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Now on with chapter 2, Enjoy!

Chapter 2

I told Sophia to wait outside but the girl was too scared to be on her own at the moment. I should have realized that before making the suggestion at all, it was very difficult keeping an eye on my surroundings and on her at the same time. This is exactly why I travelled alone.

The abandoned home was large, it wasn't a farm like most of the houses in the area, but still almost the size of one. I tossed the flashlight to Sophia. "The lights don't work. I need you to light the area in front of me when we scout some of the rooms. Can you do that?"

Sophia clicked the flashlight on and nodded.

We checked the kitchen first. There were candles on the dining table. Most of them already used, you could tell by the multiple coloured layers of wax upon the surface.

"Madison, I think someone's been here." Sophia whispered. Very observant of her.

"That would have been me." I replied as I placed my backpack on a chair. Sophia frowned at me. "But if you have been here before, how come we are,-"

She stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling. The sound of someone or something moving about came from upstairs.

"That is why." I said keeping my gaze on the ceiling. "I'm going to need your help."

I opened my backpack and took out one of the knives I carried in there. I extended it to Sophia. The little girl shook her head at the sight of the knife.

"Sophia, I'm sorry, but if we want to spend the night here, then I'm going to need your help." I moved my hand and she stepped back.

I sighed. "Or would you rather have me lock up you in the pantry?"

She pulled a face and reluctantly took the knife from me. We headed up the stairs, Sophia tightly held on to my jacket as we made our way into the corridor. An orange light shone brightly through the window at the end of the hallway, the sun was setting. We halted in front of one of the doors. It had gone quiet.

"Do you think it's in there?" Sophia whispered. A loud bang sounded from the other side of the door, causing me and Sophia to jump.

"Stand back, Sophia." I grabbed the handle and turned it, but nothing happened. I turned it again and still it did not budge.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "It's locked."

"What do we do now?" Sophia asked," are you going to kill it?"

I had no idea how it could have gotten itself locked up in there. Judging by the hinges, the door opened up towards the inside, not into the corridor. Had something heavy fallen against the other side? In any case, we couldn't get in, which meant it couldn't get out.

"We're going to leave it."

"Leave it?!"

Another loud bang came from behind the door, followed by a gurgling noise.

"If we can't get in there, then it can't get out. We can block part of the corridor with furniture in case it does manage to find a way out." I suggested. Sophia didn't seem to like the idea. I was actually starting to think she wanted me to kill the Walker.

She never said a thing though, so we started to check the other rooms. They were all clear, meaning it was just the one in the room. I knew that eventually I would kill it, but for now I would leave it where it was. Before we headed downstairs I decided to move the cabinets, which stood in the corridor, towards the room where the Walker was.

"Sophia. Watch my back, alright?" I asked her while placing my crowbar against the wall. I took a deep breath and with great effort pushed one of the cabinets towards the door, where Sophia stood guard. It was a rather heavy thing, so I stopped. "Mind lending me a hand?"

Instead of saying yes, or no, Sophia screamed loudly.

I turned around staring directly at one of those Walkers, a female Walker, missing half of her bottom jaw and teeth. Her brownish red tongue flopped around, like a tired dog gasping for air. She launched forward at a speed I hadn't seen before in one of them. I raised my arms and caught her before we both toppled over.

"Sophia! Knife, give me the knife!" I yelled trying not to breath in the horrible smell coming from the dead, yet very much moving, corpse on top of me. I tried pushing her off, but she was too close to my face.

"Sophia!" I shouted again.

Something wet hit my face and the body went limp. I quickly shoved the Walker off of me and stared at it with disbelieve. The knife I had given Sophia was stuck in the creature's left eye, what was left of it. It probably hit her brain somehow.

I turned my head to look at Sophia and saw that she was still standing in the same spot. She had thrown the knife, actually thrown the knife! What if she had missed and hit the wall or me instead, I could have been bitten or killed. But the little girl had very well just saved my life.

I crawled back onto my feet and stumbled towards her.

"Are you alright?" I asked her with concern. All of the blood seemed to have drained from her face. "Sophia?"

She didn't reply but simply stared at the Walker she had managed to kill with a single toss. I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you. Thank you, Sophia." Then I felt her small arms crawl over my back and she returned the hug.

"Come on, let's go down and have some dinner before we go to bed."

::::::…::::::

The next morning we were sitting outside in the tall grass, taking our time, before we would head out towards the road to look for Sophia's mother.

"Maddy?" Sophia yelled a few feet away from me.

"What?" I replied, leaning on my elbows to look at her. She was standing next to a bush with a few white flowers. She plucked one and walked back to me.

"Look at this beautiful flower, isn't it amazing?" She handed me the little white thing. It was rather odd to see something this beautiful still being able to bloom during these times.

"Do you know what it's called?" Sophia asked.

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "It kind of looks like a rose." I returned the flower to her and she continued back to what she had been doing since the crack of dawn, throwing knives.

