Prologue: The Little Boy In the Big Mansion

Warning: (M) Possible explicit details of Gore, etc.

Rating: (T-M) Gore and among other subjects.

Pairings: Louis/Clementine, etc.

Summary: What if, instead of Clementine being alone for the entirety of the apocalypse, there was a person right there with her? What if said person was Louis? AU in which Clementine meets Louis at the start of the apocalypse. - [FromTheBeginning!AU.]

A/N: Yada, yadda, Clementine meets Louis in the time where Lee dies, etc...

I will finish this. ALL SEASONS included. Hopefully the chapters I'll post will be long enough to fit the story. If not, then I deeply apologize.


[. . .]


"I killed him because... I loved him." - Clementine, Season 4, Episode 2.


[. . .]


Prologue


The unmistakable silence quaked through her weary bones.

A little girl scurried away from a jewelry store with droplets of tears coming from her hazel and gold-flecked eyes. They fell down her rounded cheeks and tainted the gravel she walked shakingly upon, and her heart, pulsating wildly and in ache, recollected the pieces of her shattered soul in a desperate plea to feel safe again.

The smell of rotten flesh pervaded her nose as the sticky substance on her hoodie dried in the open air of the city. It stuck on her as a tick would to a dog's flesh, and the horrid and decomposing stench made her want to vomit, unused to the smell even if she had already been through a few months of tragedy.

The air breathed like crisp autumn and humid death, and her hand that held the gun she took from a dead officer she had to kill shook with such fear of abandonment that she gripped it hard enough as to not let it go.

Her legs felt weak and numb from the constant running and the cold. Her knuckles became white from how hard she gripped the gun as if dependent on it to protect her life, squeezing and unsqueezing of the protection. In a way, she was.

Her tiny legs bundled in a fast yet steady-paced walk, and as she rounded a corner, she found herself in the middle of a few walkers on either side of an abandoned alleyway.

She suppressed the whimper that threatened to spill from her lips. Thinking of her guardian, the little girl, also known as Clementine, repeated what Lee had told her over and over again until that was all she heard and nothing else.

'Get to Omid and Christa.'

Those torturous words mulled over in her head, cycling like a cassette tape on rewind.

It was the last thing he told her before his heartfelt goodbye.

And before she shot his head in merciful agony.

Her eyes teared again.

With a hollow will, she mustered up the courage to walk through the walkers and avoid getting bitten, able to make it out the other side without a scratch, just like before. Along the way, she had stopped to grab the distorted guts of walkers that had been killed and put them on her small frame. It was the only thing keeping her alive, she knew.

In a vacant thought somewhere in her head, she realized the sun was going down and the clouds that once created a grey and dark atmosphere around her were gone and replaced with clear orange skies. She would have marveled at the pretty sight if not for the realization that her guardian was no longer there to share her joy.

Her tears still fell and her body still trembled, for what was a tiny and fragile nine-year-old girl doing in the middle of a city full of monsters that can easily chomp and gobble her up? It was horrific.

Her head turned back to the alleyway she came from and cried, knowing that after shooting Lee, she had to leave behind his corpse for the walkers to eat.

In her lifetime, before the dead began to roam, it was customary to bury those who died.

And now, after witnessing her parents were living deathly creatures and killing Lee, she realized that she couldn't bury them like she wanted to. She couldn't do a funeral as they did in sad movies.

She can't mourn them or cry for them because now they were dead and she was in great danger of being killed.

She couldn't scream for her parents to come home.

She couldn't scream for Lee to come back from the dead and tell her everything was alright.

No, now she couldn't do that.

Because they were dead.

Because of her.

Because she was alone.


[. . .]


She had made it past the apartment buildings and found herself by the mansions again, unsure why she thought they looked scary and great threats for the walkers to break into.

She noticed the house they had stayed in momentarily before they left for Crawford, filled with walkers. She turned her head away when she found the woman by the name of Brie zombified and dead.

Like always, she didn't like dwelling on the terrifying sights of dead people walking, or the fact that their guts were out and the life in their eyes was reduced to bits of emptiness and death.

She wanted to go home and go back to her babysitter. She wanted everything to be okay, and she wished she wasn't out in the open, alone, with the blood of another gushing through her clothes and touching her cold skin.

