A/N: Hello there, my lovelies! I'm super excited to finally put this chapter down, since I'm really impressed by it. Note, I wrote this in present tense. It's different from the other chapters and such. Tell me if you like it, or hate it. I want to know if I should continue writing like this.

So, onto the new chapter!

Alyssa's POV

My mom is quiet as we make our way through the weeds, and I look at her. The determination is in her eyes again, and so is pain. I understand. Everything we worked so hard to achieve has been lost in the time span of an hour. And everyone we knew is probably dead.

Fuck.

Carl. Rick. Judith. Carol. Daryl. All gone.

The statement hits me like a ton of bricks. I begin to breathe heavily, my worry and panic setting in. That, combined with the pain of my shoulder, is just too much for me to handle. My heart pounds quicker as I think of the dead bodies we've passed. I'm not sure if any of them were my friends.

A small, whimpering sound a few paces from our right gets my attention.

I turn, seeing a woman with long brown hair lying on the ground. She has her hands on her right thigh, the calf under it bleeding.

"Help me." She whimpered. "I- I think the bullet is still in there. Someone shot it."

I shake my head, turning back to the road. The woman cried again. "Please! Don't leave me here! I'll die."

I turned sharply to look at her, ignoring Mom's stare at my back. "You came here, shooting down my home with a psychopath that killed my friend, and you think we'll help you? Think again."

I continue walking with my mother, just a few paces before the woman whimpers in pain. "Help me."

Does she really not understand? I'm not going to help her. And by the looks of it, mom isn't too keen on helping her either.

I turn back, raising my Glock to the woman's head with my left hand. It's shaking slightly; not because I am scared or feeling guilty, but because this isn't my normal shooting arm. "Shut up."

And I pull the trigger. The woman's insistent yapping has finally stopped. Good.

I ignore the look from my mother, and instead begin walking down the dirt road. "Where are we going? We should find somewhere to stay for the night. The sun is already going down."

She gives me a look; her eyebrows scrunch up and her eyes search my face. I guess she finds nothing she was looking for. Instead, she grasps the hilt of her katana, giving it a 360 degree spin. "We don't go anywhere just yet."

I raise an eyebrow, but nod. I know my mother; whatever she's thinking, she knows if it's right or not. She'll keep us safe.

We walk back into the clearing, looking at the walkers that were dangerously close to us. I trade my Glock for my knife instead, stabbing one walker in the eye. Mom and I continue to walk to the gate of the burning prison, taking out walkers that get close with our silent weapons. I groan a little each time as I stab one. I am not left-handed, so that makes my situation a little more difficult. And no matter how I move, my shoulder aches.

Mom and I move to the man-made spikes at the main gate, hopping over them with ease as two walkers follow us. They impale themselves into the spikes, just as planned. I knew what mom was thinking; she was going back to her old ways. Keeping two pets to mask our scents, taking off the jaws and arms of each.

My suspicions were correct. Mom, in one swift motion, cut the rope off of the gate, pulling it into her hands as she did so. She then tosses it to me.

"Hold this." She spoke the words gruffly. I did as she asked, taking the white-ish rope as she cut off the arms of both walkers. Then went the jaws. She takes the rope from my hands, cutting it and making one loop in each. She tosses the loops over the necks of the walkers, and hands one rope to me.

Yay, I think sarcastically, I get a walker to myself.

"You're still bleeding." She says to me. "You need the cover more than I do."

She and I then walk away from the spikes, moving to our right. I hear a snarling sound beneath us, so I look down. A few feet away from our bodies is the head of Hershel, his undead jaw chomping down lightly on nothing. I close my eyes, my heart breaking as I hear mom's katana slice through his skull. He was such a good man. He didn't deserve the pain that he went through. The slight SHLINK of the blade coming out of the head leads me to believe it was safe for me to open my eyes.

Mom stood up from the dirt, yanking her walker with her as she walked to the woods. I followed suit, groaning from the movement that was needed to pull the walker.

