AN: Hi all! I'm not dead, I swear. College just got the best of me. Either way I would just like to thank those of you who have read this and enjoyed it. And of course, any feedback is welcome! Always looking to improve! :] Now without further adue, here you go. Hope you like it!

"Dad, I'm home!"

Around ten years had passed since the initial defiance of my mother and the discover of my two best friends. It may sound a little cliché, but meeting the two of them literally changed my life for the better. Though as they say, things always get worse before they get better.

My mother continued to come up with new, twisted way to keep me inside and away from my friends, even going as far as poisoning my dinner one night. The vomit didn't stop until a week later, but I still managed to fight through it most days. Eventually, it seems, she realized that nothing she could do would stop me from living the life I wanted.

She got up early one day while I was making breakfast and proceeded to storm over, pick up the hot spatula, and whip me across the face with it. The usual string of insults followed, accompanied by a familiar warning of her leaving forever. That time, however, I had felt that he had meant it.

"I'm fed up with you two losers and this hell hole. There are better things out there for me. Better men. I hope you enjoy rotting in your own filth."

That door slamming had been music to my ears.

"Kath... Katherine!" came a slurred call from the living room. "Don't you be bringin' one of'm boys with ya, Katherine..."

"Mom's not here, dad." I corrected him, bringing my recently purchased groceries to the kitchen. With my mother gone, I was the only one left to supply for my father an I, so I worked two jobs on top of going to school every day. It was never a lot, but it was enough. "She hasn't been in months."

An angry inaudible string of slurred gurgles came from my father after a series of crashes that sounded like glass. I sighed slightly, putting things away. I would have to clean that up so he didn't step on it. Getting out a frying pan, I prepared to make a grilled cheese, pickles, and ketchup sandwich – my dad's favorite. I wanted to get out as soon as possible since Ellis and Dave had apparently planned something "special" for my birthday, but my dad came first.

He woke himself from the drunken slumber he has slipped into during the few minutes of silence by dropping the tv remote onto the floor, it hitting an empty bottle with a resounding ding. "That...that food ready yet?" I sighed quietly to myself and put on a small smile as I brought over the sandwich plate and set it on the tray next to my dad's chair. Before I could walk away to clean up the previously broken glass, he grabbed my wrist, pulling me down and slurring something incomprehensible. "What?" I questioned with a slight frown.

"Keith..." he managed to spit out. "All these... All these years... You... You been such a good boy an' we... We just..."

"It's okay, dad," came my usual response to these now common, slurred confessions.

The grip on my wrist lessened, and I was about to walk away before he sputtered one more thing. "H-Happy... Happy Birthday..." I turned back and stared at him for what seemed like a very long time.

And then, for the first time in what felt like forever, I gave my father a true smile.

"Thanks."

'...I fell into a burnin' ring of fire...'

Everything hurt.

'...I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher...'

And I mean everything. I felt like every inch of me was screaming in agony. The loudness of the radio didn't help my head much.

"...Radio..?"

"You awake, son? Had me worried for a while, there."

"What..." I opened my eyes a crack and instantly regretted it, wincing against the sudden light.

"You were pretty banged up back there. Kinda surprised you were still breathing, having fallen out of that window like that. You were all cut up!"

"Window..?"

"Now, most people would've passed you by, thinking you were an infected, but not me. Don't worry, of course I checked. From what I can see, you don't have any of the signs of being infected, just injured." There was a pause before the other voice spoke again. "Gotta keep as many people alive as we can, right? I patched you up the best I could, but you'll be in much better hands once we get to the next CEDA station. The one in Savannah's closed down."

I opened my eyes a bit more as the man to my left admitted how he was amazed that I hadn't been eaten alive. It seemed I was in the passenger's seat of a moving car going...somewhere. The constant noise from the radio hurt my head and I could tell the AC was on, but I was burning up. "Could you...turn the radio down, sir?"

"Oh sure!" the man said, turning the volume down, "You must be one lucky guy for me to have found you when I did. Otherwise, you probably would've been a goner. The name's Murphy, by the way."

"K-Keith..." My head was swimming and I almost found it funny how much the man driving the car reminded me of a teacher I had had my sophomore year of high school, even the way his gray beard poofed out around his round face. I brought my hands up to my head and held it in hopes of stopping the persistent throbbing that had taken up residence there. "You...found me? Where? How? I was...looking for my friends..."

"I'm sure your friend are fine, Keith," said the man named Murphy. "And yes, I found you lying in an alley way next to the Wood Side Apartments back in Savannah. You were pretty cut up and surrounded by glass. It looked to me as if you'd fallen from the third story window. You were also drenched from the rain. Lucky I had some towels in my trunk."

I looked down at the seat I was buckled into and noticed for the first time that I was indeed wrapped in towels. "The alley... There was-!" I lurched forward as I was filled with a sudden panic and automatically returned to my previous position when and even greater pain shot through my body. "Agh!"

"Settle down! You're gonna reopen your wounds! Now calm down and tell me... There was what?"

Cringing, I looked out the window at the swampy scenery that went by. "I... I don't remember..."

"That's alright," he said after a while. "Don't you worry. Everything's gonna be okay."

The next few minutes seemed to fly by in an instant. One second, we were driving through a hazy town, then next, the car was being rammed off the road like it were nothing. I had barely registered what had happened before Murphy was pulling me out of the car, which at some point had run into a street lamp.

