Chapter One
The days seemed endless. They were always hot – the sun seemed to orbit around her head instead of the Earth – and the only thing they ever consisted of was walking, scavenging, and killing Walkers.
She listened intently to the sound of the leaves being crunched beneath her feet as she trudged through the woods, a hand clutching the hilt of the knife that was fastened through a belt loop at her hip. It was one of the few belongings that she had, one that she couldn't survive without, and her hand never strayed far from it. She never knew when she was going to need it and she was never going to be caught unaware. She was always prepared.
She didn't exactly know where she was headed. North, she knew, but she didn't have an exact location in mind. She just wandered aimlessly, mainly through the wooded areas so that she could avoid as many people, living or otherwise, as she could. Sometimes she made a quick run into whatever the closest town to her was, scavenged for supplies on the outskirts before quickly running back to her haven of foliage and dirt.
The bright side to being alone, she supposed, was that she didn't have to have very many supplies. She had a thick wool blanket, her knife, a few tin cans of food, a bottle of water, a small first aid kit that contained a few bandages but not much else, a needle and some thread, and a small bottle of aspirin that was nearly empty. She desperately needed to find some more of that stuff, she knew. With the heat as bad as it was, the headaches that plagued her were bothersome and dangerous. They easily knocked her to her knees and, on more than one occasion, had knocked her unconscious.
That comes with being shot in the head, she thought bitterly and she reached up to graze the wound with her fingers. All that she found was a small round patch of puckered skin that she knew would never fully heal.
She sighed.
The scar was a constant reminder of everything she'd ever done wrong and everything she'd lost. Most of her memories had been gone when she'd woken up in the hospital. She'd had no idea who she was, no idea where she was, and certainly no idea of what had happened or how she'd gotten such a terrible headache.
The doctor had quickly explained though. Shot. The words rang through her head, almost like what she imagined the bullet had sounded like, and she grimaced. It had been her fault, they'd said. She'd attacked somebody with scissors, the gun the woman – Dawn, she thinks they said her name was – had been holding had went off and poof, she'd been no more.
She hadn't been able to speak in the beginning. Her tongue seemed to trip over the words that she'd tried to form and she hadn't had any luck with writing either. So, she'd taken to communicating through her own form of sign language.
Why though? She'd asked the question on more than one occasion and all they'd ever done is shrugged until a stout old man named Percy told her, "You just said – I get it now. Nobody knows. Your family was here to take you with them and it all just happened so quickly. I'd never seen people look so devastated."
She'd never asked again.
Months had went by, the summer had turned into winter and then into spring and she'd spent most of her time in the solitary confinement of her room, glaring out the window at the shapes of the rambling corpses that littered the city. She may not have been able to remember her name – she'd been told it was Beth Greene – but she'd certainly been able to remember what those things were and her fingers twitched constantly with the aching need to drive a knife into their skulls.
She'd been unnaturally angry most of the time. The doctor - she'd never bothered to learn his name - had said that it was to be expected. The bullet had done significant damage to her frontal lobe and he'd explained that she'd probably have trouble controlling her emotions, her impulses and other things that she'd probably know if she hadn't tuned him out halfway through his rambling.
Every week, her ability to speak improved. She went from waving her hands like a mad woman to being able to reply to questions in the form of 'yes' and 'no'. Longer sentences were harder though. Sometimes she had to think about what she was saying and her words came out staggered and broken. She hated it though, so she very rarely spoke – only when spoken to – and that was just the way it was.
Eventually, she'd been able to stumble from that damn bed and she'd been allowed to walk – she'd slower than she'd hoped, but she'd been able to. And soon after that, she'd re-taught herself how to defend herself.
Officer Shepard had given her a knife and a gun, though she shied from it, and had allowed her to take a spot on the roof where she'd practiced. She'd been pleasantly surprised when she'd realized that she was actually quite good with both weapons.
It had been just shy of a year since her accident when she'd announced to the rest of the group that she was leaving. She hadn't known why at the time, but she'd felt this unsettling need to get away from the hospital and go. It was almost as if something was beckoning her, pleading with her.
"You'll never be the same, Beth." The doctors' words rang through her head "You need to take it slow. You're always going to have unusual impulses, you're going to feel weird or you may have sudden memory gain or loss. It's dangerous to put yourself out there in a vulnerable position."