"Mom. Where are we going?" I ask her, tugging on the walker so it follows us.

"Anywhere but here." She replies, pushing leaves from her face as we entered the forest.

Leaving our former home for the last time.

Mom and I walk down a dirt path in the woods. I can't remember if I've been down this one or not. It seems familiar, but then again, all the roads look the same to me.

We trudge through a clearing and walk down an uneven slope. In the road in front of us, there are tracks in the mud. Two tracks. One is smaller, so a child. The other, I can't tell if they are walker or not. They are stronger on one foot, so if it is a human they must have a sprained or broken ankle. Both tracks are going to the right from where we are standing.

Mom looks at them, thinking a moment. I stop my walker pet from moving, and await her answer. She turns to the left, away from the tracks and instead to the forest.

"Mom, shouldn't we follow them?" I ask, but pull my walker to the left as she begins to walk.

"No." She answers simply, quiet.

"Why?" I press. She turns to me, and I stop walking.

"We don't know who they are."

"They could be from the prison. We could know these people."

She shakes her head. "Possibility. It could also be from the Governor's group. Someone could have gotten out of there alive, just like we did. They could be from a whole 'nother group, for all we know!"

I look down at the tracks, taking a deep breath. "So, just like the old days, huh?"

She nods sternly. "Just you and me. Can't afford to find any other people. Not with you in your condition."

"Mom, I'm fine." I try to talk, but she interrupts.

"No, you are NOT fine! You were shot. That is not fine."

I am in no mood to argue, so I settle for huffing angrily and yanking my walker into the woods. "Let's go. We have to find shelter for the night. And something to help with my shoulder."

I hear mom walking behind me, so I smile softly. I win, I thought.

She and I continue our trek through the forest, coming across an abandoned car near another road. It is big enough for her and I to sleep in. She and I give each other looks.

"It's as good a place as any to stay the night." I speak up. "And I'm not sure of we'd be able to find another place before dark any way."

She nods to me. "Check the front of the car. See if there's anything useful inside. I'll check the trunk."

I nod back, and make my way to the car. I have to use my knife to get inside. The damn thing was locked.

I tie up the ropes to my pet walker on the door handle, securing it tightly before hopping into the front seat. I look through the glove compartment on the passengers' side, finding a small stack of old newspapers. Nothing exactly helpful, unless mom wants to know who won the Super Bowl of 2006.

I look in the backseat. Empty.

"Nothing." I say as I jump out of the car. "Find anything?"

"Old first aid kit!" She grins, pulling it from the trunk. I notice that her pet walker is tied up to the back door handle.

I grin back. "Nice catch." She pulls the trunk shut, first aid kit in hand.

Mom strides her way over, beckoning me to sit on the hood of the car. "C'mere." She pats the hood twice.

I comply, setting my Glock to my side as I hop onto the dark blue metal. She opens up the white and red case, searching through it until she finds every single gauze pad she could and a gauze wrap. She also takes a small, used, curl of medical tape to secure the gauze.

"How's this going to work?" I ask, eyeing the pads as she rips them open.

"I'm gonna need you to help me." She answers. "We both need to put pads on each side, and I'm gonna unwrap the wrap over them. Then I tape it. Hopefully, it'll hold and stop the bleeding."

I nod as she speaks, and pull my clothes from my shoulder. I wince as I do so, but keep quiet. No use making noise when it isn't needed.

Mom hands me an uneven stack of gauze pads, which I gingerly take from her. She takes the rest from their spot on the car, pressing them against the wound on the back of my shoulder. I cry out a little.

"Sorry!" She rushes out the word. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." I say, breathing a bit raggedly as I press my own stack against the front wound. "It needs to be done. I know."

I grunt a little, but I don't cry out again as mom wraps the gauze around the wounds. She then takes three large pieces of medical tape, securing the gauze in its place. When she finishes, I pull back up my shirt and bra strap to their rightful places. I attempt to roll the shoulder, but deem it as a bad idea and stop mid-movement.

