A/N: Okay, so I was dallying around with things and this came to me. I had spoken with it with other people who liked my story 'Eyes on Fire' and one person was interested if she had seen Sophia. I started thinking about what IF Carrie found Sophia. Then the second idea hit me. What if Shane DID leave and met up with them as they were looking for Carol and the group. I'm not gonna turn this into a reuniting with the group thing. I don't know if I even wanna take them to Woodbury. I'm testing the waters...let me know what you guys think.
Her eyes searched frantically, feet moving over broken branches and small holes dug in the ground as she tried to follow Rick's instructions.
What side was the sun supposed to be on?
Stopping she glanced around again at her surroundings. Rick had confused her beyond a shadow of a doubt, and now here she stood, completely lost in the woods in a place she knew nothing about. He had lured the walkers that had followed her off and she was sure that they were dead. But now what else was there to deal with?
How many walkers had split from the herd? How many were already were in the woods?
Was anyone looking for her?
Of course. Her mother had to be looking for her, with Rick and Shane and Andrea. They were all looking for her.
Right?
Feet shuffling in the distance startled her as she turned to find what was making the noise. Eyes squinted she tried to find an image to put to the sound. Finally Sophia's eyes met with the silhouette of a stumbling figure walking down the small hill. Another walker.
Sophia's hands gripped her doll tightly as she turned and took off into the woods. She couldn't tell the highway from the rest of her surroundings, or where the sun should have been. All that she knew was to run.
Her sneakers were worn, as they had been for a few months. She had seen a girl at school with black sneakers, but they were really cool to. They were sort of bigger and had a high tongue, the girls and boys called them high tops and she had seen a lot of the 'rough' looking boys in her high school wear them at the bus stop she shared with them. The pair she liked had lime green and pink detailing and shoe laces and silver shiny pieces on the front. She wanted to get something other than the pair of sneakers that had become rather crude since she had got them at the beginning of the school year.
When she asked her dad about it, he looked up from his chair and snickered.
"You got the money for them stupid shoes?"
Carol said that maybe when it was her birthday she could get them, but she knew it wasn't the truth. She'd never get them. It was just another thing in the long list of things that she knew she could never get.
Sophia had given up on it quickly, and was stuck with the same sneakers she had now. The front was beginning to wear, and she could feel her toes wiggle the material a lot looser than before this...mess began.
Pace slowing she rested against a tree after looking around. Doll raised she let out a quick sigh."What are we gonna do?" She whispered. "I'm scared." The soft material of the doll pressed against her had helped qualm her nerves. When she would hear the noise around her, when the world collapsed, her doll was the only thing that made sense.
After her short time she took off again, stumbling and moving as she did before. She wanted to find the highway, to find someone. If she could find her way back to the highway then all would be fine. All Sophia could remember about running off was the fact that her mother was yelling and the biters were fast on her trail, hungry for her. How the walker that found her under the car could be smart enough to do that had been buzzing in her head when she found a moment of silence.
At the CDC she watched the video of the person that had been bitten and how they had come back when they were gone. Something in their brain. She didn't understand much but she knew that something came back in them. They weren't...themselves, they didn't think.
But that walker thought to look under thanks to her smell...or sound...or something.
The heat of the area had strung her out as she continued to stumble around. She passed by a few places she thought she could hide or rest and continued on her way. Sophia's fingers pushed on the braided string of her doll's hair. When she got nervous, whether because of her parents or school, she'd always have her hands fiddling something. It was an instinct that remained even after this mess of a new world was born.
Would she see anyone ever again? Would she be able to hug her mother again...to tell her how much she really did love her?
Carl crept into her mind to. She had considered him nice and he wasn't mean to her like other boys at school were. She wanted to know him more, find out what comics and video games he liked. They talked a little bit about it but Lori and Carol had told them it wasn't smart to think about that stuff cause they'd miss it too much.
She wanted to learn how to handle a gun, or a crossbow like that man Daryl did. He was really scary, but something seemed cool about him, especially after seeing him be nicer at the CDC. After he lost his brother, something changed about him a little bit. She had only made direct eye contact with him a few times, but something had changed in the brief seconds they exchanged.
