"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow.

Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

― Lao Tzu

"Want to go inside?" I asked Carl with a smile. "I still haven't carried your little sister, come on."

We turned around and were walking back inside when I heard a piercing, loud scream. I didn't think about it, I just step in front of Carl, shielding him with my body, as I tried to get us somewhere safe, but the closest I found to safety was a garbage container. I hid behind it and ordered Carl to stay down.

I heard several gunshots, they seemed endless. I tried to look around, to check that my friends and family were okay but I couldn't see anyone for a long time. I leant my back against the container and hugged Carl tightly, who was terrified.

Then everything went quiet, after what felt like an eternity the gunshots just stopped, it seemed almost bizarre. Several quiet seconds passed but I didn't dare to move, actually I couldn't.

But then I heard Maggie screaming her sister's name and then mine. She threw a rifle at me just before I heard gunshots again. Carl caught the rifle and handed it to me quickly and I finally got back to my senses. I switched positions, being on my knees now. I tried to see without exposing my head too much and saw some men, I started shooting, I wasn't sure if I had shot them or not, but I was trying. I moved a bit to the left and pointed at a man, unfortunately the Governor wasn't in my range, I pulled the trigger and about a second later the man fell down on the ground, just before I hid my body again.

Then once again everything went quiet except for the sound of a car driving to us. At first I freaked out, thinking Glenn was coming back, all I could do was hope he could notice what was happening before he was shot.

Fortunately, it wasn't him but unfortunately, it was them. A van was driving very fast towards us. I started to shoot at it but the van just kept coming, going right through the gates, ripping them out. The van stopped on the grassy area, only a few metres away from the actual prison. Then I saw the back gate of the van just fell to the ground, becoming some kind of ramp and the next thing I knew was that at least two dozen and a half of walkers came out of that van.

Two men, all dressed in black, jumped out of it and started shooting as they ran away, I risked myself a bit by crawling a bit further to the right so I could have a better angle to shoot at least one of them. I shut everything else out and just focused on one of the men as he tried to get away, I pulled the trigger, I didn't shoot him at first but I eventually did, the man fell to the ground and soon two walkers got to him. I couldn't see the other man. The rest of the Governor's men, who were on the other side of the fence, were just getting back inside their car, so I concentrated on the walkers instead.

'Wait, wasn't Hershel out there? And Rick?' I thought and as I did, I saw Hershel getting up and shooting one of the walkers.

All of us got out from our hiding places and ran to the grassy area to kill the walkers and save Hershel. I ran closer to the old man, I was determined to save him. I killed about five as I made my way to him, I also noticed Michonne was running to him, beheading several walkers in the process, she got to him at the same time as Glenn... wait, Glenn? When did he get back? Anyway, they took the old man inside the pick-up, at least they were safe now.

I slowed down, and saw Rick on the other side of the fence, struggling with at least two walkers. I ran to him, trying to help him but five or so walkers cornered me. I shot two that were in front of me, I pulled the trigger to shoot the rest but nothing happened, I pulled it again in desperation and nothing again. I cursed out loud as I gripped the weapon tightly and hit one walker in the head with it, it was too heavy and I was going to get tired soon, so I threw it to the ground and grabbed my knife, killing the other two but by now there were more walkers coming to me.

I won't deny it, I freaked out. I had no more bullets, no way to run and there were now at least ten of them. I gathered all my courage and ran to the closest to me, thrusting the knife forcefully in its skull, quickly I pulled it out and did the same to five more. I looked in front of me and saw five walkers only inches away from me, at the same distance from me. I knew it was my end, even if I managed to kill four without getting a single scratch the fifth will get to me, there was no way out now, and I couldn't run because I practically had the fence against my back.

I decided to go fighting, I wasn't going to die as a coward, I lunged at the first one on my left and killed it quickly I was about to go for the second when it just fell to the ground, I just stared in shock at the walker now on the floor with my hand raised, ready to hit him, soon that one was followed by the four others, who were only at arms-length away from me, one second more and they would had been able to put their rotting hands and maybe mouths on me.