"Good?" She asks me.

"As good as it can be." I shrug. I look up at the sky, watching the bright blue hue leave as the pinks and purples take over. "We should hop in. It's getting dark."

"Yeah, we should." She agrees. Together, we hop into the car, closing the doors tight. We can't lock them, but if the pet walkers do their jobs right, we shouldn't have to worry about that. Mom takes the front seat, lying horizontally over the passenger and drivers seats. I take the back, lying down on my left shoulder. I stare up at the ceiling, listening to my mothers soft snores. Eventually, I drift off into a dreamless slumber.

I awake before my mom does. I groan at the stiffness in my neck and shoulders, and I try to stretch out my muscles. I smile as I feel and hear satisfying pops in my back, and I stretch out my left shoulder. The right I keep stiff; I don't want to try and stretch it out until the wound heals a bit more.

I look over the seats in front of me and take a look at the sleeping form in them. I begin to frown. Mom is trashing around in her sleep, her normally stern face contorted into a frown and a silent scream. Her breathing is quick and ragged.

I quickly open the door to my left and jump out of the car, only to wrap around and jump into the front seat. I move Mom's legs to the left so I have a small amount of space to sit in.

"Mom?" I say her name as if it were a question. "Mom, wake up." I gently nudge her shoulder and shake it a bit. "Come on, mom. Wake up! Wake UP!"

She nearly screams as she opens her eyes. She pulls her body to a sitting position in less than a second, gripping the dashboard of the car. Her breathing slows down in the minutes that pass.

"Andre?" I whisper.

She nods. "Mike and Terry, too."

I rub her forearm consolingly. It wasn't the first time she's had nightmares about her past. She used to have them every other night when we first met. It was like the universe wanted her to tell me about them. Her three year old son, Andre, and her fiancé, Mike. Terry was a close friend of Mike's before the world went to shit. She never told me the whole story of what happened; just that the four of them were in a camp, and it got overrun. Mom was the only person that lived through the camp.

"It's okay." I attempt to console her. It used to work back then. "You're okay. We're okay." I bend my head down, listening to the sound of her breathing. I can tell that it's going to happen soon. She's like a rubber band being stretched. She's going to snap.

She abruptly grabs me, pulling me close to her. I wrap my arms around her slender figure, allowing her to hug me tightly.

We stay there a moment, holding each other close. I'm happy that she's hugging me, but I hear more walker growls outside. I listen to the snarls out the window. Definitely more than our two pets.

"Mom-" I start, but she interrupts.

"I know." She releases me from her death grip. "We gotta go." I nod.

She and I get out of the car, grabbing our pets in the process. I look around at the dull scenery; just a few trees in the clearing and the dirt beneath our feet. As I thought, there are more walkers around us than there were before, but they aren't attacking us. The pets are doing their jobs well.

"Let's go." Mom says. I nod to her, and we walk through the thick maze of trees side-by-side, surrounding ourselves in the green brush. We are silent as we trudge through the dry, crumbling dirt.

Once, I twisted my neck over to look at mom. She was walking a bit slower than usual, and was staring at a walker intently, as if she knew the person before they died.

Huh, I thought, weird.

She eventually just shook her head and stared ahead. Better, I think. We continue to walk through the tall weeds, surrounded by a small herd of walkers. Normally, I'd be freaked out, but the pets that we have continue to mask out scent. I close my eyes a little and tilt my head upwards, and feel the heat of the sun on my lightly tanned skin. The sun, though it can get really annoying, is nice to feel. We've been walking in its heat for hours now, so it is on the borderline of, "comforting," and, "okay, stop it."

I open my eyes, taking a quick peak at my mother. I begin to frown. What was she doing?

I watch as she turns to look at a walker, and she takes a step backward, nearly into a tree. She had a look of confusion and guilt on her face.

