"MOM!"

I jerked awake from my heavy slumber, blinking stupidly at the grey sky above me.

"LYNNIE! BEN!"

My brother's screeches shocked me like I had been dumped into freezing water and I automatically ran out of our tent with the knife I always carried on me, running constantly as my surroundings blurred around me, someone's screams and panting being the only thing that echoed around my ears. I realized the last sound was caused by me as I reached a familiar figure at a distance who was running blindly away from me.

"RENNIE!" I shouted and the figure jerked away from the direction he was running in, swiveling around rapidly. I caught up to him, hugging him harshly before pulling back to make sure he wasn't hurt. He was just pale and scared, but that was all.

"I've got you now," I murmured, pulling him back in and burying my face in his black hair. He shook a bit as I soothed him. Ben ran over to us as I pulled away. He went into doctor mode, scanning him for any injuries before sighing in relief as the boy clung to him in turn. We made eye contact and Ben nodded at me as I ran over to where a crowd was starting to gather. In front of me laid a walker, as the people called it, savagely eating a huge deer. It turned to us, noticing what a fresh meal we were, and reached for us. Rick, Shane, Glenn, Jim, and Morales started to beat it up with their makeshift weapons after I chopped off its hand that had been reaching. Dale finished it off, chopping off the head before staring at the mess with wide eyes.

"It's never come up this far into the mountains," he remarked, obviously worried.

"They're getting hungry. The food in the city's dwindling down, that's what," Jim shook his head.

I heard twigs snapping and turned towards the sound, pushing my curious brother behind my back. A man that looked pretty ragged stormed out of the woods, scowling at the walker's corpse and kicking it. "Son of a bitch. That's my deer! Look at it. All gnawed on by this… filthy, disease-bearing, motherless poxy bastard!"

I snorted at his choice of words, biting my lip to stop myself from laughing all out. I looked back at the walker, tuning the people out, and noticed the lack of brain-smashing. Its eye twitched a bit, barely, but I noticed it and as it opened its mouth, I shoved my machete down the head, twisting the blade before pulling it out.

The people fell silent around me and the new guy whistled approvingly, nodding at me. "At least she knows somethin'."

I quirked a brow, staring at him before wiping the blood off of the machete on the walker's clothes. I turned around on my heels, shepherding my little brother off back towards the safety of the camp. The man whose name I still didn't know shouted behind me, obviously looking for someone.

"Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up," the man hollered, dropping said squirrels next to where yesterday's bonfire was. I ignored him again, turning to my brother.

"You play right where we can see you, hear?"

"I'm not a baby!" Rennie snapped, huffing. He was obviously a bit embarrassed at the way he'd freaked out when he encountered the walker on his own with no one other than Carl accompanying him.

"Damn straight," I replied, staring at him sternly. "Which is why you're not going to throw a tantrum and follow the rules."

"Carl doesn't follow the rules! He doesn't even have those rules!"

I repeated what my mom had once said to me when I was young. "If Carl jumps off the cliff and into the fire, are you going to do the same?"

That stumped him and I could see in his eyes that he knew he wasn't going to win this argument. "No, but-"

"So you're going to do the smart thing 'cause you're a smart young man, am I right?" I cut him off before he made some other dumb argument.

A commotion burst forth from behind me and I turned to see that the new guy was lunging at Rick. Rick's best friend and a fellow cop quickly put the guy down, holding him in a chokehold. I shook my head at the level of immaturity before turning back to see my brother watching them. I waved in front of his face, effectively dragging his attention back to me.

"I'm telling you, you have to listen to people around you who care for you. One day, if you keep this up, you're going to get someone killed," I finished scolding him, turning around from him and walking towards the stream.

"Am I supposed to be like you then?" he demanded, still scowling before mimicking me. "'You can't do this, Rennie. You can't do that, Rennie. I'm gonna go off and do stupid things but you can't do them, Rennie.'"

"Stop," I snapped at him before sighing and turning around, facing him. "I'm doing everything for you."

"So let me do something for myself for once!" Rennie suddenly started shouting, anger shining on his face. "I'm not a naive little boy who wants to go play Pac-man at the arcade anymore! I can do things myself!"

"Aren! Lower your voice," I hissed at him, glancing at some of the people who stared at us.

"'Aren, lower your voice'." He mocked me in a high pitched voice again. "There you go again, telling me what the fuck I should be doing."

I could hear the blood rushing to my ears.

"I can do things myself. I can fend for myself," he insisted, pulling out the dagger I had given him. "I have a weapon and can fight! I've seen you fight!"

"I can do it myself, oppa! I'm not just your dongsaeng anymore!" a young girl shouted, tears glistening in her eyes as she stood in front of an older teenager.

"This is not your fight," I grit my teeth, forcing the similar argument away.

"This is!" Rennie gestured wildly around him. "This is the apocalypse! Not just your apocalypse, but everyone's!"

"Aren," I growled. "Stop trying to fight me right now."

"Or what? You're going to lie to me again and kill me?" he snarled as I paled. "That's right, I know that it was you who killed Denny! It was your fault he never came back!"

"You wicked little girl. If it wasn't for you, your father would still be here!" a woman shouted intoxicated. "You're just a mistake!"

"Stop it," I grit my teeth harder as the memory resurfaced.

"Guess what, noona?" he spat, stepping closer to me. "I don't need you."

Something buried itself into my chest, a sharp pain echoing through my whole entire being. I quickly came up with a sarcastic reply, "Of course you don't, you're a boy who's still growing up."

"I don't need you! I never needed you!" Rennie shouted even more. "And I certainly don't want you."

The clearing was silent around us, my embarrassment drowning in the abyss of hurt and grief, emotion threatening to overwhelm me.

"You don't know what you're talking about," I dismissed him quietly, wanting this conversation to be over already. "I never killed him."

"Might as well have," Rennie spat, absolute rage shining in his eyes. "He didn't come back, but you did. I wish it was you who died instead of K."

And with that, he ran off all on his own, explicitly disobeying what I had told him earlier. I looked around me, eyes wide with pain and panic, feeling like a rabid dog getting cornered. Eyes looked at me, some of them purposefully avoiding mine, others pitying me. Only three sets of eyes did neither. Ben looked on at me with quiet understanding, a wave of slight anger shining while Glenn just stared at me with something I couldn't decipher. The new guy looked at me with a poker face, just staring at me as if to analyze. But the glances, the looks, the slight awkward coughs as others evaded meeting my eyes were what pushed me over the edge.