We had been walking for at least half a day and the darkness was beginning to settle over the woods.

"Marceline?" Omid asked, catching up with me as I walked ahead of the group slightly. "I really think we should stop soon. It's getting dark and Christa's back is really hurting her."

"We're gonna have to reach somewhere sheltered, being exposed to walkers isn't going to do any good later."

"Come on, Marcey," Travis said as he appeared beside Omid. "I really think this baby is going to arrive soon, and it's not going to be good if we pressure her to walk too much."

I glanced back at Christa who walked with Clementine. She was holding onto her stomach with a slightly pained face, while Clem looked up at her with a worried expression.

"We'll stop up there," I told them, pointing ahead to where there was a slight clearance in the trees. "And we should stay there until the baby is born."

"Sounds good," Omid smiled, dropping back to Christa to let her know the plan.

I kept walking with Travis, but something was playing on my mind a lot.

"Back at the bathroom," I began. "Why didn't you stop that girl getting in? Clem could have been shot because of that."

Travis widened his eyes, staring back at me in disbelief. "Don't blame me for what happened back there. I didn't even see her arrive, I was circling the building. The only way I knew something was going on was when I heard your voices echoing through the vents. It's not like I let her in there."

I nodded my head once. "Sorry for the accusation. Do you know who shot first?"

He shrugged. "My guess would be that it was you, since your gun was held to her head."

I looked at the gun in my hand for a long second, then lowered it back to my side. "She was threatening us, I couldn't leave her to do it."

"I know, Marce," Travis sighed. "You did what you had to."

I bit my lip. Did I really have to do that? I couldn't dwell on it.

We arrived at the clearing just as Christa began to breathe heavily to ease her pain. Then, it was a waiting game for the arrival and a praying game for safety to last meanwhile.

Christa lost the baby. The poor child hadn't even had a moment to be welcomed into the world. I had a nagging feeling in my brain that we could have done something- I could have done something- to have prevented the baby dying. We didn't give Christa enough food for two, I pushed her to walk for longer than she should have... She was exhausted. She never stopped being exhausted even after the trauma, and now Omid was just as depressed.

Our small group walked solemnly through the woods for months, finding camp in various places. Christa often couldn't sleep, so she stayed on watch for long periods of time. One night, I woke up from hearing her sobs. I comforted her for a long while, but I knew that I couldn't do anything to heal the amount of pain she felt inside her mind and heart. Omid struggled too, through he still tried to make sure Christa smiled every day, no matter how much they were both upset. As sad as everyone was, I think we all knew that it was better that the baby did not have to survive in a world like ours. We would have had to raise a killer, training them to use a gun as soon as they developed the ability to hold one. What kind of life would that be?

Roughly six months passed and Christa was still not much better. She became short tempered, miserable and sarcastic all of the time- but I couldn't blame her. I wasn't the nicest of people anymore, either.

We reached a small town after walking for a long distance, which luckily seemed to be lacking the usual residents.

"We should clear out these shops," Travis suggested as we walked in the middle of the empty road.

Some shops had broken windows, but it was easy to see that there were still some supplies on shelves within them.

Christa nodded and pointed ahead to a supermarket at the end of the road. "Hopefully there will still be food in there."

"I hope so," Clementine mumbled, rubbing her growling stomach.

I instantly felt guilty, realising it had been quite a while since she really ate enough food.

The group and I walked to the door of the store, our footsteps filling the empty silence in the abandoned town. Travis looked through the cracked windows, trying to see whether there was anything inside but couldn't make much out.

I pushed on the door, though it didn't move in the slightest. "Locked."

"Shocker," Christa complained. "We're gonna have to break in."

"The sound will draw walkers," I responded, unsure of her suggestion.

"What else can we do?" Omid asked. "I'll do it."

Before I could object to the act, Omid charged at the door in an attempt to throw the doors open. Instead, he just bounced off the closed doors and stumbled backwards, holding onto his shoulder that took the force. That would have bruised...

Clementine let out a small giggle, a sound that put butterflies in my stomach. Happiness was rarely expressed now, so the rare times it was made me feel truly human again.

"Great idea, Omid," Travis chuckled. "But these doors open sideways, not inwards. We need to pry them open."

"Awesome."

I tried to hide my smile as Omid pulled a face at his arm. Christa seemed to also be hiding a laugh. It made a nice change.

"Any ideas on what we can use?" Travis inquired.

I glanced around, something catching my eyes on the floor near the side of an alleyway.

"These might come in handy," I grinned, picking up the keys and waving them in my hand.