When the realization hit her, it hit like a semi truck. Tears began to sting her eyes and brim off her light lashes to the beet red cheeks from her own broken composure and the sun. Running down her face the tears momentarily cooled them as she heated up in frustration. No one had found her yet, and she was pretty sure she hadn't gone far from where she had been.
If Officer Grimes wouldn't have left her she wouldn't be like this. Didn't he want to take her back to her mom?
She thought to herself about how Shane wouldn't have left her alone. Sure he was a tad on the scary side, but she had heard about what he did to her dad when Amy and Andrea had spoken about it with Lori. It was all hush hush, but she could still hear the words clear as day.
Shane wanted to protect everyone, and he was doing the best he could until Officer Grimes had shown up. For a moment she wished had never shown up. Then they wouldn't have gone to the CDC, Jacqueline would probably still be alive, they wouldn't have been on the highway, and she wouldn't be in the predicament she was in now.
Dusk approached and she hadn't heard or seen anyone. No voices, no shadows, not even gun shots. It was like they had stopped looking for her.
It was starting to cool down and Sophia was still lost without any idea of where she was going or what she was going to do. Sophia knew she couldn't just lie down on the ground and go to sleep, no way. One of those things would stumble over her or smell her like they had before. Then she'd probably be eaten and it'd be a done deal.
The only thing that still made sense to her was the clear fact that she was determined to one thing when this all started.
Keep on living.
For her, for her friends, and for her mom.
The sky was painted red, pink, and purple, three of her favorite colors. Hints of orange touched around but she didn't care for it too much. A large tree with many branches had finally come into her sight and she climbed them up for a few feet. At least it was no where that the walkers could reach up but wasn't too harsh of a fall.
It wasn't like she was going to get sleep anyways. Who could even sleep anymore? Ever since the CDC she hadn't slept well. Dr. Jenner had killed himself, he didn't want to live anymore. Her mom and everyone else pleaded and begged. Jacqueline stayed behind, so did Andrea, but Dale had gotten her out. Why didn't he get Jacqueline out too?
With no signs of walkers in sight she pushed her bottom lip out and began to cry, smothering her face into her doll in the process. Sophia pulled her legs up to her chest and sat curled up, sobbing until she had fallen asleep to the sounds of bugs buzzing and birds chirping and moving through the trees. For a brief time in her sleep, it was pure quiet and dark. There was a certain silence that she hadn't found in ages, and it was great.
Stirring she noticed that it was still dark out. Without Dale's watch she didn't know what time it was, and that upset her. There were times she could recall waking up when it was dark out and not knowing if it was before midnight so she could go back to sleep or close enough to the morning where she could go make herself breakfast or read without waking her dad up.
The stars were in the sky, and without the pollution of Atlanta and nearby cities, the sky was beautiful, at least from where she could see.
Reaching in the dark she snapped a few branches away and smiled at the sight in the sky. It was gorgeous. For once, there was something beautiful in the world. The sky had never faltered, the stars hadn't skipped a beat. They danced along the sky like nothing had changed, and had a bigger audience with the pollution and city skyline gone.
In class, during their computer time learning to type, she would go on the map sites a lot. They always had a 'nighttime' feature where if you hit it, you could see the location from the most recent night and see all the lights that covered that region. Some places in America were covered, she could point out Philadelphia, New York City, Hollywood, and Las Vegas. Then there were other places, like the plains and mountains, with hardly any light. On the coasts the lines shined while the heart of the country slept. If she had the chance to see the country now on a night map, it would be pitch black, like the rest of the world.
Yawning she adjusted her head against the bark of the tree and peered up a the sky. Sophia wondered if her mom had stopped to see how beautiful the sky was now. Even when they were at the quarry she never noticed, and she wanted to kick her own butt for it. If she would have known it was this pretty, she would have taken the chance to admire them more when she wasn't staring death in the face.
Still tired she reclined back against the tree as her eyes fluttered. Sleep was calling again, and with the starry night sky as the scenery overhead, the idea of human eating creatures below seemed for once...less frightening.
