"The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."

- Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Fall of Atlantis

Andrea, Michonne and I spent weeks moving from one place to another, we never stayed in a place for more than two or three days for safety measures.

We were tired most of the time for all the walking and even running but we were getting used to it by now, besides Andrea and I didn't complain to Michonne about that, as we moved around the city because we kept looking for our loved ones, for our friends but so far we hadn't even found a single clue of their whereabouts and as more time passed the less I believed I was going to ever find them again.

Right now we were in the middle of fall and it was getting colder and colder, we had already gotten warm clothes but we needed warmer ones and unfortunately we had lost them recently. We came across a group of seven men and we had to flee as quickly as we could.

We had left the town and gotten back into the woods, where we were more safe from people and we were also safe from walkers because of our 'bodyguards' that Michonne kept bringing from one place to the other.

Sometimes, if we came across only a few walkers we killed them quickly and other times we just didn't bother with them but if we see a very large group of them, we just try to mend in. I get closer to our two walkers and try to act as normal as I can manage, say nothing, do no fast movements and we always get away with it but I still get super nervous about it.

I always think that the walkers will catch a scent or we will make a mistake and they'll know we are alive, that we are not one of them. My heart beats so fast I always worry that they will be able to hear it and realize they can eat me but luckily that hasn't happened yet.

Having those two walkers around all the time to mask our scent is way better than kill one and cover your body with their blood and guts, like Rick, Glenn and I did when we were in Atlanta months ago, when we thought we wouldn't leave that city alive. If only we had known back then that we only needed to get two or three of them, cut their arms and jaws off, that would have been better than what we did that day.

I shook my head to get the memories of Rick, Glenn and the rest of the group out of my head. It was hard to think about them and know that some of them might be dead by now.

A couple of hours after the sunset, Michonne decided that it was time to rest. We let our backpacks and stuff fall down on the ground as Michonne tied her two walkers on a tree nearby.

I sat on the cold, hard ground and rested my back against another three after I helped Andrea to start the fire. I brought my knees to my chest as I hugged them close to me. Here out in the open, we might be safer from other people and there were less walkers but we didn't have any kind of shelter to protect us from the cold.

Since we weren't moving anymore, my body's temperature fell and I started to shiver and soon after that my teeth started to chatter. I buried my head in my knees and tried to warm up but not even with the fire in front of me, I got to feel any less cold.

Michonne and Andrea got some cans out of one of the backpacks and warmed them up with the help of the fire, Andrea was kind enough to warm me one, I was so cold I couldn't really move.

"Cici, come to eat," Andrea told me as she and Michonne grabbed each a can.

"I'm not hungry, Andrea," I muttered even when I was in fact really hungry. But I couldn't really move from the cold.

"It will get cold if you don't eat it now," she told me. "Come, it will help."

Michonne stood up from her place and helped me up to my feet and took me closer to the fire. Michonne sat next to me, in between us. She grabbed the third can and gave it to me as she grabbed it with a piece of cloth and then she gave me a metallic spoon we got from a house weeks ago.

As soon as I ate a little bit of the warm food. I felt how the warmness of the food went down my throat and instantly I felt so much better. My teeth stopped chattering after the third bite.
"If only we had some cab," Andrea muttered with a chuckle.
"Girls' night," Michonne said as she looked from Andrea to me with a smile on her lips.
"Yeah," Andrea muttered with a smile.

"If only we had a bottle of vodka or something," I muttered and Andrea just gave me a look but then burst out laughing, making the two of us laugh as well.

Truth was that the alcohol would help us to warm up a little bit more and it would make us feel better too, if only I had grabbed a bottle from the CDC. As I was thinking about that, the two walkers started making more noise and move, making the chains making a clinging noise.

"The boys are getting restless again," Andrea commented.

"They didn't like we are having a girls' night," I commented with a smile as I kept slowly eating my food. "The felt left out."
"You still haven't told me, where did you find them?" Andrea said after a couple of minutes, making Michonne instantly stop eating. "Did they attack? Did you hunt them down? Or did you know them?"