I put the key into the door and unlocked it, allowing Travis to slide it open easily.

The inside of the supermarket had supplies, though not as many as anticipated. We walked inside carefully, all with our guns ready to fire. Thankfully, no alarms were set. That should have made me suspicious.

"What do you think happened here?" Omid whispered.

"Maybe the town got infected later than other big cities. They might have known what was coming and stocked up," Travis guessed.

I raised an eyebrow, studying one of the shelves in more depth. "No... Where the shelves are empty there's not much dust. The outbreak was almost three years ago..."

"Someone must have recently been here or there would be more dust," Clementine realised.

"Exactly."

"You girls should be detectives," Omid mused.

We surveyed the supermarket for any signs of life, but there appeared to be nobody in there. This became our signal to take whatever we wanted.

Christa, Omid, Travis and Clem went to see how much food they could collect and carry while I continued walking around the supermarket to ensure it was safe. I passed the various aisles of food, pulling faces at the lumpy milk and mold-covered bread in some of them. I stopped at the aisle of medication and took a walk down it, browsing the shelves. There was a collection of painkillers that I decided we would need, so I put a few bottles into my backpack and resumed my 'shopping'. There were bandaids, bandages and other pills that I decided we could keep for if someone got sick when the bad weather hit again. It was only approaching Spring, so I knew that sickness wouldn't really be an issue for another few seasons, but you could never be too prepared.

I picked up a small box that was decorated with clouds and read the writing on the back, discovering that they were sleeping aids. I figured this would be good for the nights when Christa couldn't sleep, or myself. I put a few boxes in my backpack until I was practically a walking pharmacy. Getting caught with this much would have raised some concerns if we weren't in the middle of an apocalypse.

Deciding I had enough medication to last us, I headed back around the aisles and froze in my path, noticing something out of place. The front door of the supermarket was wide open, when we had only left it partially opened. I frantically rushed to the door and looked out, seeing nobody in sight.

"Guys?" I called, moving back into the shop.

"What's up?" Travis replied, his head appearing from around one of the aisles.

I motioned to the door in hope he would understand. He nodded and moved back into the aisle, getting Clementine ready to leave the shop quickly. I went down to the far end of the shop where Christa and Omid had gone to find food.

I paused, titling my head slightly as a person appeared in my view. I needed to think logically. If it was a walker, it was a no brainer that I would kill it. If it was a person, the situation would change depending how they acted.

I stepped carefully closer to the person as they looked around into another aisle where I figured Christa and Omid were. I pointed my gun at the person.

"Looking for something?" I spoke calmly.

The person jumped in fright, spinning around and staring at me like a deer caught in headlights. It was a girl, probably just a bit younger than myself. She held her hands up in front of her, weaponless and terrified.

"Are you with anyone else?" I asked her.

Christa and Omid ran from the aisle and pointed their guns at the girl too, and I could feel how scared she was at being outnumbered. She shook her head dramatically. I lowered my gun slowly.

"What's your name?"

The girl stuttered. "K...Katie."

"What are you doing in here, Katie?" Christa quizzed.

The girl moved her hands down since we had established that she didn't have a gun to harm us with. "I've been here for the past week. I was going to Wellington but when I realised the town was almost deserted, I stayed. Plus there's food here."

"What's Wellington?" Travis enquired, approaching us with Clementine.

"You've never heard of it?" She asked, brushing her ginger hair behind her ears. "It's a place up north. I heard of it from the last group I passed. It's super cold there and the snow slows the walkers down. It's safe."

"Wellington," I repeated. It sounded like the perfect place to go.

"You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"Unless you're a threat," Omid answered. "Are you?"

Katie shook her head again.

"You're welcome to join the group then," Omid smiled.

Katie seemed to consider this for a brief second, before shaking her head again. "Thank you, but I've managed three years alone. I think I'll keep going. Maybe I'll see you in Wellington."

I nodded my head. "Well, it was nice to meet another survivor. Good luck."

I kept my finger on the trigger of my gun while the others moved out of the shop, still wary of the girl. She smiled a half smile at me as I walked out of the door, and I returned it for the sake of being friendly, knowing either of us could be dead soon and human politeness was difficult to find nowadays.

"So, to Wellington?" Travis suggested, as we all gathered outside the shop.

"To Wellington," Christa confirmed. Things were looking up.

a/n: So I was thinking of writing another story about Katie. Let me know in the reviews if you'd like to read her backstory!

Things are gonna get intense soon... Prepare yourselves.

Thank you for reading, reviewing and supporting x