Crust covered her eyes where the tears had pooled during her sleep to burn against the sun rising in the distance. She had made it through the night. She made it to morning. A small sob escaped her lips at the realization that she survived. Surveying the sky she couldn't help but smile at the same pink and red hues that had filled her with dread just a few hours beforehand. It was like she had accomplished the impossible and survived. By now she'd already be awake and eating breakfast with her mom and Carl and Lori and they'd be on the move yet again. Rubbing her stomach she frowned at the small growl it made. Now she was hungry, and she'd be looking for food sooner or later? What could she do?
Sophia didn't have have a knife, let alone know how to hold one, and she couldn't stomach killing innocent animals like Daryl and his brother did so easily.
Her mind immediately back tracked at the thought of the older Dixon brother. They left him chained to a roof. Hearing Daryl scream and cry still haunted her as she watched from behind her parents. No one was upset besides him.
His name...Merle. It was Merle because she could remember snickering at how such a mean looking man had such a girly name. At least her daddy had a name that fit a boy. But they had left him. Officer Grimes had chained him up and they ran off without him.
Whether he was a mean man or not, she knew no one deserved that. They said they were going back for him and when they returned to the camp, after she had seen Amy slaughtered and the camp torn to shreds, she wondered who would really survive anymore. No child should have had to think the thoughts racing through her head. Sophia had started questioning humanity, Officer Grimes and Shane's morals, Daryl's bond to his brother, and even her own bond to her mother.
Sophia had sat pondering for a few hours that morning. The fear of moving and being in a chase and the train of thought that she had been delving on for hours stopping her from pushing forward.
She had to find food, find water, find anything that could help her stay alive and get back to her mom. Maybe they would be out looking for her again once they woke up and she'd tell her mom how she ran from the walkers and slept through the night and survived on her own. It sounded like a brave tale of wonder to her as she repeated it in her head. Imagination couldn't be lost, no matter what the situation was. If the dead could come back to life, what else was possible?
After a while longer and a new found determination Sophia climbed down with doll still in hand and began to walk, tip toeing through the walls and keeping her eye out for walkers. The morning had dawned and Sophia couldn't help but smile when she found an open creek. It had been what seemed a few hours and she was growing tired and weary without food. Stomach still growling she stopped at a sound that wasn't dangerous, but something she had wanted to hear for a while. There was running water. Stumbling down the small hit she came up to the edge of the water and fell down on her knees. Sitting her doll on the log next to her she cupped her hands and began to drink. It seemed untouched by anything and she couldn't help but smile as the cool water hit her face and dribbled down over her chin. If she could hide out and stay in that area for a while, maybe even find some berries or an area nearby that had some fruit or veggies, even a house with canned food, she knew that if she held out they'd find her. Something had been restored in her as she splashed the water over her face.
Maybe she could make it.
Those thoughts were stopped as she heard something to peak her sound. In the distance, it was an all too familiar growling.
Over her shoulder she could see a stumbling silhouette turn and look her way. Standing up she took another gulp of water and sprinted across the log and up the hill and into the woods.
Not looking back she pushed forward and finally came to a stop when the sound and fear had lessened. Looking back Sophia frowned, she had left her doll behind.
She felt no better than Officer Grimes.
At least she had some water in her, and knew where a source was. If she stayed in the area for a little bit, they'd find her any time. Rick and Shane were cops, they had looked for missing girls before, they knew where to look. They'd find her no trouble.
At least she hoped.
Hope was all she had left.
A/N: This was haaaaard to write. Y'all have no idea, I can write Carrie easy as hell, I can write Merle pretty easy, Daryl is okay for me. But Sophia? Oh hell I'm gonna have trouble with this at first. So, basically I am rewriting this shit. Sophia should NOT be dead! Neither should Shane, Milton, and Merle, at least to me.
So I'm gonna be trying my hand at this. I don't know where I'm gonna take it. If I could get some opinions from y'all I would LOVE that!
The title of the story is inspired by the OST from the anime 'Toradora.' If you want a link to the song please feel free to PM me, it's a beautiful instrumental piece and very inspiring.
Hope you all enjoy! Leave a review, follow, and favorite.
Lots of love xo