It had always been a well known fact in King County that the Harrison sisters were untouchable. All three of them born to Andrew and Allison Harrison, the only two lawyers in town. The family of five lived above the little law firm on main street, right next to the sheriff's office. The eldest daughter, Andrea, went to law school at a small private collage about an hour and a half away. She returned after six years and became the third Harrison lawyer in the family. The second daughter, Amy, was the receptionist in the Harrison Family Law firm, opting to take a course in business online instead of going away to collage. The youngest daughter, Amanda, was in eighth grade at KC Junior High, and she walked there every morning, accompanied by the chief sheriffs' son, Carl Grimes.

You see, King County was the type of town where everybody knew everybody. The type of town you read about in books. King County was built upon routine.

Every morning at 7:30, Rick and Carl Grimes would park in front of the station. Carl would get out of the car and Amanda would run to meet him, having been watching for him from the window.

Amy would chase after Amanda, as the 13 year old girl forgot her lunch every morning. The two of them would disappear down the street.

7:35: Shane Walsh and Andrea Harrison park next to the Grimes' beat up station wagon. Andrea thanks Shane for the ride from the apartment buildings and promises to pay for gas, which she never does because Shane literally lives in the apartment next door. They part ways and enter their respective businesses.

7:44: Amanda and Carl arrive at school, one minuet before the warning bell. The run into home room together just as the bell begins to ring.

3:00: Amanda exits her classroom opposite Carl's and waits for him in the middle of the hall, causing frustration to many passing students. Carl grins at her as he exits.

3:05: Lori pulls through the pick up land and Carl and Amanda enter her car. Lori asks many questions about the days of both children.

3:09: Lori drops Amanda and Carl at the law firm and the two go upstairs to do homework and watch TV.

5:00: Rick finishes his shift and he and Carl go home.

6:00: The Harrison's eat dinner and watch the six o'clock news.

7:00: Mr. Harrison drives Andrea home and Amy and Amanda go to one of their rooms to read books and talk.

8:30: Amanda gets ready for bed.

9:00: Amanda falls asleep with the lights on and a book propped open on her pillow.

Repeat.

I write all of this down on a sheet of paper, making sure to remember all of the details. I'm worried I'll forget once things go back to normal. IF things go back to normal.

"Hey, Amanda! Wanna go swim?" Eliza calls, her dark hair fluttering around her shoulders in the spring time breeze.

"Sure." I respond, placing my pencil in the spiral of my battered green notebook. I always keep a notebook and I've had this one for about a month. I love to write. I scribble down nearly everything in the crisp, white pages of notebooks. From poems to stories to lists and all things in between.

"Be there in a sec," I tell Eliza, taking my notebook into the RV. I grab a sports bra, and extra pair of undies and one of my dad's old shirts and dress in that. The shirt covers my knees, and it smells like gasoline and peppermints. That's what my dad smells like. Smelled like. No matter how many times I jump into the waters of the quarry wearing it, the smell never fades.

I run down the trail to the water barefoot, pretending not to notice the tiny pebbles digging into my feet. Carl, Sophia, and Eliza are already in the water splashing and giggling. Louis sits on the bank under the watch of Sophia's mom, Carol.

"C'mon Amanda!" Carl shouts to me.

"Is it cold?" I ask.

"Not at all!" Sophia and Carl say together.

"Jinx!" Carl shouts at her, pushing her into the water.

I laugh and take off running into the water.

Eliza dunks me once I reach her, and I respond by creating a wave with my arm, hitting her right in the face. Carl laughs at her, and she turns her attention onto him, splashing and dunking.

"Uncle, uncle!" Carl yells, sputtering and laughing. Eliza relents.

"I'm watching you, Grimes," she says in a sinister voice, disappearing below the surface. She pops up next to Sophia moments later.

"Look! There's Andrea and Amy!" Sophia shouts.

My older sisters are in a boat, attempting to fish.

"Let's go flip the boat!" I say.

"No, that's mean!" Sophia responds, brow furrowed.

"I don't think I can swim all of the way out there." Eliza says, shrugging.

"Carl?" I ask.

"Yeah, let's do it!"

Carl and I disappear below the water, silently swimming like frogs. We pop up to take a breath at the same time, barley sticking our heads above the surface. We go under again, breath again, go back under and once we reach the little boat, we hide in the shade it provides.

"... Amanda doesn't even know that yet." Andrea says.

I look to Carl confused, and he attempts to shrug under water.

"Should we tell her? It's not fair to let her think mom and dad might still be alive."

My heart breaks into a million pieces.

I was at school the day it happened. An announcement came over the loud speaker in home room.

"We are on lockdown, I repeat, we are on lockdown."

"Is this a drill?" Someone asked the teacher.

"No, it's not." She responded, nearly hyperventilating.

Carl, who hadn't been to school until today because of Rick's incident, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the classroom.

Nobody noticed.

"What are you doing?" I whispered harshly.

"It's not a shooter. It's that weird disease thing that's going around. I heard the doctors at the hospital talking about it. We have to go find our families." He explains, still dragging me down the hall.

I hear screaming from our homeroom behind us.

"C'mon!" Carl shouts, dragging me by the hand as we run down the hall.

We turn a corner and are met with a terrifying, rotting thing. It was our librarian. The thing that used to be an old woman growls at us, extending its arms and reaching for my jacket. It grabs the fabric and I shriek as its mouth closed in on my shoulder. Carl kicks the thing backwards and it falls, arm detaching from the rest of its body, hand still attached to my jacket.

I scream "Get it off, get it off!" Carl declaws the sickly pink fingernails from where they have dug into the soft purple fabric and throws the whole arm at the thing, which is begging to stir again.

"More!" I yell, spotting a group of the rotters behind us.

Carl and I run through the halls, toward a side door. It's in our sights, and we make a clean break for it.

Outside, I see Shane's jeep with Andrea, Amy, and Lori inside with him. Sirens blare all around us, and I can see smoke in the distance. Carl and I reach the jeep and Amy pulls me inside the back seat, while Lori grabs Carl upfront.

"What's going on? Where's mom and dad?" I yell.

"It's okay, they're fine!" Andrea grabs my cheeks. "It's gonna be okay."

She was lying.

Carl looks at me as my brow furrows and a single tear rolls down my face. I feel his hand grab mine under the water, but I don't look at him. Instead, I do exactly what I came here to do.

Flip the boat.

Andrea and Amy shriek as the boat tips, and they fall out, they surface wet, looking around frantically for that caused the tip, sputtering.

"How could you not tell me?" I yell at them, swimming to where they are.

"Amanda? How-"

"I heard what you said! How could not tell me that mom and dad died?"

"We didn't want you to freak out..." Andrea says.

"So you tell me later? You had to tell me at some point! When did you think I would find out, huh? Sometime far off into the future when everything's back to normal?" I yell, infuriated. "How could you keep this from me? You're the only family I have left. We can't keep secrets."

"You're right, we should have told you." Amy says, reaching out to stroke my hair.

"C'mon, let's get back into the boat and we can talk about it." Andrea suggests, paddling over to the wooden boat.

"So... They're really gone?" I ask once we're all in the boat. Carl swam back to the others, not joining us in the boat.

"Yeah," Amy whispers.

I take a deep breath, "I kinda figured."

"I know you did kiddo." Andrea sighs.

"So, what do we do now?" I ask.

"We have each other. We have this group. We'll be alright."

I hope she's right.