A/N Oh my God, I hate the feeling of a clingy, fangirly character. I try so hard to make them the opposite. If you find Jess to be that way, please just ignore it. OTL

No one expected their night to end like this.

It was all going well until they were released.

"Someone… help!" Someone vaguely called.

There was an explosion in the distance.

It was all a huge blur. Everyone was running amok… tripping, falling, being eaten alive.

She had to hide somewhere- Anywhere. There was a hallway on the right. Jess bolted for it, avoiding any of the monsters that were lurking around. She ran down the hallway and found the first room to be a greenroom. She fumbled with the door's handle, panicking and shaking. She turned the knob, swung the door open and slammed it shut.

She breathed heavily, leaning her back on the door and sliding down to sit on the floor. She was thankful enough to not find any of those savages in this room with her this very moment… Just one dead body and a small pool of blood.

"Jesus Christ." She said, putting her face in her hands.

Her head shot up, and her eyes filled with tears with the sudden realization.

She got separated from her father and brother.

"Ugh, what have I done?" She whined into her hands, wiping the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. This is the one thing she didn't want to worry about. A new world full of… Zombies, and she's separated from her only family.

Suddenly a crackling noise came from somewhere in the room. Jessica looked up, looking for the noise.

"Hello? Hello? Someone please respond." A male voice called out from the crackling.

Jessica furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, slowly getting up, with the door's support. She listened for the crackling and the voice. She found a walkie-talkie lying by the dead guy on the ground. She cringed. The young man looked like he worked here. He wore what looked to be like Terror is Reality merchandise… A lanyard and everything.

The TIR merch wasn't what appealed her. It was the huge gouge on the side of his neck.

"Did those zombies do that? Holy crap." She said quietly.

She looked down at the walkie-talkie and sighed.

"This better be worth it." She said, bending down by the man.

She hesitated for a moment. He couldn't turn, could he?

"Just grab the damn thing." She said, reaching for it. She grabbed it and immediately moved away from the dead man.

She put the walkie-talkie up to her ear and pressed the button, "Hello? Who is this?" She spoke into the device.

There was someone in the background on the other line that was barely heard but sounded like a woman saying "It's about time."

"You need to listen to these next instructions. We are looking for information to this outbreak. The man responsible for this is named Chuck Greene." The began to spew out this information.

But that name sounded familiar. Jess just couldn't put her finger on it.

She furrowed her eyebrows, stuttering, "Okay, hold on. I just ran for my life from a huge attack of zombies and watch people get eaten." She said.

"Exactly. We need to find Chuck Greene and do whatever we need to do." The man replied.

Silence.

"And that's where you come in." He added.

"Me? What am I supposed to do? You want me to approach the guy who released the zombies, are you crazy?" She blurted out. She didn't want to deal with this crap.

"If you retrieve Chuck Greene for us, you will be rewarded. Guaranteed." He replied.

"He isn't far from your location," He went on. "He's in FortunePark with a woman. Go look for him and we'll contact you later." Then there was silence. The communication was disconnected until she looked for this guy.

"Chuck Greene…" She said to herself, clipping the walkie-talkie to her belt hoop. "Where have I heard that name before?" She waved the notion from her mind and looked for something in this small room that she could protect herself with.

She looked to her left and found a clean baseball bat. "This'll have to do for now, I guess." She said, picking it up.

She took a deep breath, slowly turning the door knob. "I'm not dying in this room. That's for sure." She said, opening the door, a few zombies crowding their way by the doors.

She hit the zombies straight in the face with the blunt object, jumping as the rotten flesh and blood sprayed on her shirt.

"Shit. I love this shirt." She said, before running back down the hallway she came from.

She stopped in her tracks once she saw the huge crowd of zombies patrolling the arena. She looked over on the ground and saw the recent dead people that were unlucky enough to be snagged.

Jessica didn't care if she knew this Chuck Greene or not. She was going to find him and do… Something. She didn't know what… But she was going to do something.

Jessica inhaled deeply, and ran for the front doors, pushing any zombie out of her path. She busted through the door, revealing just how fast the outbreak spread. "Oh my God," She breathed.

"This was not in my plans." She said, quickly walking down the stairs.

The walkie-talkie suddenly started crackling again, "Good work, you made it out of the arena alive." The man said.

Jess grabbed the walkie-talkie, "Was that supposed to be sarcastic? It wasn't hard."

"You need to hurry and get to the park. Just go straight until you find the center." The man carried on before hanging up.

"Great." Jessica grumbled, hooking it back and moving on.

The walk down to FortunePark felt like forever. She carefully, and quietly walking into the park's area.

"Hey, what the Hell are you doing?!" A man called out, causing Jessica to jump in her skin and hide behind a trash can.

"You need to tell me what's going on around here, Chuck." A woman threatened darkly.

