My mercy prevails over my wrath, Rick Grimes.

Taking off his uniform's hat, Rick placed it on the grass beside his knee where he crouched. It was the least respect he could show to the pitiful abomination that was crawling in front of him. Rick wasn't a faithful man, had never believed in God, but he couldn't help but feel like this for the lifelike creature in front of him; an abomination against life.

The woman or what was left from her body trailed blood and guts behind her back as her decaying hand clawed at him, her mouth slowly opening like a dark cavern full of sharp dark teeth with a screeching growl.

Rick tried to read a sort of expression over her falling apart face. Were they—were they still alive? A part of them was still inside? He'd been told that they were like animals, only driven with their hunger on instinct. Humans always fancied the idea that there was something that separated them from other creatures in existence, like a soul, a spirit, a consciousness that transcended them over beyond the realms of simply existing. Was it still there?

Was she begging him for mercy? To end her misery? No one deserved such an end. I can't leave him like this. It was what he'd told the first acquaintance Rick made in this new world. It was a stranger's mercy that had saved him from certain death, shading a little bit of light to the nightmare he'd been having since he felt the hospital.

There was a part of him that still didn't understand what had happened to the world, what had happened to them, a part that still thought that he was having a nightmare, and he would wake up soon and try Lori's godawful pancakes.

The thought cut him off from his dark musings like a flash of lighting. Lori. Carl. His family.

He had to find them. They were alive, Rick knew that, so he had to find them. Even imagining his family suffering through this world alone was enough to drop him on his knees and start crying like he'd done in their house, but Rick didn't let dark thoughts, fear, and doubt poison him. Blame was always there, too, the stark guilt, for not being there for them, for not being with his family when they needed them the most. Rick had failed them. He didn't want to think like that, but he had failed them.

Sometimes I wonder if you care about us at all… No. Rick couldn't let that be the last thing his son heard about him. There was no anger in him toward Lori anymore, as if all the tension he'd been feeling with their marriage had ended with the world they knew. Rick just wanted them back now, wanted to find them so he could tell them how much he loved them, how important they were for him even though he didn't act likewise sometimes.

The woman's hand crawled at him again, her mouth still open, and it really looked like to Rick that she was begging for mercy. His eyes growing intent, Rick stared at her, feeling pity deep in his chest together with determination. His hand unlinked his holster and he drew his Colt Python.

"I'm sorry this happened to ya—" he told the woman before he pulled the trigger, and he meant it. This wasn't how things were supposed to.

# # #

"No—" Lamson declined, his voice firm but low in the corridor, keeping it between them so no one would eavesdrop on their conversation. Things were becoming…stranger between them these days. "We can't do it."

Suppressing down the urge to let out an exasperated sigh, Amanda shook her head. She wasn't asking to do it together. She wasn't that stupid. "I'm not asking you to come with me, Lamson. I know you won't. I just ask you to—look the other side when you're up on the roof."

"You're asking me to let you go, taking supplies with yourself without telling Hanson or Dawn."

That would have been an accurate definition of what she was really asking, yes, but Amanda didn't want to admit it. "What they don't know wouldn't hurt."

"When they find out—"

"We just found them!" she cut him off, lifting the backpack in her hand in the air. "They don't know about them." Yet. The keyword was yet. They'd discovered this little spare warehouse that was tucked at the end of the right wing of the hospital this afternoon. Dawn hadn't started an inventory yet.

"The systems still have logs of the hospital—" Lamson pointed out. "And Dawn has access to the mainframe when she powers up the computers."

It was also true, but it was so much easier spinning tales these days when everything was possible. One of the perks of the end of the world, she supposed. "We say it was already raided on when we found it. C'mon, Lamson—" she rattled, her hand briefly hitting his upper arm, "Just lemme do it, please."

"This isn't a good idea. If you get caught, neither Hanson nor Dawn will like it."

She shrugged. "I know. Don't bother yourself with it. I'll cover for you if I get caught. You know I'll do."