I could only see Michonne's side of her face but I even could see how unsettled she looked. She looked even scared as she intensively stared at Andrea, saying nothing. Andrea looked shocked.

"I'm so sorry," Andrea muttered, looking down at her food, realizing Michonne did in fact know them before they turned. "Oh God."

I felt extremely awkward not knowing what to say, Michonne was clearly distressed. I even heard her sniffling as she looked away from Andrea and instead looked at the fire.
"You want to talk about it?" Andrea dared to ask.

We had gotten relatively close towards this girl since she found us but still there was a very long way to go. We didn't know anything about Michonne, we didn't even know her last name or age, she barely talked. She still didn't know anything about me either, not about my sister, my parents, my friends or anyone else close to me but Andrea felt comfortable about sharing stuff with her, even talked her about Amy.

As expected, Michonne shook her head at Andrea as she tried hard not to cry. The image of her so broken felt almost bizarre because usually she seemed so strong and unaffected by pretty much everything but this showed that Michonne was only human, she was as susceptible as any other person, she did in fact have a heart and a big one.

"Okay," Andrea said.
"They deserved what they got," Michonne angrily muttered. Any sign of her breaking down was gone and she was glaring at the two walkers now with such hatred anyone would be scared. "They weren't human to begin with."

Silently we continued to eat, the atmosphere was slightly awkward because of where the conversation ended up but no one tried to make it alright, or we just didn't know what to say.

When we were done, Michonne offered to be the first on watch. Andrea and I got under a warm blanket and lied down while Michonne just sat next to me and covered her legs with the blanket.

The next day we packed our things quickly and made our way to town, we couldn't spend another night like that. We would die from hypothermia.

It took us about two hours to get out of those woods and find a nice-looking house. I knocked on the door, seeing if there were walkers inside but there were none. Michonne tied the walkers to the fence and we walked in. Michonne and I headed upstairs while Andrea went to the kitchen to check if there was any food.

Unfortunately we didn't found much, the people that lived here were at least twice our size so everything was useless, except for a very warm but light-weighted blanket I found in the master bedroom.

We had to look inside four houses to finally find some clothes. In that house lived a teenage girl and she actually had good taste and was pretty much the same size I was now. I grabbed two sweatpants and a pair of jeans, two long-sleeve shirts and one very warm coat, plus a pair of gloves and a turquoise beanie, which I put on immediately.

After I finished looking for stuff in that room I went to the kitchen, Andrea wasn't there anymore, she also needed some clothes. I opened one of the drawers and found what I was looking for, knives. I grabbed all the big ones, I was going to keep two but give the rest to Michonne and Andrea, or just Andrea, Michonne only uses her sword.

I was going to sit on a couch when I heard some snarling. I looked out the window to check if the sound came from 'our' walkers or others and what I saw was horrifying. There were around two hundred walkers outside, walking down the street and those were only the one I could see from my position, there were probably more.

I ran up the stairs, trying not to make a single sound and rushed inside the master bedroom where I found Andrea putting stuff in her backpack while Michonne was sat on the bed, her bag already looked stuffed.

"Walkers," I muttered. "About two hundred."

"Hurry!" Michonne exclaimed, standing up. "We'll stay close to our walkers, we don't stand a chance against so many if we stay here."

Quickly but silently we ran down the stairs and out of the house. The closest walkers were about two houses away from us. Once outside we slowed our pace and walked to our bodyguards. I bit my lip as I step right next to one of them as Michonne untied them and we started walking.

As soon as the walkers caught up with us my blood went cold, as usual I thought this was my end. Andrea looked horrified and Michonne was nervous but we all kept our cool.

We spent about an hour in the middle of the hundreds of walkers, trying to find a way out, trying to go a different way but so far we hadn't found one. The smell was horrible and several times I was close to puking but luckily I managed to keep it in. I kept walking among them, feeling more at ease that we hadn't been caught so far when I looked a bit to my left and saw a young walker girl, she couldn't have been more than fourteen years old when she was turned.