"Mom?" I ask quietly. I don't want to attract walkers, since we were in a field of them, but I want to make sure my mother is okay.

She drops the rope of her pet walker and instead takes her katana out, screaming, "No!" as she slices the face of the one in front of her in half.

"Great." I mutter. The sound of the walker-killing grabs the attention of the others around us. She places her hands on her knees, panting for a moment, before standing up and killing another. And another. And three more.

"Ugh." I groan, but drop my walker pet and proceed to take out my knife, helping her kill more. Worry sets in as I hear mom pant and hyperventilate. Every single time she kills a walker, she screeches out, "No! No no no!"

She takes out most of them, for she has a larger weapon, but I do my share and take out a portion of them. When we finish, she kills the ones that were our pets. Mom stands, unbalanced, as she continues to pant and hyperventilate. The sword in her hand gleams wickedly with walker blood.

"Mom!" I nearly shout her name as I walk in front of her. "What the HELL was that?!"

She walks backward, away from me. Her face is alight with sadness, and guilt passes through me. I just yelled at her.

She begins to sob in front of me. I take a step forward, closer to her. She continues to sob, holding her katana in her left hand.

"Mom." I repeat the name about four times, getting closer to her and gently pulling the katana out of her hand. I toss it to our side, onto the tall grass and weeds. I put my hands on the sides of her face, pulling her head down so she can look at me.

"Mom." I say her name again, and I see that I finally get her attention. "Look at me. LOOK. AT. ME."

She brings her chocolate brown eyes to my hazel ones, and my heart nearly cracks in half as I look at the numerous amounts of tears flowing through them.

"Look at me." I repeat the phrase one last time. "We're okay. Say it."

She chokes back a sob, but complies. "We're... Okay."

"Good." I smile encouragingly to her. "That's right. We're okay. We're going to be okay for a long time. You got that?"

"Oh, Liz." She cries, looking up at the sky. We both drop to the ground, sitting on the dirt and grass.

"Say it! We're going to be okay." I tell her again.

"We're going..." She chokes. "To be... Okay. We're going to be okay."

"Good. That's right. We're goin' to be okay."

She repeated the phrase one last time, then pulls me in for a big hug. We lie on the grass together, holding each other close. She doesn't let go for a while.

We walk to the dirt and mud road, the one we passed the night before. Mom bends down to look at them, and then stands up.

"We don't have to do this y'know?" I say to her as she starts following the tracks.

"I need to." She states, beckoning me to come with her. "There are two tracks. The first have to be a kids. The second, I'm not sure if they're a walker or not. If they are, the kid wasn't worried about it. If they're humans, that person is in bad condition. They're limping a lot."

I nod while listening to her. I came to the same conclusion earlier. Daryl taught us both well. I have no trouble believing that he came out of the prison. He was a fighter. Always has been and always will be. If anyone got out of the prison, it'd be him.

"C'mon." Mom brings me out of my thoughts, and I go to her. We walk side by side down the road, quiet. At some point during the trip, Mom's hand reached for my own. I gladly took it, intertwining our fingers and holding her hand tightly.

We eventually make it to a paved road, cracked and littered with dead bodies and walkers. Mom leaves me for a moment while she takes out the ones on the left side of the road. I got the right. It is a fairly easy job, since the road is small and the amount of walkers is so little. She and I continue our walk after the small walker killing, and we make it to a small shack, and old sign above the door stating that it was, "Joe and Joe Jr's BBQ Shack!"

She and I walk through the open door, and find a dead walker lying in the middle of the bar area. Its skull is bashed in, for the most part, and there is a hole to the side of its head. Someone must tried to kill it with a melee weapon, then opted for a gun.

"You check up here, I'll check the back?" I ask, taking out my knife in preparation.

She nods. "Yeah. Don't expect to find anything. People were here; if they were smart they wouldn't leave anything of use behind."

I walk silently through the old dining room, checking the tables. Nothing. I make my way over to the kitchen. I hope to find at least a fry or something left behind. Instead, I score an old jar of pickles. At least mom and I get food for the night.