I was in utter shock, I took several deep breaths to recover and looked in the direction where I thought the bullets had come from and I was bewildered to see Merle, lifting his left arm to his forehead and doing a salute to me. I did the same in a thank-you matter before he turned to kill more walkers that were around him and Rick and Daryl, woah, what... Daryl? I was so scared my brain didn't really concluded that with Merle here, it meant Daryl was back as well.

But I didn't have time to give it much thought, there were still walkers around and with the gates out of the picture, more were going to get in. Luckily we still had one more gate and everyone else, except the four of us were safe.

There were too many for me to kill, I only had two options. Run to the prison, where everyone else was safely behind the gate, or run out of the grounds of the prison where Rick, Merle and Daryl where. They had gotten rid of all the walkers around them and they were closest, so after thinking about it for just one second, I ran outside, as fast as I could, luckily most of the walkers were paying attention to the group behind the fence, not to me, and the ones that were, well I just either evaded them or killed them quickly.

I kept running to the three men and I bumped into one of them, making the two of us collapse to the floor. I was running so fast I couldn't stop, just slowed down a bit. I was breathing heavily due to the running and I was still scared to death. I almost died and in a horrible way. I looked at the man next to me, to see Rick, breathing as heavy as me.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, I nodded.

"You?"

"Fine."

Then Merle helped me up as Daryl helped Rick up. I never thought I would ever do this but I actually hugged Merle.

"Thank you," I muttered quickly before I pulled away.

"It was nothing," he said awkwardly.

I looked down to the ground, feeling really awkward as well. I don't normally hug people, I usually try to stay away from them but he saved my life, I was still feeling really agitated and I didn't think much about it, it was just an impulse.

"What? No hug for me?" I heard Daryl saying, I turned to look at him and glared at him.

"No," I coldly said. I could see his shocked reaction but said nothing to me.

I turned around, and just as Rick, I looked what was ahead of us, our home was destroyed and invaded. Walkers were roaming around while our people were cornered inside the prison. Soon, Merle and Daryl, stood next to us and looked at it too, Merle probably didn't feel anything about it, I probably didn't feel as bad as Rick and Daryl because I had just gotten here a few days ago but it still crushed my heart.

"We have to go back inside with the others, check if anyone is wounded," Rick said. "Let's just run back."

"Give me a second to rest," I exclaimed quickly.

I rested my back against the fence, I was still out of breath from my sprint all the way here. Daryl was standing next to me, looking sadly at the damage the Governor made, Merle was next to him, still looking uncomfortable and Rick was astonished, standing on my other side.

"Alright let's go," Rick said after about five minutes. "We can't risk being out here any longer, all those gunshots are going to attract even more walkers. Let's go!"

I pushed myself off the fence, Rick got on the lead, Daryl following him close behind, I was behind him and Merle was on the very back, we were just walking now, we were going to run, once we had crossed the space where the first gate should be.

"We don't have the luxury of being mad at someone anymore."

I closed my eyes tightly as I heard Carl's voice in my head, over and over again. He said that to me the day after we came back from Woodbury, that's why he forgave me so quickly.

I felt like my heart was being gripped tightly and squashed inside of me, because it was true. I shouldn't even be upset at Daryl for leaving. He chose his brother, it's completely reasonable, I couldn't help but think I was being silly but I just felt such a big rage when I saw him and I didn't even know why, I should be happy not upset.

Without being able to resist the urge, I quickly wrapped my arms around Daryl, hugging him from behind, making the two of us stop in our tracks and Merle bumped into me, he muttered something but I couldn't catch what, and still I didn't let go of Daryl.

"I'm sorry," I muttered against his backpack, which was in the way but it wasn't like I could do something about it now.

"About what?" he asked confused.

Rick kept walking, not noticing the three of us had stopped following him. Merle was a few feet away from us, fidgeting, probably wondering if he should leave us alone and go with Rick or keep his distance from Rick and stay with us.

"I was being ridiculous, truth is that I'm enormously happy you're back," I said and seconds later I let go of him, giving him the chance to turn around to face me.

"I should have never left, I'm the one that should be sorry," he said to me looking straight into my blue eyes.