I really wasn't sure of the colour of her eyes since now they were the greyish shade walkers have, but her hair was blonde, straight, and it barely reached her shoulders. And as I got to be closer to her, I could notice there were freckles on her face, I barely saw them though, because of all the dirt covering her.

My heart broke at the sight of her, quick images of my own sister looking like that invaded my mind, mostly because of their similarities. I felt such rage that all I wanted was to grab Michonne's katana and kill them all, including the blonde girl that reminded me so much of Sophia. I just wanted everything to be over already.

It seemed like Andrea noticed I was staring at the walker girl because I felt her hand softly grabbing mine. She gave it a squeeze and I slowly turned to look at her. She offered me a small smile but it was gone as fast as it appeared.

For me it felt eternal until we managed to turn a corner with only a small group of walkers, which we killed once we were far from the big herd, I used the knife I got from the house earlier today and remembered to give the others to Michonne and Andrea.

Among the group of walkers we killed was the blonde girl. I was about to kill her but I hesitated for just a second so Michonne stepped in between and killed the walker in less than a blink. Michonne just turned to look at me with something close to disappointment but she still didn't know that I lost my sister not long ago, she didn't even know that I had one, and that she looked an awful lot to this walker.

"Come on," Andrea muttered, putting an arm around my shoulders in a comforting way. If anyone could understand what I was going through was Andrea, she lost her younger sister as well. "We need to find a place to stay and quickly."

"Alright," I muttered as we both nodded at Andrea. "I say we should go in that direction," I said, pointing to the way we just came from. "The herd is going that way, so we shouldn't go there."

"But let's go more to the right," Michonne added. "Let's get out of here and find another neighbourhood or something, there could be more walkers coming that way."
The next day we were on the go as well, we managed to find a small house to stay the night but unfortunately there were too many walkers roaming the streets and we decided to leave the place first thing in the morning, after we ate something to give us energy for the long day ahead of us.

We came across a medium grocery shop and it looked like we could find some food in there. Michonne broke the padlock with her sword and we opened the shutter, Michonne and I killed the two walkers that were inside, waiting for their food; by the clothes they were wearing we could tell they worked in this shop back in the day, their names were Jason and Amy. Andrea read the name tag and tears filled her eyes but just as Michonne two nights ago, she refused to talk about it.

"Let's move on," Andrea said. "There could be more of those things in here."

Michonne didn't push the subject and I already knew about it, so I just closed the shutter again and we made our way inside. For being the end of the world, the place looked really neat, there were only a few things on the floor.

"Grab a cart," Michonne said. "We should grab everything we can take with us."
Despite Andrea's protests about separating, we went our own ways. I first went looking for bags, our backpacks were already full with some food and mostly clothes. So I walked around, trying to find something useful and big. I found a nice red big bag that I could carry around besides my backpack, I also grabbed another one like that, except this one was green, I grabbed a third one but this one was slightly different, it was bigger and had more pockets in it.

After putting them in my cart I walked around looking for water, we desperately needed it more than food. I grabbed some bottles and containers and put them in the cart too, unfortunately we couldn't carry more or I would have grabbed some more, then I found the 'beauty' isle, it was full of useless things now, like lipstick and nail polish but I still searched for things in there.

I really needed some hair ties, the last one I had broke about a week ago and my hair had been down all this time, which was annoying because it got in the way all the time and it also could be dangerous, a walker could grab it or something like that. I grabbed four packs of them and put them inside the red bag, I was going to give some to Andrea as well, I also got a few bandanas and hair clips.

I kept looking and found a nail clipper, I looked down at my long and dirty nails and decided it would be a good idea to have one, I also got one for Andrea and another for Michonne. From the next isle I grabbed two bottles of alcohol in case we cut ourselves with something, band aids and some pills, mostly for headaches. I also put those in the red bag.

