"Does any of this seem familiar to you?" I asked, my legs killing me from walking almost four days straight.

"Yeah it does. I ran that way," she said as pointing to the direction behind us, "so we should be close!"

"Cool." I said while putting my hands in my worn and bloody U.S army field jacket. I found it on a walker and it fit me pretty well, so I figured what the hell, I've never owned nice things. I should wash it at some point, though it was in pretty good shape, the guy who had it before me was bit on the leg. So it was completely in tact.

Sophia started to walk faster then I was, but with her bright blue shirt, white shoes and red socks, she wasn't that hard to miss. I just needed to keep a close eye on her, her mother didn't do that and that's why we're in this situation in the first place. I jogged to catch up with her and as I wondered about whether or not she didn't remember exactly, I felt my feet hit pavement. I looked up and I saw a graveyard of dusty and deserted cars. It was the highway snare.

"Holy shit, we made it." I said in disbelief.

"Let's go!" Sophia yelled excitedly.

"Wait, it's not exactly safe here..." I started to say but trailed off when she ran towards the cars, " Goddamnit."

I walked toward the area where Sophia ran off to, shifting my eyes to make sure we where alone. But as I got to where Sophia was standing I saw that there was something wrong.

"What's up kid?" I asked looking at the somewhat vacant area she was looking at.

"They were here. I could have sworn they where." She said, pointing at the spot on the highway.

"You sure you weren't further up?" I asked, trying to not start anything.

"I'm certain. The RV was right there," she said as she moved to that area, "Mr. Dixon's motorcycle was right there-"

"Hey, look over there." I said pointing to a car.

We walked over to the abandoned car and saw rations, a blanket, and a message in spray paint, which I read out loud

Sophia,

Stay here, we will come back every day

"Well, there you go." I said, knowing that they wouldn't just haul off and leave Sophia.

Sophia didn't have words, either because she was super happy that she was going to be reunited with her family, or that she was relieved that they didn't just leave.

"Well, I guess now we just sit here and play the waiting game." I said as I sat on the trunk of the car, and Sophia soon mimicked my actions.

"So, are you just gonna leave?" Sophia asked, her eyes open wide with worry.

"No, I'll make sure that you get back okay." I said while taking one of the bottles of water and giving one to Sophia.

"What are you gonna do after that? Where're you going?" She asked.

"Don't know. Didn't exactly have a heading before I met you. Just trying to survive day to day." I explained. I didn't think it would help to tell her that before she ran into my life I was one second away from blowing my brains out. That was something I would just keep with me.

"Would you want to stay with us?" She asked.

"I wouldn't want to impose." I said. As nice as it would be to have some people to interact with, I would probably just feel like an outsider, like I always do.

"Mr. Grimes would probably let you stay, or my mom, or Dale." She said, trying to get me to see her side of the small argument.

"Look Sophi-" I started to say but I was then cut off.

"Long time, no see huh kid?" I heard from behind me. I looked and saw on of the governors men. That older guy, Lance I think his name was. I immediately stood up, but I motioned Sophia to stay seated.

"What the hell do you want?" I asked, my hand gripping my sword.

"Ever hear that old saying; 'its like brining a knife to a gun fight?'" Lance said as he cocked his gun, "I think that applies here."

"So what? Your boss wants you to kill me?" I asked, sounding completely unafraid.

"My opinion, yes. But he said if any of us find you, we need to bring you to him." He said. At least he was honest. I thought to myself. While I was thinking that to myself, I saw a lone walker staggering along, but the man with the gun held to me didn't seem to notice. Then a plan formulated in my head.

"And so your just gonna hand me over?" I asked.

"If I don't, and you run your mouth about me seeing you and not doing anything about it, it'll be my ass he's after. And I ain't taking that chance." He said, still in aware of the flesh eater walking behind him, only steps away.

"Following orders like a good soldier." I stated then I started counting in the back of my mind.

"Well, what are you gonna do?" He said, and with that small note the walker staggering behind him caught him and but his neck, blood spilling everywhere. I walked back over to Sophia and covered her eyes with my hands. I've seen a lot of gruesome stuff in my day, but there was no reason that she needed to.

"Let's go." I said, ushering her away from the gruesome scene.

...

"Who was that guy?!" Sophia asked as soon as we were a good distance away from the highway. We where near a stream, which was a pretty good sign. At least I had something to help figure out where we were.

