose. The police were shooting at civilians, but people kept coming back from death. Just like the videos on the internet. Only then, I understood they weren't fake. They were real. Very real. I was trying to process what I saw around me when Daniel and Mel gave in to panic and went all paranoid. They refused to go to the military camp, as they believed it was a trap and we all would be slaughtered there.

I could have believed it myself, had it not been for my father. He was a politician with power and influence, and I knew we would be among their priority list when the rescue came. We surely had our differences. His cruel ambition was the reason I had left home, but even I didn't want to believe he had a part in this. What was this, anyway? A biological weapon? An experiment that had gone terribly wrong?

To get the answers, first I had to stay alive. I tried to keep Daniel and Mel alive, too, but they weren't strong enough to survive the chaos. I didn't know how to convince them to trust and follow me. In the end, my five-year-old niece, Lily, had to watch her parents get eaten by the undead. I managed to get her out of there while she cried and screamed in my arms. I got us to the camp and waited for my father to show up at any moment.

Days passed. As we waited, Lily made friends with another kid, Andre. I was grateful to Andre, and his mother, Michonne, for distracting her from the horrifying memories of that night. I was terrible with children. I never liked them and never wanted to be a mother myself. When Lily was a baby, I refused to hold her, or play with her. It was not that I didn't care about her, she was my blood and all she had left in this world was me now. I wasn't a heartless psychopath, unlike what most people—especially other women—thought of me. I just felt awkward around children because I didn't know how to communicate with them. I tended to be incredibly stern and intolerant around them. I managed to keep Lily safe physically, but I broke her heart so many times with my harsh responses, even thought I didn't mean to. Michonne saw this and instead of judging me immediately, gave me a few tips to have a better relationship with Lily. To my surprise, they actually worked. In return, I taught her a few tricks to help her use the katana she had stolen from her neighbor. I wasn't an expert, though, I only knew the basics. My own weapon of choice was a custom-made, extendable bo staff. Michonne and I had discovered that the only way to kill those freaks was to shoot or stab them in the head, but a strong blow with my steel staff got the job done as well. We also carried guns and knives, but we didn't want to waste the bullets and knives were only for the ones who got too close.

In time, people grew desperate and left the camp. But I told Michonne who I was, who my family was, and she believed that sticking with me was the best option. We went on runs for supplies while her boyfriend Mike, and his friend Terry looked after Andre and Lily. She was strong and reliable, so we did good out there. Unfortunately, leaving the men on their own was a terrible mistake neither of us had foreseen. One day, when we returned, we saw the camp had been overrun, Mike and Terry had been bitten, and… the kids. We found them partially devoured. But the worst part was the drugs we found near Mike and Terry. They were high when it happened. It was their irresponsibility that got Andre and Lily killed. I thought Michonne had gone insane when she cut the dead men's arms off and amputated their jaws, letting them turn. I thought she was going to kill me, too, and prepared myself to fight my friend. After all, I was the reason she had stayed here. But she just hugged me, and cried in my arms for hours, until Mike and Terry came back as reanimated corpses.

I didn't know whether what my father had told me was true, or just a trick to persuade me to go to the camp. All I knew was that he wasn't coming. He didn't have a solution. I had to survive on my own, because giving up wasn't in my nature. So, Michonne and I agreed to leave the destroyed camp.

Michonne chained Mike and Terry up, and dragged them around as a way of punishment for their irresponsibility. I was going to stop her, as it was bad for her mental health. She had started talking to them, as if they could understand her. But their bodies provided an unexpected benefit. I noticed that they kept the other freaks away. So, I let her keep them and hoped she would come back from it. As for me, I tried not to think about Lily, about how I failed her. I focused on the only duty ahead to preserve my sanity, keeping Michonne alive. I owed her that much.

She finally snapped out of it, indeed, on one night I was about to get eaten by one of the freaks. There were just too many of them for one person, and Michonne was sitting in a corner without doing anything while I fought with everything I had. They didn't notice her because she was holding Mike and Terry's chains. I prepared myself to die just before I heard her drawing her sword. I hadn't heard that sound for weeks.

After that incident, we started to discuss strategies, because winter was coming, and it was going to be harsh. We knew we would have a better chance if we had more people, but we also knew not everyone could be trusted. For one thing, we decided to recruit only women and especially avoid large groups of men, after what had happened with Mike and Terry. We kept looking, until one evening we heard a young woman screaming in the woods. She was alone, had run out of bullets, and surrounded by the undead, but she was obviously a fighter, exactly what we needed. That was how we met Andrea.

This encounter was going to change our lives forever.