I was about to look for some food when I heard things falling down to the floor, about four isles down, I hadn't heard any kind of moan but nevertheless I ran to the place, leaving the cart right there.

When I got to the place I found Michonne putting her katana on the floor, a man had Andrea in his hold and was pointing his gun at her head as he ordered Michonne to put her weapon on the floor. This man apparently also worked here, since he was wearing the same uniform as the walkers we killed minutes ago.

Unfortunately, the man spotted me before I could hide and also ordered me to put my weapon on the floor. I kept my gun hidden in the waistband of my jeans and thanks to the thick clothes I was wearing it wasn't noticeable, so I just put my knife on the floor.

"What gives you the right to come into this shop and steal my things?" the man yelled at us.

"I'm sorry, we didn't think there was someone in here," I said.

The man was probably in his early thirties, he had short blonde hair and dark brown eyes, he also had a beard and he had a lost and crazy look, it seemed like he had been locked in here since everything started, probably for three, four months. He looked pretty dirty and he was only wearing a thin shirt while we were wearing warm clothes, he didn't look like he was cold though.

"Just don't harm her, we will leave," I assured the man, trying to reason with him but his eyes just looked even crazier.

As the man ordered us to get down on our knees I couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't killed the two walkers that were in here if he had a gun, why was he so keen on killing us and not them? Were they his friends and wasn't able to kill them or what?

"Two of you can leave," the man said with a crazy chuckle. "The other will stay. I'll give you the chance to choose who stays."

"You two go!" Andrea exclaimed immediately. "Just go!"

"No!" Michonne told her. "We can't leave you!"

"I'll be alright," she told us. "I'll be alright."

"You have five seconds to stand up and leave, starting now," he told us. "One... two..."

"No!" Michonne yelled.

The man pointed his gun at us and shot, luckily we both jumped out of the way on time. Michonne hid behind a shelf and I was on the isle in front of her, hiding as well but the man still had Andrea and he could kill her at any time.

I grabbed my own gun, walked down the isle and tilted my head a bit when I reached the end so I could see the man, whose back was luckily facing me. He was walking to the right, with Andrea still in his hold but I had to act fast or he would find Michonne.

Silently I got a bit closer to the man and aimed at him, my hands were shaking but I couldn't allow myself to miss, I could kill Andrea in the process. I took a few steps forward and right when the man stopped pointing his gun at Andrea's head I shot without even thinking about it. I shot him on his right thigh, making him loose his grip on Andrea, allowing her to break free and the man fell to the ground. I aimed at his legs in case I missed and hit Andrea, what if instead of shooting him in the heart or head I ended up shooting her? I was a good shot but I was so nervous I could miss and I wasn't going to take that chance.

Andrea quickly kicked the man's gun away, ending only feet away from me. I picked it up quickly and ran to the man, who tried to stop the bleeding as he screamed out in pain, he was going to attract walkers for sure.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," I muttered coldly as I stood right next to him with my gun aimed right at his head.

"Please," he muttered, his jeans were getting all soaked with bright red blood, making me a bit nauseated.

"Cici, don't," Andrea told me as she looked right at my eyes, I vaguely heard her as I kept my gaze on the man.

"I'm waiting," I told the man. "Tell me or I'll shoot you right here."

"Cecilia!" Andrea yelled, making me take a quick glance at her. "Don't do this, you are not an assassin, give me the gun."

"No."

The man kept screaming on the floor and bleeding out, the blood had reached my shoes so I just stepped back, leaving a bloody shoe print on the white dirty floor.

"You don't really want to do this, what would your mum think? What would Carl think? And what about So...?"

"They are not here!" I yelled at her. "So it doesn't matter what they'll think! They are gon...!"

As I yelled at Andrea, Michonne grabbed her katana and cut the man's head off, leaving us both speechless. I stared in disbelief at the now headless body, making an even bigger puddle of blood on the floor.

I don't know how long I stayed there, motionless, just looking as blood poured out of the body until Andrea wrapped her arms around me and made me look away, as she buried my head in the crook of her neck.