"No one you need to concern yourself with." I said, making sure that no one followed us.

"Bullshit." She said, stopping in her tracks.

"Watch your mouth." I said. That was the first time I have ever heard her say anything like that.

"You just let that guy die!" She yelled. "No one lets a guy die without a reason."

"I had no choice. What the fuck did you want me to do?!" I yelled back, but when I did, Sophia backed up a little bit, flinching slightly.

"What? You expecting me to hit you or something?" I asked angrily,though I was simmering down.

"You're not?" She asked, barely audible. I just looked at her. That kid was expecting me to hit her, just because I yelled at her.

"Kid," I said as I started to walk towards her, but she swiftly backed away, "just because I'm a little pissed at you doesn't mean I'm gonna hit you." I explained as I got her doll out of the water and put it on the edge of the bank.

"Oh..." She said but she still seemed a little uneasy.

"He was with this guy that hurt a lot of people." I said. "He's also tried to killed me with this guy on numerous occasions. That's why I didn't stop him from getting bit."

"Does that mean that guys close?" Sophia asked, looking worried.

"No, he usually stays further north. We're okay, just try to stay out of his way." I said.

"Okay..." She said after a few moments of silence.

"Well we should go. It's kinda uneasy to just stay in one place." I said re sheathing my sword.

"I'm sorry I yelled." Sophia said. Her eyes still full of worry.

"You had a right to know, if anything I should apologize." I said, and I meant it. I really shouldn't have snapped at her the way I did. But she seemed more at peace than she was a few moments ago. We then moved on, walking away from the river.

...

"So what are we gonna do now?" Sophia asked.

"We're just gonna lay low. The last thing we need is to run into more of those guys." I said

"Okay." She said lightly, but then stopped dead I'm her tracks.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I left my doll!" She exclaimed, then she started to run back to where we came from, but she didn't get far until I grabbed her arm.

"Whoa, calm down Sophia!" I said.

"But I need it! We need to go back!" She yelled, she was on the verge of tears, and even though I've known her for a week, I was still pretty uncomfortable around that.

"good grief..." I mumbled, "okay, okay. I'll go get your doll back." I said. Then I lead her to a tree.

"Here's what I want you to do. I want you get up in this tree, and stay there while I get your doll," I said while pointing up towards the tree and then I gave her my knife, "use it if you need to, and don't come down from this tree unless your sure it's me. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, but why can't I go with you?" Sophia asked shakily.

"I'll move faster if I'm alone. Just listen to what I said," I pleaded with both of my hands on her shoulders,"if I'm not back by sunrise, go back to the highway and stay hidden in a car until your people come again, okay?"

"Okay." She said, and then climbed up the tree. I then hiked off into the direction of the creek to go retrieve Sophia's lost toy.

Merle always seemed to have a war of anger wading inside him, he was always glaring off to the distance, like he was remembering an unpleasant memory. Course even though I could see that something was bothering him, I didn't bother asking. He seemed like the type of guy who didn't like talking about his problems. But one day while driving I brought it up, though not right away.

We where driving down a road, not entirely certain of a destination. I kept looking in Merle's direction every no and again, but mostly I was keeping my eye on the road and trying to keep them open.

"Ya know I can drive." He said, breaking the awkward silence.

"With one hand? Sorry but I don't feel like crashing into a tree or something." I said, and kept on driving.

"If the world didn't go to hell, would you even be aloud to drive?" He asked with his eyebrow raised.

"Does that even matter?" I asked. At the time, we had only known each other for a good two weeks. Though we never really talked.

"Just wonderin'. Ya seem a little young to be drivin'." He said lightly. I just rolled my eyes and kept looking at the road. Though watching the road passing by was pretty hypnotic, I started to feel my eye lids getting heavy.

"Well if you keep drivin' your gonna end up crashin' into a tree or somethin'." Merle said.

"I'm fine." I said, trying my best to stifle a yawn.

"Bullshit." He said. We sat in silence for another couple of minutes until my curiosity got the best of me.

"This still might be a sore topic, but how did you lose your hand?" I asked, wondering what his reaction was going to be, but he just glared off into the distance.

"Some pig cop handcuffed me to that fucking roof, and then a nigga lost the fucking key." Merle said bitterly.

"We'll I'm sure this African American gentleman didn't mean to lose the key." I said, trying to be reasonable.

"They just left me there to die." He grumbled.