She wished everything was okay again.

She wished she wasn't here.

She wished many things, and though they were childish wishes, she couldn't help but want. She was just a little girl. None of this was her fault.

Her body was slumped.

She wanted to be with Christa and Omid already. Between every wish was a reality.

It was a long walk. And yet she found that she was not tired, but hurt and determined.

Lee told her to find Omid and Christa.

Clementine felt hopeful.

She felt lonely.

Her eyes looked over at the walking corpses and turned in another direction where there weren't any. Just because she was hiding in their smell didn't mean that there was still a possibility they could eat her.

Lee taught her to always be cautious even in the safest of places. He never told her such a thing, but she saw it and she saw what he did and what he had to do to keep everyone in one piece. She understood he did his best to keep everyone alive, and that it was not his fault they died, but fate.

She learned, just as well, to correct the mistakes she would catch.

Her body shifted and found only a gate open that led into a large garden that belonged to a white mansion so big it looked like a castle. The garden was splattered with blood, and the flowers were dead.

It didn't matter. She didn't focus on the mansion. She wanted to go find Omid and Christa.

Lee's words repeated and repeated. That was all she heard. The groans of the monsters rung deaf in her ears.

With a scanty tremble, she trudged into the gardens, relieved to see that there were no walkers in sight. The blood she saw between the gates had made her only a bit reluctant to go in.

However, her body became still when she realized that there were two bodies on the floor beside the other side, and a seemingly sitting walker looking or perhaps eating the bodies, as it appeared to still move.

Clementine recognized it was close to another open gate that led to another mansion.

She decided not to dwell on it, and in hopes that the walker wouldn't get her, she walked forward.

The gate was close to her now.

It was only five feet left.

And then, she heard a gasp.

Her head whipped around to find the little walker staring at her with wide eyes, blood-drenched.

Clementine hadn't realized her gun was shakingly pointing at the little walker the moment she heard the sound, eyes just as wide, her mindset in a panic.

"Please don't kill me!" Said the little boy in a hushed whimper, crying again while holding his hands in front of him, "P-Please..." He cried, heavy tears falling from his eyes.

At the sight of him, Clementine wilted in shock. "W-What...?" She sputtered, disbelievingly staring at the walker that was talking to her.

"P-p-please..." The Little boy stuttered and whimpered and crawled away from her a little, revealing two people with gaping holes in their heads.

Clementine lowered her gun as the remainder of her tears dried, confused. "Y-You... You're not a w-walker?" She asked, eyes wide.

The little boy looked still quite terrorized, "I'm not, I'm not, I swear!" He whispered with a tiny plead, "I don't even know w-what w-walkers a-are..." He said, desperate.

Clementine was still confused. "You're not... You know," She glanced around, spotting a dozen walkers from the gate she entered from, "One of t-them?" Her little finger pointed.

The little boy looked behind him, distraught. "N-No! They're-they're scary!" He said and his lips wobbled. The blood in his hands was fresh but dried. He must have been out here for a good minute.

He looked her age. Perhaps a year or two older than her.

Clementine had felt a sense of a small relief wash over her still trembling body, relaxing. The grip on her gun had loosened a bit and she returned to how she had been, which wasn't better, but it was something. At the very least, she wasn't exactly alone anymore.

She could hear the continued sniffles and cries from the little boy, and her eyes took in the cadavers on the floor.

She could not look away, no matter how hard she tried to. The gaping holes in the middle of their faces and the knife beside their heads coated in bloody brown struck her even if she'd seen it many times. It was a disgusting and horrid sight.

Yet she felt numb.

"I'm scared," Clementine heard the boy whisper, "I wish my parents were back..."

Clementine looked at the boy and her heart had twisted in a knowing knot. Tears began to fall again. "Me too..." She replied, grabbing his attention in earnest. She knew she shouldn't be where she was and that she should continue. She needed to find Omid and Christa.

But this little boy... She couldn't just leave him alone.

She approached him slowly. "Lee, my friend, said that there are people that can help who are on the other side of Savannah," Clementine said, feeling cold and sticky.

The little boy looked up, suddenly hopeful. "Will they bring my parents back?" He asked, his voice broken and torn.