"But you are back now, that's all that matters," I said with a smile.

I was about only one or two inches shorter than him so I slightly leant forward and kissed his left cheek, I smiled at him before walking past him. Leaving him completely dumbstruck, Merle had to snap his fingers and tapped him on the shoulder to get him out of that kind of trace he was in.

"What happened to him?" Rick asked, as he walked to meet me, finally noticing none of us was behind him.

"I don't know," I said too innocently.

"I'll go get him, we need to get inside quickly."

After Rick went for the two brothers, we ran back to the prison. I was right behind Rick, and Daryl was behind me. When we were halfway to the gate, I move quickly out of the reach of a walker, I stumbled, lost my balance and fell to the ground, before I could even try to stand up, Daryl grabbed my hand and pulled me up in less than a second.

"Come on!" he said just as that same walker was trying to get us.

I didn't even think it twice, I started to run away, this time we were in the very back while Merle was running behind Rick, who was killing one walker.

When we got to the safe area, my mother opened and closed the gate quickly to let us run in but stop the walkers from getting inside right after us.

I put my hand on my hip as I panted for air. I bent and I was going to rest my hands over my knees when I realized Daryl was still holding my hand. The two of us looked down at our intertwined hands and after about five seconds of just looking at our hands, not sure what to do now, we let go of the other and looked away, feeling completely awkward about it.

But I couldn't worry about it, I could barely breath. I was a good distance runner, I could run for a while at a steady pace but run as fast as I did, minutes ago, especially after fighting against several walkers takes its toll on you.

As the group gathered around Daryl and said things like 'good to see you're back', or 'welcome back', or things like that, I looked at them. I counted them mentally, six of us weren't here.

"Where is Carl?" Rick and I asked at the same time.

"Don't worry, he's inside," my mother said mostly to Rick. "Judith is well too, Beth went inside to check on her, all that noise scared her."

I was so startled that it took me a while to finally realize who was also missing besides Beth and Carl. Sean, Axel, Teresa and Hershel weren't here.

I didn't even think about it twice, I walked towards Oliver, grabbed his arm and spun him around, looking straight into his dark blue eyes.

"Where is Teresa?" He looked down to the ground and I felt my heart shattering.

"She was shot," he told me. "Sean carried her inside, Hershel is in there, seeing how bad the damage is and what he can do to help her."

As soon as he said that all my exhaustion was gone and adrenaline flew through my veins, without thinking I ran inside the prison, ignoring my aching muscles and accelerated heartbeat.

I ran all around the prison until I found them, which wasn't hard, I just followed a blood path. Teresa had been laid on a table, Sean was next to her, helping Hershel with whatever he asked, Axel was also there, sitting close to them, he was hugging himself, with tears in his eyes.

I rushed to Teresa's side and I almost faint at the amount of blood I saw. Her clothes were completely drenched in bright scarlet blood, which kept flowing out of her. Both Sean and Hershel were stained with her blood.

I felt like the ground below me was spinning, everything started to get blurry and the voices seemed very distant and unclear. I felt light-headed, I wanted to sit down but I couldn't move, my body wasn't responding.

Just as I felt like my legs were going to give in, I felt someone grabbing me by my biceps and pulling me away from there, they let go of my arm and instead put their arm around my shoulders in a protective way as I shook my head in disbelief.

I looked up to see Glenn with tears in his dark brown eyes, he quickly looked away from me and led me away. We sat on the metal stairs, I rested my elbows against my knees and ran my hands through the top of my head, messing even more my already messy blonde hair.

Quick flashbacks were passing through my mind until I heard that scream, the scream that let me know something was wrong and it was not until now that I recognized her voice, that scream belonged to Teresa. At the moment I wasn't even sure if a woman had screamed but now as I replayed it in my head, everything fit. It could only have been her.

"I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you before I left," Glenn suddenly said, stopping my flashbacks. "I came back earlier to come for you and go together like we used to do because now that you are here things will get back to the way they used to be, us going on runs, now with Maggie occasionally, but that's the only change, I promise."
"I understand, Glenn," I muttered. "I know you didn't really mean it. You are angry, you want revenge, you were obfuscated. I get it."