"C'mon, kid, get up! We need to get to safety!" He managed to pull me out of the car before being forced to let go as a Charger (the probable car rammer) came through, taking him about 100 feet away before slamming him into the pavement repeatedly. I remember him gasping out one final plea for me to save myself as his bones were crushed, but none of it really reached me. I was in too dense a fog of pain and confusion to even try and help him. Though even as the burning pain continued to crawl its way through my body, I couldn't help but wonder why I wasn't being attacked. Barely any of the surrounding infected seemed to even notice I was there.

And I was just standing there. Truthfully, I would have been a very easy target.

Shaking my head, I forced myself to move on, wrapping my arms around myself in attempt to lessen the pain in my chest. Nothing made sense to me right now, but I knew I needed to keep going.

It had slowly been getting dark by the time I forced myself to stop and look around. A light drizzle had begun to fall and it hazed my vision all the more. Not that it really mattered; I had no idea where I was. "Maybe I should stop and ask for directions..." I bit down as a choked laugh escaped me, amused at my own comment. One or two of the near infected might have glanced over at the sudden noise, but did little else. "What the hell is going on here..." I muttered, my smile falling once more.

A noise in the distance caught my attention and I paused, listening again. Gunfire...and a car? Maybe it was all in my head. It was a good possibility considering the past few hours of pain and delirium. Things were starting to fade together. But there it was again.

Gunfire.

Closer this time.

I turned to see if I could be a glimpse of the source but was soon brought to my knees by another wave of pain that forced me to heave my stomach contents onto the pavement. My wracking coughs that followed gained a bit more attention from the infected around me, some of them turning their heads to see what the commotion was all about. It seemed to be enough of a distraction for them not to notice the jeep that zoomed up, guns blazing from the passengers inside.

"Come on! Let's do this is as quick as possible! We've got hungry mouths to feed back at camp!"

Four or five people pushed themselves out of the vehicle and ran towards the convenience store across the street from where I knelt. I stared, watching as they brought out bags of supplies and piled it into the jeep, killing infected as they went. They were so close; just across the street. I only needed to reach them.

"Hey..." I managed to croak out, though was sure it was too quiet to be heard.

One of the scavengers turned around and aimed its gun in my direction, then froze, staring at me.

"What?" asked another as they were getting into the driver's seat of the jeep. "What the hell are you looking at?"

"Look."

I knew those voices. I squinted, trying to get a better look at them.

"No fucking way..."

The first one to notice pointed his gun away and took a step forward.

"Son, I suggest you get back in the jeep," said a baritone voice, the first one to speak before.

"No... Wait, that's..."

"Dave, come on," said the driver.

"No."

"He's probably already–"

"Tim, shut up!"

He took a few steps forward and continued to stare, mumbled conversation continuing behind in between gun shots. I stared right back at him as he crept ever closer. I knew him. "Keith..? Keith, is that you?"

That was it. It was him. I knew him. "...D-Dave?"

"Aw, Jesus Christ, Keith!" he said, now running towards me and dropping to my level, both relief and worry showing on his face. "Are you okay? What happened? How'd you get here? Are you by yourself?"

"By... yeah... By myself..."

"Christ, man..." He was helping me up now. "How in the world did you manage that?"

I laughed, causing myself further pain and muttered. "I...guess it's a good thing I'm indestructible."

Dave pushed a smile through his worry, and another emotion seemed to show through his eyes as he wrapped his arm around me, helping me to the jeep, though I couldn't figure it out. "Yeah. Now, c'mon Superman, let's get you to safety." He helped me into the back of the vehicle then climbed in himself, giving the others a nod of assurance.

Slumping against the side of the open car, I could feel the gaze of the other survivors on me; most of all Tim's, his dark green eyes watching me wearily before turning to the road ahead. Tim Jones was Dave's older brother, though I hadn't known about him until a few months later when he and his father came to Savannah as well. He had a habit of keeping things to himself, but had always been a big brother to all of us, making sure we were alright and helping us when he could. The look he had given me was a little unnerving, but I knew he was just being cautious.

I flinches as a cold water bottle touched my arm and I noticed that Dave was talking to me again. "You gotta drink some water, Keith… You're probably dehydrated as heck…" It was a moment before his words registered and I reached for it as he uncapped the bottle.

"Where…where're we goin...?" I carefully brought the water up and took a small sip, choking slightly at the sudden cold and biting down harder coughs that threatened to make me lose my grip. Dave's hand on me shoulder nearly made me flinch just as bad.

"There's a camp further in, Keith… We've been safe there. CEDA's supposed to pick us up in a day or so. We're gonna be okay, alright?"

Smiling tiredly, I slumped even more against the interior of the vehicle, staring off and nibbling at the rim of the water bottle. Again, I felt this was too good to be true, but even as my paranoia pulled at the edges of my subconsciousness, nothing terrible happened. No Tank smashing the jeep, no Smoker lassoing anyone…

Nothing.

I felt sleep creeping over me even through the rough driving and I decided to let it, getting more and more convinced that I was safe now.

I was back among friends.

AN: It's not over yet, believe me. You know, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes for Tim to actually be in this story. In the original story by me that I got my concept of Dave from, Tim would have left Savannah long before the outbreak hit… Oh well! I'll just keep going how it is. If you're any more curious about Tim and Dave's background and story, I've begun posting a few things on my deviantART. .com

…I kind of wanted to add in a part where Tim was playing "chicken" with a Charger, but it just didn't fit in, ha ha.