Her senior officer nodded. "Yeah, I know…" he trailed off, running a hand over his face. "'kay, if you want to do it. A few meds wouldn't hurt that much, I guess."

Letting a little breath of relief, having the confirmation, Amanda nodded. "Thanks. I owe you one," she replied, turning away to go get prepared, but Lamson stopped her before she did.

"Hey, Amanda—" the man called out like he always did when they were alone. "Don't trust Dawn. Don't trust her to cover your ass each time."

Amanda frowned at the words, her eyes narrowed. Trusting Dawn? Amanda wasn't that stupid, either. Dawn had always covered for her ass, yeah, but Amanda had no misplaced notion that Dawn did it because the older woman cared for her. No. She shook her head. "You don't need to tell me that, Lamson."

She knew what she was to her superior officer.

Leaving the corridor, not wanting to lose time, she went to the elevator shaft. She shouldn't dawdle. Lamson had a seven-hour shift on the roof, but Amanda wanted to return before the dusk. It was never a good idea to stay outside after the dark.

Over her civil clothes, dark leggings, and leather jacket she'd borrowed from one of the wards, she quickly looped the mechanism she had raided from the SWAT teams that had been also dispatched to Grady. They'd lost all of them in the first blast of the bombings but had salvaged what was left off them anyway. The new world order; finders keepers.

As quickly as the thought crossed her mind, Amanda shoved it away. No. This wasn't the end. It couldn't be. Dawn was right. Things were going to be okay again, they just needed to hang on. Her eyes caught the backpack she had placed on the shaft's edge as she looped the harness over her thighs and waist before taking it back again and left herself into the void behind her back.

Yeah, things were going to turn back, but some weren't as lucky as they were. Most weren't as lucky as them, she thought as she free fell in the void. Even this sort of secret passage out of the hospital was a boon of the bombings.

When she was out of the parking lot, she quickly checked the roof and saw Lamson was looking at the other side just like how they had talked.

There were a few lingering rotters outside the fence that Amanda took care of quickly before finding the motorcycle she had left on the curb for this little excursion of today she had decided to make.

Wind cracked at her face as Amanda rode the beasty bike. It was the first time she had rode a bike without a helmet after a long, long time, as she didn't want to wander in the hospital with a helmet. The bike didn't have a helmet when Amanda had found it on a run, and finding gas had been enough of a nightmare without go hunting for a helmet. Going with her civil clothes had been already enough, but she didn't want to draw attention if anyone else than Lamson saw her out in the streets. Her uniform would be a certain flag.

She felt nervous at first like she was doing something she wasn't supposed to, which she was, but as she rode in the deserted, burned, broken, post-apocalyptic streets of Atlanta's downtown, she wasn't sure of the reason.

Guillermo wasn't happy to see her only with a backpack when she arrived at the nursing home. He cursed in Spanish first, and asked, tipping his head toward the black backpack in her hand. "Is that it? When you said you're gonna bring us supplies, we expected supplies, officer, not regalos!"

Amanda jerked her head. "It's not a gift. I'm trying to do the best I can, but you gotta give me time."

"How long?" His friend from the group homes inquired, looking all doubtful.

Finding Guillermo in this nursing home with Lamson on a run had been a surprise. Amanda hadn't seen him for years. She'd cut off her ties with her childhood friends after starting the community college. He'd told her he'd been working in the nursing home as a custodian before the outbreak, but it didn't take long for Amanda to realize that the Latino man had taken the responsibility of the elderlies when all the rest had left their duty posts, and there was no one left.

It was the same thing that had happened with them, too, after the bombings. Half of them who survived the bombings had left to look for their own families. The rest were like people were like Amanda, people without families to look for, or like Lamson who had lost their families in midst of the chaos or in the refugee center.

When Amanda had seen Guillermo and his wards, she had thought they would bring them to Grady. They would take care of them until someone—something came up like how Dawn kept telling them, but Captain Hanson refused, and Dawn sided with her superior officer.

