So I had been spelling Devyn's name wrong this whole time, oops. Also, try not to expect super frequent updates. Writing tends to take a lot out of me these days.

ONE MONTH AND 6 DAYS IN

A light conversation is passed between the seven survivors as they travel down the freeway, littered with wrecked and stopped cars and even some bodies.

"So this motherfucker has the audacity to lie to my face about it! I told him he was full of shit, and what do you know, they were dating the next day." Karl finishes, throwing his hands up with an exasperated look on his face. Fizz shrugs. "Hey, I made my mistake. But she totally fucked me over too, so we both lost anyway." Karl shakes his head and points at him. "You, are a bitch boy." Fizz chuckles. "Yeah, and you're stupid."

Devyn shoves Fizz lightly. "Get a room you two!" The rest of them laugh and Fizz rolls his eyes. "Whatever Devyn." Alex grumbles. "Can you guys be quiet? We're almost at the exit." Karl bumps his shoulder with his own. "C'mon, lighten up Alex. This is the first time we've all laughed since we got to the gas station!"

"Yeah, and it's loud. Maybe you've forgotten that we're in the middle of the apocalypse?" Fizz gestures around. "We're in the middle of a highway, nothing is gonna catch us off guard here." Alex turns back and glares at him. "Yeah, and how about when we hit that exit? What then?" Fizz goes silent and Devyn glares back him. "What's got up your ass? We're just trying to have fun here."

"I'm trying to be cautious. Someone could shoot us from the treeline or something!" Natalie scoffs. "Please. There's no one out here, everyone either died or went south." Fizz shrugs. "You never know. There always seems to be someone." She shoves him lightly. "Well don't jynx us then!" He rolls his eyes and shoves her back.

After another hour of walking, they arrive at the exit, walking up it to find a strip of restaurants and a hotel. Ashley and Katlyn look at the hotel in wonder, as if they've both never seen one before. "Can... Can we go there? There must be so much room..." Fizz looks up at it. "Defendable... Hell, seems like a good idea to me." Alex nods. "Let's get over there quickly, sooner we get the place secured the better." They all start walking towards the hotel.

"Comfy beds... So much room... This could be great for us." Karl says with a smile. "Sure, as long as we can still get food from around here... If the restaurants have been tapped, we might have to move." Devyn says, leaning to peek through the window of a restaurant they're passing. "Honestly, I'm just hoping to have a decent bed for a few days..." Natalie mumbles, giving out a small yawn.

After some more walking, they walk up to the front door, and force it open. Fizz pulls out his knife and yells out into the empty lobby, testing for walkers. When none show up, he puts the knife away. "I don't like this. No walkers? What hotel would be empty in the middle of June?" Karl walks over to the front desk. "Not sure... It was definitely open when it happened though, there's a bunch of people signing out that day."

"Maybe everyone left in a hurry?" Devyn proposes, peeking down the hallways. "Not likely... Everything wouldn't be so orderly in here." Alex says, carefully stepping around. The other three girls bring up the rear, Natalie stopping to shut the front door. "Luckily for us, there's two doors at this main entrance. It should be easy to just board this up and use one of the side doors instead."

"We should check the place out. We'll save individual room checks until after we know every floor and every hallway is clear. Without power, we'll need to take the stairs." Alex says, turning to everyone and crossing his arms. "Me and Natalie can take the second floor." Fizz offers, waving Natalie over. "I call going with Devyn to the third floor!" Karl says, sliding over to Devyn, who rolls her eyes and heads to the stairs. Alex nods. "Alright, I'll stay down here with the lovers and start barricading the place."

Natalie and Fizz arrive at the second floor and push the stairway door open. "Still having nightmares?" Fizz whispers to her, pulling out his knife as he moves inside. "Unfortunately, yeah... It's just... It was so horrible out there, you know?" She whispers back, watching behind them just in case. "I hear you. I'm kinda concerned that I'm not having nightmares to be honest..." He peeks down another hallway, nodding for them to move. "You're tougher then you look..." Natalie mumbles, noticing an open door at the end of the hallway and pointing it out to Fizz. "Or I've just been through a lot more..." Fizz mumbles back, heading to the door.