Ever since she had saved me from the Walker last night, I figured it would be best to have her practise with a weapon should she need to defend herself or perhaps save my life again. Last night could have been sheer dumb luck, but it was the best shot I had ever seen.

This morning she proved that she had some form skill when it came to knife throwing. The first few throws were shit, but soon she figured out a way, and after that almost every single toss she did was a direct hit at the target. If I didn't know any better, I'd even say she was rather enjoying it.

When Sophia woke up this morning she was quite chirpy. It annoyed me to bits. We opened a can of anchovies for breakfast, which was just as disgusting as it sounds but we had to eat something. It was rather weird the way she had gone from a breakdown to this happy go lucky child.

Last night had shaken her up pretty badly. Nevertheless she fell asleep rather quickly. We had created a makeshift bed at the bottom of a pantry. She squeezed herself in there while I kept guard in front of it. I sat there all night, with my crowbar across my lap and the flashlight in my hand, watching her sleep. It felt good to be with someone again, talking to someone, looking out for someone. But it also meant I had to watch out more and be even more careful. I had stayed up the whole night not getting a wink of sleep.

"I think it's time we hit the road, Sophia." I said as I stretched out in the grass before getting up.

"Alright!" She replied as she gathered the knives.

I hoisted the backpack onto my back and took two of the three knives from her. That knife she had thrown last night belonged to her now. She had earned it.

:::::::::...::::::::::

"Do you think my mum and the others are still on the road?" She asked hopefully after we had walked for an hour.

"I hope so and if not, we will keep on looking." I replied and I meant it. I may not want it, but she was my responsibility now. If her mother and friends were still alive I would have to do all I can to get her back with them.

"Will you stay with us?"

I stopped and stared at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Sophia started. "We're a big group and we look out for each other. You're alone, so I thou,-"

"We shall see, Sophia. The first important thing is getting you back." I said sternly not wanting to discuss it any further. I didn't buy it for one second that her group looked out for each other. That man had left her behind for heaven's sake.

After another hour of walking, having encountered no Walkers luckily, we made it to the road. Dozens of cars had been left here. Some still containing Walkers, most of them dead instead of undead.

"Do you recognize any of these surroundings?" I asked her after we had walked around for fifteen minutes. Sophia shook her head. I couldn't blame her for not recognizing anything, seeing as there were a lot of cars left behind on this highway. I could hardly imagine a little girl the age of,- I halted. I had no idea how old she was. She couldn't be a teenager yet, but not a young child either.

"Sophia, how old are you anyway?" I asked.

"Twelve," She peeked into one of the cars, crinkled her nose and walked back to me. "How old are you Maddy?"

I leaned my back against one of the cars, my shoulders still hurt a bit from falling against that cabinet last night. "It's not polite to ask a woman her age."

Sophia crossed her arms. "Forty?"

My eyes widened. "Forty, well thanks a lot. Just because I haven't had a decent wash in a while, doesn't mean I'm old."

"Sorry…"

"That's alright, I'm thirty actually."

"That is still old." She replied.

"Okay, enough resting," I replied feeling irritated. "Let's continue down the road, if we don't find anything we'll head back to the house."

We walked down the highway, Sophia told me that one of the vehicles they had was an RV. But there wasn't an RV in sight, perhaps they had moved on. I couldn't imagine they would, no mother would leave their child unless she knew for certain it was hopeless.

"Is that food?" Sophia suddenly exclaimed pointing at a yellow car. I narrowed my eyes and noticed, what seemed like, writing on the back window.

We approached the vehicle, and indeed those were letters on the glass;

SOPHIA STAY HERE

WE WILL COME EVERY

DAY

A message for Sophia, they hadn't forgotten about her, they simply moved to somewhere else. These roads weren't really safe, lots of Walkers hung around here, it would only be a matter of time before we'd come across some of them.

I glanced at the supplies they had left on the car, a blanket, large flashlight. Bottled water and…was that peanut butter?

Sophia didn't seem to care much about the stuff. She placed her hand on the window and looked up at me. "They left? When will they come back?"

"I don't know, Soph…" Honestly I had no intention of waiting for them. I understood the idea those people had in mind, but truthfully it was rather dangerous and I was not going to risk my neck by waiting here until they might show up. I grabbed the food and water from the trunk and stuffed it into the backpack.

"Wait! What are you doing?!" Sophia cried out. "Leave that! We have to wait for them."

She grabbed hold of my arm and started to pull, causing me to drop the bag on the floor. "Sophia, we can't wait." I turned around to face her. "What if they've already been here? Do you know how many of those things are around here?"

Her lip started to tremble.

"I told you I'd get you back to your mother and I will, but for now we have to go. I don't want to wait here and become Walker food in case they don't show up."

She started to sob and I pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry…"

"I'll tell you what, how about we'll leave them a message?" I suggested. Sophia looked up and wiped her tears away.

"What kind of message?"

Daryl will make his appearance in the next chapter :)

R&R

Until next time!