"So, are we good?" he asked, sticking his hand out to me.

"Of course," I said with a tiny smile, shaking his hand. "Only if we go on the next run together, though."

"We will."

Hershel had done what he could to Teresa, who was barely alive now. They had an artificial manual breather, which my mother had in her hands, pumping air into Teresa's lungs.

Hershel also helped Axel, who was shot on his thigh, he cleaned the wound and stitched him up. Now that he was no longer bleeding the wound was not life threatening, he only had to make sure to keep it clean so it wouldn't get infected.

After he was done Hershel came up to me, I wasn't sure why he was here, maybe he was here to tell me that Teresa didn't make it but fortunately that wasn't the case.

"We never fix that," Hershel said to me, pointing to my right arm, to my wound that now was even worse than before, more stitches were missing and I hadn't noticed but my shirt was stained with blood around the wound.

Glenn helped me to get myself on my feet and walked with me back to where both, Teresa and Axel were, along with my mother.

I was so out in my own little world that I didn't feel anything as Hershel stitched me again, Glenn was in front of me, grabbing my left hand in a way to show his support. Almost by the time Hershel was done, Michonne sat next to me without saying a single word, I was used to that.

"Thanks Hershel," I said to the old man, who finally could rest after the chaos of only a couple of hours ago. "How's everyone?"

"In shock and scared," Hershel told me. "But everyone else is well."

"That's good," I said nodding. "I'll go rest now, if you need me just call me."

I stood up slowly and shakily went up the stairs and went to the cell I had chosen only this morning, I couldn't keep sleeping with Beth, especially in a bed so small as these and I wanted to be on the top floor, better up here than down there and most of these cells were empty, so that meant a bit more privacy.

For most of the time, I was left alone, I only had two visitors. Michonne came to make sure I was really okay and to tell me, the group had locked Merle in a cell and Daryl was trying to get Rick to open the gate. Minutes later my mum came and sat next to me on the bed, she said nothing, she just hugged me tightly. She knew how close Teresa and I were before the apocalypses and even when we had drifted away, I still loved her a lot and what happened to her was killing me inside.

"Don't lose hope, baby," she muttered in my ear before kissing my forehead. She let go of me and stood up, going to the door, leaving me feeling cold, empty and alone.

"Mum?"

"Yeah, darling?"

"Can you stay with me for a while?" I asked with tears threatening to roll out of my eyes, her own eyes, identical to mine, also looked glassy, sad, and tired.

"Of course, make me some space."

I scooted to the edge of the bed, my mum lied next to me, my back was facing her while my face was facing the wall, she settled herself in the same position as me and put her arm around me, I grabbed her hand and gripped it tightly. It had been so long since we had done this, maybe ten or twelve years ago and it felt nice to share this again, even in this kind of circumstances.

"I love you, don't forget that," she said to me as she once again kissed me, but this time on my temple.

"And I love you too," I whispered.

I closed my eyes, feeling safe in my mother's warm arms, something I never experienced before. She held me in her arms many times in the past but that never guaranteed safety, not even once. My father would just prize me off of her arms or hit us both, but this time was different. I relaxed under her touch and let myself doze off.

"What do you think of this one?" Teresa asked me with a bright smile.

"It's amazing."

The apartment wasn't big of course, it had two tiny rooms, a small kitchen and a living room where we could only fit a small couch but the whole place was surrounded by a balcony, which helped a lot with my claustrophobia and it had a great view, we were on the thirteenth floor, which was also bad, I didn't like lifts, if I could prevent it, I wouldn't go inside one, even if that meant going up the stairs thirteen floors every day.

"I'll call Oliver and let him know, the price is acceptable and it's close to pretty much everything."

Teresa and I were just starting over, looking for jobs, looking for a place to live, buying furniture, we were quite excited about it and Oliver had been helping us with lots of things, including a discount on the rent and he had called a friend of his to let us stay with her while we found something.

"I told you everything was going to work out and about the rest, you'll see we'll figure out something, just have some faith," she told me with a big smile on her face.