He knocks on the wall just outside the room, after which he hears groaning. He and Natalie back up, and a few walkers come out of the room. Fizz stabs them both in the head. "That's it for this floor... Help me toss these guys out of the window." He opens the window at the end of the hallway and starts dragging one of the walkers to it. Natalie grabs the other body and starts pulling. "You know, I don't actually know a ton about you, Fizz." He shrugs. "There's not a ton to know."

"I find that hard to believe. Especially considering how well you seem to have adapted to all of this." He tosses his walker out the window, wincing at the squishy noise it makes when it hits the ground. "I'm used to being on my own. I didn't have many friends before all of this. Mostly just the two down there." She heaves her walker out the window as well, shutting the window so they don't have to hear the sound. "So there's nothing interesting about you?"

He shrugs. "Not really. School was whatever, I only really cared about band. I was planning to be a musician, I had just gotten accepted to college, and boom, apocalypse." Natalie nods. "So you're... What, eighteen?" Fizz shakes his head and shuts the open room door. "Seventeen, actually. You're eighteen though, right?" She nods and they start walking back. "I actually would like to know more about you. You seem interesting." Natalie says, nudging him. He smiles a bit and shrugs. "Sure, we can talk in the lobby."

Meanwhile, on the third floor, Karl and Devyn are opening rooms to look inside. "So, how you holding up?" Devyn just shakes her head. "Why does it matter? We're in it for the long haul now." Karl frowns and opens another door, only to get attacked by a walker. Devyn reacts quickly and kicks it off of him, and Karl finishes it off by slamming the door into its head a few times. Devyn turns Karl to her and looks him over. "All good? No bites?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Holy shit, that was way too close..." They continue down the hallway, until they find a hallway packed with walkers. They freeze and stare the walkers for a moment, before backing out of their sight. "Holy fuck. That's a lot of them." Devyn breathes out. Karl peeks around the corner. "How the hell did they all get there? Shouldn't some of them have come to us when we killed that other one?" Karl questions to himself, before moving back next to Devyn. "We can't handle this with just us, let's head back downstairs and tell the others."

Devyn nods and they head back to the staircase, quickly heading down to the lobby, where everyone else is sitting. "There's an entire hallway filled with walkers on the third floor!" Everyone turns to Karl, staring at him blankly at his outburst. Fizz groans. "Are you fucking serious? Damn it, Whatever, we still have the second floor for rooms." Alex stutters for a second before getting up. "Are you kidding? We need to take care of that!"

Fizz stares at him blankly. "We have one knife, a trowel, and a shovel. Good luck killing a group of those things with those." Alex deflates and sits back down. "So, what, we just stay here with a bunch of walkers above us?" Natalie nods. "They aren't smart enough to open doors, and the staircase door is pretty strong." Fizz nods. "Exactly. We'll be fine as long as no one opens the door up there."

Ashley gets up. "Look, can we just go set up in the rooms? I'm so damn tired from all the walking." Fizz gets up. "Here, I'll let you pick one, but I'm coming with you just in case there's walkers in the rooms." Ashley doesn't acknowledge him at all and goes to the staircase. They head up to the second floor and he stops her. "Hey, you alright? You haven't looked the greatest since we left the gas station."

She shoves his arm off. "Yeah, just fine." He scoffs and moves to her front. "Yeah, right. You're clearly traumatized." She looks up at him. "My girlfriend almost DIED asshole! Of course I'm fucking messed up!" He backs up a bit and raises his hands. "Alright, I get it, calm down." She punches him in the chest. "Calm down?! She's all I have left! If she had died there, I... I..." She deflates and collapses into Fizz's arms, who's caught off guard.

"Oh, uh... Shit, alright." He opens the nearest room and heads inside, setting Ashley on the bed. He checks the room for walkers and nods when it's clear. "She's gonna need a lot of care..." Katlyn shoves him aside and heads into the room. "Katlyn? You alright?" She nods and gets on top of Ashley, hugging her tightly. He bites his lip and leaves the room, heading back down to the lobby.

"Those two are... Settled, the rest of us should do the same." Everyone remaining in the lobby gets up and heads upstairs. Fizz walks to the front counter and looks at the door. "Please let this work..." He mutters to himself before also heading upstairs.