In the last months I had witnessed walkers killing people, eating them, I had witnessed people becoming walkers but never a person killing another that wasn't bitten or scratched and especially in such a brutal way like Michonne did.

I knew I wanted to kill that bastard for threatening us to kill us, I pointed my gun at him and I had my finger on the trigger but shooting him would be more humane, and at the moment I really wasn't sure if I would had been capable of doing it, pulling the trigger and ending his life. I would have probably left him there, which in a way would be killing him too. He would have bled out to death or his screams would have attracted walkers and they would have eventually ended his life.

"I'm sorry," Michonne muttered. "But it was either him or all of us, there are walkers outside already. We would be trapped here if he kept screaming and attracting more towards this place. It had to be done, I had to."

As she spoke I finally realized there were in fact walkers banging on the shutter, their moans were distant but I could tell there were at least five outside and if we didn't hurry up, there would be more of them.

"Is there another way out?" Andrea asked as she finally let go of me, I hadn't noticed it but I was shaking.

"There must be one," Michonne told her.

"I'll go look then," Andrea said. "You two get all the stuff we gathered."

Andrea ran in the other direction while I headed to where I had left the cart. I put some bottles in each one of the bags I found so the weight would be distributed and then Michonne's brought her own cart, which was filled with cans and bags of food, we put them inside the bags quickly and then went to find the cart Andrea was using when she was ambushed. She had found some more food, a baseball bat and about ten flashlights and some extra batteries.

"There's a patio outside," Andrea informed us as she ran back to us. "But we must go over a fence."

"How tall is it?"

"About seven feet," Andrea replied to Michonne. "There are no sign of any walkers there, though."

"Alright, let's go!" Michonne exclaimed.

Once we had everything in the bags, Michonne pushed the cart to the exit and just once we were right in front of the fence we grabbed the bags and with all our strength we threw the three heavy bags to the other side of the fence, I only hoped none of the bottles of water were going to break or anything.

I was the first to climb, I tightly grabbed the metallic railings with both my hands and put my feet on other parts of it as I quickly climbed. I had never done it before and my hands hurt but luckily I managed to get to the top. I moved one of my legs to the other side and when I was around the middle of it, I jumped to the ground. I fell on my butt but luckily there was grass so it really didn't hurt, I quickly grabbed the red bag and checked if all the bottles and the stuff inside were alright, once I did, I put the strap over my shoulder and waited for Andrea and Michonne to get to this side.

Each one of them grabbed one bag as well, Andrea complaining about how much it weighed but she carried it anyway. There were cans of food and bottle of water in all of the bags, of course they were really heavy.

"I got you something, though," I said mostly to Andrea. "It will make it up for carrying these."

Andrea just chuckled at me before asking what I got but I refused to tell them until later. As we walked we had to make several stops because our shoulders did hurt with all this weight.

"You should have gotten something with wheels," Andrea muttered.

"I know."

Just before it got dark, we broke into a fine looking house. There was a walker inside, in the bathroom, but we killed it quickly. There were bars on the windows and there was still some food in here.

When we all sat on a couch to eat dinner, I got out the hair ties and nail clippers I found earlier. I gave one to each one of them and the hair ties to Andrea, Michonne claimed she didn't need them but she accepted me a bandana and a hair clip.

As soon as we finished eating, the three of us cut our nails and once we finished we took off our shoes and socks and continued with out toenails. It might seem insignificant but Michonne and Andrea were very thankful that I got those for them, we all were in need of them.

Hey guys!

Seriously, I don't really like this chapter, I feel like it was just a filler and it was kind of rushed. Originally, this one wasn't part of the story but I decided to add it about four days ago because most of the stories usually just skip the eight months until the group finds the prison and I wanted to do something different and add at least one chapter before that happens.

QOTD: If you were in the middle of a zombie apocalypses, what would you miss the most?

I would miss playing my sport and hot water :P