"They gotta hold on at where they are, like the rest of us," was Dawn's words before a firm order followed, "We do not get involved, Amanda."

Amanda recognized the words all too well, too.

Guillermo shook his head again, reading her silence. How long?

How long they needed to keep up doing this until someone came back?

She couldn't find the answer anymore.

Guillermo gave her another look, coming to the stern conclusion; "They won't let us in, will they?" He tilted his head at the elderlies in the spacious lobby where they were scattered around, Vatos gang as they had named themselves taking care of them. "They've written 'em off as collateral damage."

There was no answer for that in her, too, but only, "I'm doing my best."

"Don't think we don't appreciate it, officer," the Spanish man slurred, "You're a good chicka, I know that."

And he was a good boy, too, they had been friends, once. When friendships had been possible for both of them.

Amanda tilted her head back in answer, not adding anything else. She turned to leave the building. It was getting late and she had to go back. She circled the main streets, using the side roads to evade the herds that had gathered downtown. Even though they kept telling each other to hang on, things were getting worse and worse with each day.

Something flickered just out of her visual perception as she rode. Pulling the brakes, she placed her feet down on the ground and stopped the bike. She straightened back, gazing at the left side of her toward the main street's direction.

She hadn't seen wrong.

It was a horse.

Magnificent and majestic, it was a freaking horse that trudged over the broken asphalt, his hooves thudding the ground. Amanda still stared at a loss, her mind not being able to follow up.

She hadn't seen any animal since the outbreak. The animals in the city had fallen to the dead quickly or perished from hunger when so few people left to take care of them. Yet, there it was, a horse, parading in the main street passing by a deserted tank, its rider sitting astride, his body swaying on it with each step they made.

And the rider…the rider was in uniform. He wasn't a city cop, Amanda quickly noticed, but even from afar, she could recognize the Sheriff hat.

And, they were riding toward their ends.

The thought sobered her, pulling her out of her stupor as she realized the man was going to pass over the trapped herd soon enough on the intersection. She watched for a split second longer as they rode to a painful death before she leaned on the bike, hit off the rear brake pedal from the ground with the tip of her boot, and turned on the motor.

'I fucking hate it!" she muttered as she throttled up toward them.

The look the cowboy gave her as she intercepted him was something Amanda would possibly not forget in any time soon. The horse neighed, prancing as he tried to rein the beast, but it was a futile effort. Just as he was trying to hold on, the horse also saw the rotters that were at their right side. It threw him off itself, the cowboy with the sheriff's hat flying in the air, his duffel bag flying off in the other direction. With another curse, Amanda caught it beside the tank quickly, bending from the bike, her eyes picking the sight of the barrels of the guns.

The man holding the ground with one hand was trying to get up, as the other was holding his side. Amanda wondered for a second if he was wounded because his face seemed like he was in a great deal of pain. When he was on his feet, he turned toward her, and his expression grew sterner as he also got caught up with the situation, seeing the dead ahead of them.

Amanda saw the deputy sign at his upper arm before she held out her hand to him. "Come with me if you want to live."

She'd always wanted to say the words.

# # #

The scene took Glenn by surprise, freezing him at the rooftop where he was doing the lookout job. He'd seen the rider approaching long before he'd noticed the biker chick. When he saw the rider, Glenn had realized that he was riding toward his death and quickly ran over to the other side to find a way to help him, but before Glenn could do anything, the biker suddenly showed up in that dramatic fashion, snitching the man away at the last minute rescue.

"Like a damn action movie—" the older Dixon brothers slurred as he peeked down, and Glenn held back a sigh. The man was high. It was as clear as the sky above them, as gone as the world around them.

"Let's go check the others—" Glenn replied, turning back and started walking inside the department store.

A/N: "Come with me if you want to live," is from Terminator.

This's gonna be a pet project for me as I focus on my other ongoing series, but wanted to have something else less stressful to write. Hope you enjoyed. Until the next time.