"I'm sure they went back for you." I said, but Merle just shrugged.

"You want to drive?" I asked, looking at him.

"Sure." He said, and with that we switched seats. He handled the car decently, like he had two hands. And with that our conversation ended. And that memory faded into the darkness, just like everything else.

Even though I was hell bent on helping Sophia get back to her family. I was pretty pissed on the fact I needed to retrace my steps, get separated from her, and put off he small quest for a doll.

"Risking my tail for a fucking doll." I grumbled. I managed to get back to the cliff that over looked the creek, where we originally where. And so I hiked down the side of the cliff to go find Sophia's dumb dick doll.

"It ain't impossible to hold on to a doll." I said to myself. I walked over to where we were standing, but I didn't see Sophia's doll anywhere.

"Oh, WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT GODDAMN DOLL?!" I yelled in anger, and I then found a stick and started beating the ground with it. After having that world class hissy fit i started to calmed down. I heard a walker snarling behind me but before it laid it's rotting hands on me,I took my sword and cut off its head. After that I sat back down, trying to think of the other places Sophia could have left her doll. But then something caught my attention.

There was a walker but it was attacking some guy. At first I was just gonna leave him, considering I've saved enough people for one life time. But what was on his belt was what kept me from walking away. He had Sophia's doll. At first I was wondering why the hell a grown man would want a doll, but then I figured the only way I was going to get Sophia's toy back was to save that guy. Though of course I could have just let him die and take it from him that way, but the first option sounded a lot better. So I sliced that walkers head off, killing it for the second time.

The guy that was being attacked stood up immediately. He had shaggy, dark brown hair, Mediterranean blue eyes, a tough demeanor. He was taller than me, but all I was concerned about was getting Sophia her doll back.

"Usually when someone saves your life, you say thank you." I stated.

"I didn't need your help." He said as he picked up something behind him. I looked around him and saw it was a crossbow.

"Yeah, cuz you were doing just fine before I intervened." I said sarcastically.

"Whatever, what do you want, a medal?" He said in the same tone.

"No but considering I just saved your life I should get something in return. So I'll just take that doll in your belt and I'll be on my way." I said quickly.

"The hell I will." He said , his hands bearing his crossbow, ready to aim.

"Ok, I guess I can make you. I'll just be on my way-" I said, but I then used the hilt of my sword to hit the guy in the stomach, and as he doubled over I grabbed the doll off of his belt, and ran away. I stuffed the doll in the inside pocket of my army jacket and hid behind a tree, hoping the guy would just walk away in defeat.

I looked back to where we where, he was gone. That's a good sign. I thought to myself. Though a second or two after that I realized that was just a false sense of security.

"Drop the sword." A male voice said behind me, as I heard a click. And considering I wasn't anything good to Sophia dead, I obliged, dropping my weapon to the ground.

"If ya know what's good for ya, you'll give me the doll." He said as I turned around, anger in his pretty blue eyes.

"Why the hell do you want it?!" I asked angrily.

"That ain't none of your concern." He said.

"The fuck do you-" I started to say but started to trail off, he seemed familiar. Then a conversation I had with Sophia popped into my mind...

"That would be Mr. Dixon." She said after a moment of thinking about it.

"Tell me about him then." I said.

"He a crossbow, and he rides a motorcycle. And he usually just yells at people. He kinda scares me..." Sophia explained and just kinda left it off at that. This Dixon guy was just a dude with a crossbow that yells at people, that was at least what I got out of it.

This dude was definitely intimidating. He did have a crossbow, and he did fit Sophia's description of that Dixon guy.

"Out of curiosity, is your last name Dixon?" I asked. The guy looked at me with a surprised look, but he then kept his crossbow in place, aiming at me with his finger on the trigger.

"How the hell do you know my name?" He asked angrily, with curiosity peaking in his voice. I did it! I thought I managed to find something when I needed it, not when it's really not necessary.

"Well, if you lower your crossbow, I might be able to tell you." I said while throwing him Sophia's doll, "I have something of yours."

He he then go a surprised look on his face and lowered his weapon.

"Sophia?"

And finally we met another main character! After like ten chapters! Anyway almost anyone could have guessed that the first person from the group Zachariah would meet would be Daryl. either way, we've finally got pass that milestone! But there's still more to come. Reviews are appreciated, tell me if I could do something better or whatever else.

thanks for reading. ^_^