I make my way back to the bar and set my knife back in its sheath on my hip. I look through the open doorway that connects the bar and dining room, looking at mom, who is sitting on the floor.

I furrow my brows as I listen to her speak. To no one. I don't even think she notices me lying against the open doorframe. "I know the answer. I know why."

"Mom..." I say, a bit louder than probably necessary, but I need to need to get her attention. I swiftly move to where she is sitting, and bend my knees, falling gently to the floor. "Is he back again? Can you see him?"

She looks up at me and whispers. "Yeah. He's right next to you."

Great, I think. She used to have hallucinations, back in the day. I didn't understand it at first, why she would think that someone dead is following us around, that she could talk to them, but I learned to help her chase them away. It was, and still is, better for her to not see Mike every day.

"Remember how to make him go away?" I ask her, my hands lightly grasping her knees. She nods.

"I remember." Mom answers, her eyes glassy.

"Make him go away, then. Okay? Tell him to leave. You don't need him."

She looks into the open air to my right. I shiver; it is like she is talking to a ghost that I can't see. I find it a bit scary.

"Go away." She whispers quietly.

"C'mon, you know he won't leave if you say it like that." I lightly assert. "Say it like you mean it."

"Go away." She raises her voice a bit. "I don't need you anymore."

"Better." I encourage. "Is he still here?"

"... No... He's leaving." She cranes her neck to the door, smiling. I shiver again; creepy.

"Great. We don't need him back." I stand up from the ground, showing off the pickles. "I got us dinner."

She wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Gross."

I laugh lightly. "You will eat the pickles, and you'll like it."

"Alyssa!" She lightly taps my arm, and I laugh even more.

We both sit on the floor, and I open the jar. The unappetizing fumes of pickle juice fill the air, and I groan. "Maybe we shouldn't eat them."

Mom smirks at me, an, "I knew it," gesture on her face. I roll my eyes at her childish nature, though I'm glad she smirks. It shows that her mind is in the right place at the moment. It is better for her to be annoying about old pickles than talking to a hallucination. Mom stands up from the ground and stretches her arms above her head.

"C'mon." She says, walking out the front door. "We should find more shelter before dark."

"Okay." And we walk out of the diner. We leave the old pickle jar on the floor, opened and uneaten. We pass by a walker again, which mom easily gets rid of. We continue our pursuit of finding out who the tracks belong to.

We make it down another road, where what Daryl would call, "cookie cutter houses," line both sides. Each house is a pale white or yellow, with large porches and gross floral furniture on top. In the middle of the street, an opened tin can of chocolate pudding lay rolling on its side.

"Ew." I wrinkle my nose in disgust, and move closer to it. "Who would want to eat 112 ounces of chocolate pudding?"

"Sh!" Mom quiets me, walking up the steps of a porch. Her hand is slung over her shoulder, grasping the hilt of her katana. I take out my Glock, holding it in front of me in defense. Then we look through the window curtain, seeing two figures sitting on the hardwood floor of the living room.

I gasp lightly, happy tears filling my mothers' eyes and my own. I immediately put the Glock back in its holster, and mom drops the katana. She moves a hand to her face, crying lightly into it. She begins to wipe the tears away, but more come. We both stop a moment, taking deep breaths, and we smile.

It's Carl and Rick.

Inside the home, sitting down and eating old, stale cereal.

I put my hand up to the door, knocking on it three times. I hear the CLICK of a gun being cocked. Good. They were being smart. I can hear them standing up on the other side of the door, someone looking through the peep hole of the door. And Rick laughing. I can hear his mix of a laugh and a wheeze.

I can hear Carl saying, "What?" in an annoyed tone.

I can also hear Rick's disbelieving tone saying, "It's for you."

A/N: Hope y'all liked it! Feel free to review. Or not. If you want to. But I really would like to know if present tense is a good change or not.