Clementine wasn't sure if he was still in shock, or if he was taught other stuff different from her. These people looked... dead. And things never come back after they die. Parents don't come back.

"I... I don't know..." She said, her tiny voice bringing a sense of sadness from within.

At that, the little boy began to cry again. They were quiet and sniffled sobs, and she saw him cover his face and mourn. His hands made the tears red. The salt rubbed away the copper.

Clementine frowned. "Please... I need to get over there fast. Or else they... they will leave.." She whispered, fearful.

The little boy uncovered his face and shakily stood up, his salty drops creating a clearing on his freckled cheeks from the dry blood stained against them. "O-okay..." He said wistfully, "Can... Can I come too? I'm... I'm scared. And I want my parents back." He admitted, eyes red from the crying.

Clementine nodded, still frowning. They could not bring his parents back. The thought made her even sadder, but another one resurfaced about the boy in front of her. He was there, and a part of her was glad she had some company that could tag along with her.

Clementine glanced at his clothes, "Did... Did you kill something?" She asked him, eyeing the kitchen knife. She knew he must have. It was all over his body.

The little boy almost wailed, "I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to!" He kept repeating to her, his fists balling up.

Clementine saw him cry more, and she couldn't help but feel the same. "I killed someone too." She said, her lips wobbling.

The little boy wiped his eyes with the end of his sleeve, looking surprised. He glanced at her blood-stained clothes and found his surprise vanishing.

Clementine found that his response was silence. It was typical, perhaps he thought she was a monster.

"Who...?" He asked, and she closed her eyes to rub her own.

It took her a moment to answer. "M-My friend," She muttered, even though it was a lie. It wasn't a total lie. That man was like a second father figure to her. She had attached to him so quickly, so suddenly.

The boy nodded. He looked back at the bodies on the floor, the ache in his heart growing. "I don't want to leave them..." He murmured.

Clementine thought back to Lee, knowing what the little boy meant. "I know..." She replied, "I had to leave my parents too. And my friend, Lee." She said.

The little boy looked back to her, "...Really?" He asked.

Clementine began to cry again. She couldn't help it.

The little boy looked confused. "You couldn't take them with you?"

Clementine's pretty eyes locked on his, "They were dead..." She told him, "And when people die, they never come back."

The boy had widened his eyes and held back a sob, knowing, realizing, now, that his parents were dead, right in front of him. They died, got stabbed, and were left for dead in the garden. The maid that stayed behind had done so, claiming that they were bitten. And the maid was suddenly gone, and his parents suddenly dead.

Right in front of him.

They were dead.

And they will never come back.

"My..." Clementine sniffled, "My friend L-Lee said these things happen all the time..."

The little boy was told by his father just yesterday the same thing.

"H-He said it was normal."

"It's scary..." The little boy said, looking into his mother's disregarded face, a numbness taking over his body. The blood on him smelled like rotten iron and made his skin feel cold and gross.

"I'm scared too." She says.

He looked at her.

"Will... Will we go far? Will we... go away?" He asked her, timid by voice and broken by heart.

Clementine didn't know. "I don't know." She replied, all the same.

The little boy wasn't fond of the idea of leaving his parents. Nor was he fond of being alone.

He hated the silence, and he hated being alone.

Clementine, for some reason, seemed to understand him. Somberly, she knew deep down he didn't want to leave his parents in hopes that they would revive. But that was just a childish fantasy. She knew now.

"I want to help you," She told him, despite the nagging feeling in the back of her mind telling her that she couldn't, "My friends are waiting for me, maybe they might help you too." She said, hoping he would come with her.

The little boy looked bewildered. "But... What if they don't want to help me?" He asked, fiddling with his bloody fingers. Though as much as he didn't want to leave his only sense of happiness, he had to consider her words. Maybe they would never come back. So what did he have to lose with going with her? Besides, he'd have a friend.

Clementine hadn't thought of that. She didn't think they'd leave a little boy out on his own, either. "They're good people, you'll like them," Clementine said, nodding her head with a small smile.

The little boy looked at his dead parents and then at her, his tears still threatening to spill even if her smile had assured him and made him feel safe.

There was a growl.