"I have to go." She'd simply replied.
And they'd let her. Though, it was reluctant and a few tears had been shed (not by her), she'd been given a small pack of necessities and been sent on her way.
Now, here she was, trudging through the backwoods of Virginia with absolutely no destination in mind.
It didn't really matter to her, either. She had nowhere to be and nobody to find. She couldn't remember any of the people that she'd once called family and she wouldn't have the first clue on how to find them, anyways. A small part of her supposed that she still held a grudge for the fact that they'd dumped her into the trunk of a car after she'd been shot – though she knew that they thought she was dead.
The Grady residents had assured her that her people hadn't had a choice. That they'd watched as the herd of Walkers had descended upon them and that they'd had no choice but to leave her.
Not that she'd cared. She couldn't remember them anyways.
Her train of thought was broken as she heard a twig snap behind her, followed shortly by a low moan. Great, she thought with a grin. She'd needed something to break the monotony of the day up.
She pulled the knife from her waist, clutching it in her right hand, before staggering forward towards the direction of the dead. She couldn't quite see it just yet, but once she cleared through the bushes, she came face-to-back with the biter.
It was a woman and. from the looks of it, she hadn't been dead as long as most of the others that she'd run across. She was dark haired though most of it had fallen out and she was wearing a tank top and cargo pants that had most definitely seen better days. She didn't seem to be carrying anything other than the God-awful stench that constantly surrounded the undead. It didn't help that it was the middle of summer and the heat was beginning to cook them. Her stomach rolled.
It hadn't noticed her yet so she purposefully snapped a twig beneath her boot, causing the Walkers' head to snap in her direction, its teeth chomping together in a persistent manner as it moaned. Seconds later, it was stumbling towards her and she stood there, eyeing the thing with little to no interest. This was going to be easy.
It approached her slowly, its feet dragging the ground, stumbling over branches and vines but it eventually got close enough that she could make out a few features of the woman. And that's when she panicked.
Something tickled the back of memory – something that she was supposed to remember, something that she needed to remember. Her heart began to beat faster and her brain felt as if was spasming.
Oh, no, she thought wildly.
The biter was close enough now that she was in danger, and the pain that she was in was so bad that was nearly doubled over.
FIGHT! She told herself, Work through the pain or die.
She pulled herself back, her knife still clutched in her hand and she looked up right as the corpse made a grab for her. She stumbled backwards, pushing it back from her so she could get more of a grip on herself without getting bitten. The Walker stumbled forward again, agitated now that it hadn't been able to sink its teeth into its prey, and she took a few shaky steps to the right. She needed to end this thing now – she needed to sit down and try to figure out what was happening.
She decided quickly before she took a few steps forward, grabbed it back the throat and dove her blade straight into the side of its head. Blood splattered everywhere, coating her face and arms but she didn't care as she felt the body go lifeless in her arms and she dropped it with a loud thud against the ground.
Her mind was reeling as the looked at the corpse in front of her, her brain still aching as she wondered what in the hell had set her off like that. It wasn't because it was a Walker, she knew that much. She'd killed enough of those in her time that it'd become a habit. So what was it?
She staggered forward, and rolled the corpse over onto its back and she glared at the face. There was nothing special about it. Dark hair, white skin, somewhat tall. It had been just an average woman.
Her brain spasmed again. Okay, obviously not.
She took another look and this time only one word hit her. Maggie.
"Augh -" She cried out, flinching as her mind whirled. Who was Maggie?
I get it now...
The words pressed to the front of her mind and she stumbled, her other hand coming to press against her temples, almost as if she could force away the pain with just a touch. "Stop ... it," she hissed to herself. "You don't have ... time for this."
A sudden bout of nausea passed through her body and she lurched to her right to clutch the nearest tree. She could feel the saliva pooling in her mouth and she instantly knew she was fixing to rid herself of the breakfast she'd had that morning. Her vision was now blurry, her head was spinning and she quietly fell to the ground, her hands and knees digging into the dirt.
I am strong...
A sharp pain jolted through her head.
I know you look at me and see another dead girl.
Her stomach lurched.
Oh.
Her vision faded to black.