"We still haven't gotten the apartment so I wouldn't get my hopes up so much," I told her as I looked at the amazing view from what could be my room. Lately I had been extremely negative about life that even Teresa was getting sick of my attitude.

"Oh shut up, Cici!" she exclaimed angrily at me. "We got out of there, we haven't slept on the streets a single day and we have food and clothes and there are people that care about us."

"I'm just saying that I have had many disappointments in my life to be so naïve to expect the best only to have my hopes shattered down to the ground, I'm just being realistic."

Teresa knew that if she said something else to me, it would become a heated argument because that's what normally had been happening between us, argument after argument after argument and I was too proud to just let her win but she wasn't and normally knew when to stop.

"Come on," she muttered to me.

The girl that was letting us stay at her place, Nicole, had invited us to some cafeteria close to her house. We didn't have jobs and no money so we promised we would pay her back every cent but she was wealthy, both ways, economically and generously, so sometimes, like that day, she invited us to a coffee and a dessert.

"Oliver's on his way here," Nicole told us as she took a sip from her Cappuccino.

"I can't wait to tell him we might have found our future home, right Cici?"

"Right," I muttered under my breath, making Teresa sigh.

I hated to feel that way, so miserable and negative but I had left my family looking for a better chance, to change my life only to have more failures and bad things happening to me, and out of all those awful things meeting Teresa was the only good thing that had come out of it.

"She's on her period," Teresa whispered to Nicole, who nodded in understanding. They both thought I didn't hear but I just chose to ignore them.

Minutes later Oliver came and as soon as he saw us, he kissed Teresa full on the lips. He patted my back and hugged Nicole tightly just before he sat next to the blonde girl even when he wanted to sit next to Teresa but I wouldn't move.

After I finished my coffee I felt a lot better, I even smiled and laughed a bit and joined the conversation. Coffee was magical.

"I propose you something," Oliver said to Teresa and I. "I'll move in with you and will pay my part of the rent, I need a new place anyway."

"Sounds perfect to me!" Teresa said excitedly.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's cool with me."

"Great! I'll call my friend and tell him we'll get it!" Oliver almost squealed. "I can sleep in the living room if you want, you won't even know I'm there. I work most of the time."

"Oh no, you can sleep with me," Teresa told him, putting a hand over his that was on the table. Oliver smiled. "We'll manage."

Three days later Teresa and I moved in, Oliver stayed three more weeks in his apartment because he had already paid for the whole month but he was already moving some stuff in our place, which was helpful because we didn't even have silvery or dishes or pans.

That weekend, Teresa, Nicole, Oliver, some other people and I went out to celebrate like never before. I even hooked up with a guy that worked as a model, he was very attractive and had an amazing body. Teresa cheered as she noticed I was finally having fun and I truly laughed in about a month.

We headed to our new apartment, to our new 'home' around 07:00 having not a care in the world and for the first time in so long I felt like things were going to improve. A flash of hope was starting to grow inside of me and that was all I needed to keep trying.

I opened my eyes to see it was already night and my mother was still next to me, sleeping peacefully, I turned around to face her instead of the wall and put my arm around her as well as my eyes watered, remembering I dreamt with that happy time about two years ago, when Teresa was well, optimistic and cheerful.

I moved closer to her and closed my eyes again, praying Teresa to be well again, to recover from this, so she could be my voice of wisdom and give me hope as she always did since the day I met her.

"Please, Teresa, you have to get better, I need you," I whispered, looking up at the ceiling just before closing my eyes again and falling asleep but this time my dreams weren't good ones.

Hey guys!
So, as some of you may know I created the TWD characters in The Sims 2, Lori and Shane already died. Everything is going like in the show except that Carol actually kissed Rick after Lori died, I realized it way too late and couldn't stop it. And I also created Cecilia and I wanted to wait to get them together but when I was with other characters Daryl kissed Cecilia and they are together now. Oh well.

I made a TWD multicouple crossover video, and it would mean a lot if you guys can watch it, here's the link:

watch?v=DFu0-dYJAAg

And Daryl and Cecilia finally reunited, yay! :) Do you think Teresa will make it or not? Do you want her to live or die?