Jessica peered from behind the trash can, watching what was happening. There was a tall, thin woman who was aiming a gun at a tall man. From the look on his face, he didn't expect this woman to be threatening him. Not surprising, really.

"I told you, if you helped me, I gave you the truth- calm down!" The man replied, raising his hands in defence.

Jessica felt like she needed to do something. In the back of her mind, she needed to save this guy. She picked up her bat and sneaked up on them.

She obviously didn't think twice. She swung the bat against the woman's head.

The woman known as "Rebecca" suddenly fell to the ground.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" The man exclaimed, looking from the limp body over to Jessica.

Jessica dropped the bat, "She isn't dead is she?" She looked down at the body.

"You better hope not, kid. She was my only way of proving I'm innocent." He said, looking at her.

Jessica suddenly looked over at him, "You're joking. She was aiming a gun at you. If that isn't the opposite of help, I don't know what is." She said.

"God dammit…" The man sighed, covering his face after he took a second glance at the woman.

There was blood pooling underneath her.

"Oh shit," Jessica breathed before being pinned harshly against a railing, causing her to wince.

"Thanks to your dumb ass, I'm a dead man!" The man said, looking down on Jessica.

"Look, I didn't know how hard I hit her, and… And I can help." Jessica improvised. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. This man apparently started the outbreak.

"Oh yeah, how? You're gonna hit me with a bat too?" He retorted.

Jessica rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She looked back up at him, "You're Chuck Greene?" She asked.

He sighed impatiently, "Yeah. What's it to you?"

She took a look at him, now knowing who he was, "Aha, you're that famous Motocross champ."

Chuck loosened his grasp slightly, listening.

Jessica shook her head, "No. I doubt you would of let those zombies out-"

"Of course I didn't. My daughter and I hardly survived getting out of the arena." He added.

Jessica wriggled impatiently for Chuck to let go of her.

"Look, I might of killed your 'only way to getting proof," but I could help." She offered.

She realized that she totally turned on the people she was going to help earlier. She was supposed to get information from Chuck about what he'd done. She felt sympathy for Chuck. It was known that his wife had been infected. That was all the news knew, and that's all that they were going to know.

Chuck let go of her, causing her to rub her arms, "Yeah, do you have any idea as to how?" He asked, "You're just a kid."

Jess glared over at him, "I maybe 'just a kid,' but you need someone to help prove your 'innocence,' right?"

Chuck sighed, staying silent.

"A dead chick in a pool of blood isn't gonna get you far. Look, I could be more help than you think, Chuck." She added, crossing her arms.

Chuck stayed quiet, thinking for a moment. This was all complete bullcrap. First, he has to kill his wife, then his daughter gets bitten, then a whole new outbreak happens, he's blamed for it, and now some 19 year old kid- who just killed his reliable source- is offering help?

Well, he couldn't do it alone, could he?

Chuck looked off, "Alright, whatever. Just don't screw anything up more than it already is." He said, still unclear about this idea.

Chuck noticed that Jessica had a dinky, plain baseball bat. He raised a brow, "Here, take this one, instead." Seeing her as somewhat of a rookie in the apocalypse, he traded her a nailbat, with fresh blood on it. "Might help you more than this one."

Seemingly impressed at the different weapon she took it with pride.

C'mon, the thing looked pretty damn cool.

"So... You have a safe house or anywhere considered 'safe' anywhere?" She asked, swinging the bat.

Chuck began walking, motioning a hand, "Yeah, this way." He led them to a mall on the other side of the park.

...

"So, wanna tell me about yourself? A sob story? Anything." Jess suggested, glancing over at the older man.

The way she said it made Chuck scoff. He began to regret letting this little shit follow him already.

"You'll find out everything once you help, won't you?" He simply replied. He didn't need- nor want- to whine to someone else about his past. He didn't want to think about all of that depression again.

"...Alright...My turn." Jess replied quietly. "I'm originally from New York, uh, I came here with my dad and my brother..." She trailed off suddenly. She sighed, "obviously I have no idea where they are now." She said, shrugging. "I'll find them." She said, determined.

"Hopefully. Being away from family is the worst feeling ever. Believe me." Chuck replied.

Silence.

"Can you believe this is happening?"

"With Terror is Reality, and all the other shady shit, something was bound to happen." Chuck shook his head. "It has been for a few years."

Jess looked over at Chuck, curious. "The outbreak? Why hasn't it been controlled?"

"It has been. That shitty excuse for a show is one of the ways it's being 'controlled.'" Chuck replied, "Like I said, there's someone bigger doing this and we need to find out who so it CAN be controlled."

"Crap, this is complicated stuff."

"And it's only gonna get more complicated. Let's just hurry up and get to the bunker, alright?" Chuck as he practically ran on.