The little boy jumped and turned around to see two or so walkers make their way in the garden, and his heart dropped.

Clementine gasped and raised her gun to point at the walkers, her body beginning to shake. Although there were only two of them, she was scared they would harm her. What if when they got close enough they would be able to smell the human under all the guts and debris on her clothes? They would eat her for sure.

"Come on," The little boy then said, pulling at her hoodie, "They'll get us if we don't leave..." He whimpered, grabbing her attention.

She lowered her gun and left, following after the little boy.


[ . . . ]


After leaving the garden they were in, they ran past a couple of walkers drawing their attention to them, and in a panic, Clementine stopped him.

"Wait," She said, pulling him, "There are walkers everywhere! If they hear us run, they'll get us." She whispered to him, somewhat out of breath.

The little boy took into consideration what she said. "Then... What can we do?" He asked, scared.

They were always scared. But they should never be blamed for feeling that way.

Clementine looked around to spot a group of walkers, a store, another home, and a few of the dead roaming possibly killed in the head. "Look," She pointed to the walkers on the ground, motionless, "We need to cover ourselves in their blood. My friend Lee said they won't recognize who we are if we do." She said, deciding it would be of better use if she re-applied the dead organs over the drying substances on her clothes.

The little boy looked appalled. "We... We need to put on that dead stuff?" He asked, making a face.

Clementine shuddered, "I don't like it either. It feels cold and... mushy." She muttered while looking at the walkers. "But we have to so that we don't get bitten." She explained, which made his frown deepen.

Carefully, she then walked to them, her gun pointed in their direction just in case.

The little boy followed after her, unsure of whether he would want to put that on himself or not. It was bad enough that his clothes were stained with his parent's blood, and now with whatever those things were? It was disgusting. He had class, and blood was gross.

"They have holes in their head," Clementine informed, causing him to take a look.

He turned his head away immediately, a queasy feeling settling in his stomach. "Yeah... What does that mean?" He asked, curious to know even if he didn't like to see.

Clementine looked at her gun and then at the walker's heads, "They were shot in the head." She said softly, her eyes drooping and her hand going numb. Just like I shot Lee...

"Oh," He said, "There are more survivors?" He asked.

"I don't know." Clementine said, "The only survivors left are my friends Omid and Christa, but they don't have guns." She said, worry eating at her. Would they still be there? What if they left?

Her thoughts almost made her cry again, so she decided not to dwell on it. "Come on," She said, lowering to her knees and putting her gun down, "We need to... put this on..." She said, looking away and stopping her breathing as to not inhale the scent of decaying skin.

He heard the sound of a disgusting squelch the moment her hands came into contact with the open and gaping stomach, and he pinched his nose from the strong smell that followed afterward.

He felt like vomiting.

Clementine made a face as she grabbed a handful with her tiny hands and rubbed it all over herself, making sure to apply some on her skin to hide more. It wasn't necessary to do so, but it guaranteed a better attempt in being safe from the walkers.

She looked at the little boy, "You should put some on too."

The little boy didn't want to. It was... dead stuff they were putting on. It was sick. It was wrong.

"Okay..." He obliged, knowing that if he didn't do so he would probably get eaten.

Clementine could tell by the look on his face that he was against putting walker guts on him entirely, though felt content that upon applying the guts, he didn't try to move away.

There was a brief silence where none spoke, and only the occasional sounds of the bloated organs pressed and juiced against clothes were heard in tune with the growls and groans of the walkers that passed. The dead would never approach them nor would they move even if they were close enough. It was instinct now to feel an impending doom whenever one would pass and drag their broken body parts to leave trails of dark-colored blood at their wake.

"What... What's your name?" The little boy asked, turning around to look at her. After feeling the silence of the various squelches eat at him, he decided to ask a question.

Clementine rubbed her hand onto his cheek to apply the blood, "Clementine..." She answered shyly, "What's... yours?" She asked in return, her inner child reforming once more.

The little boy smiled kindly at her, "My name is Louis." He said, bright and full.


[. . .]


A/N: Ahahaha, it's ya boi, torta buss-HEY. HEy. Thanks for reading this. I'll continue it. Don't worry. (I'll try to update quickly!)

Toodles~

Ana.