Curative
By Kaimaler
So, we're finding out a little more about our main character. Like the fact that she has voices in her head.
Fuck.
That's not a good thing, right? :D
Now, she remains partly undead, but we'll see how undead she really is. :3
Hopefully I can get her to meet up with the Atlanta Group in this chapter and change "undead" to "Walker", being that I prefer to call them Walkers, but the chances that everyone would name a Walker the same thing, undead, zombie, walker, shuffler, lame brain, etc. etc. is low.
So, without further ado, please read and enjoy. :D
Also, I'm trying to portray a normal person who has to face the ZA alone, after many events, most of them bad, she turns from the scared little girl who hid from her father into a stronger, braver person. Now, granted, she will still be that little girl inside, but she will face trials to keep her morality in check. :3
Oh yeah, and this is very possibly going to be a Daryl/OC story, just 'cause. :3
It took a little while before she reached the area were the gunshots were fired, this was confirmed not by seeing the person who fired, but by the undead who laid on the gravel road with a bullet hole in its' head and blood still seeping through it as its' body twitched lifelessly.
Fresh kill, she thought, a human was nearby.
On cue, she heard them.
"Come on Glenn, we gotta' go! Now!" It was a feminine voice calling out to her ally, but she wasn't very interested in them, the Voice was. It wanted to see them, it wanted to hear them, to taste them.
She shook her head roughly, the fuck was she thinking? They were human! Perhaps she was losing her head, after so much she wouldn't be surprised. Her body ached and ached, it wouldn't stop and her hunger was increasing. This was not a good thing.
Now, she reverted back to her normal self. She was utterly shocked at her thoughts of eating a human, she hadn't thought about eating people since she was first cured.
And she was hearing a voice too?
She was going crazy, the depression of the world around her, her father's tests, the men who raped her, it was all pressuring her delicate psyche. Her mind was snapping, she'd lose herself completely if she continued on doing this.
She had to find a way to resist these dark thoughts, cannibalism is not something she had ever thought she would do. Her stomach said otherwise, the Voice in her head told her it didn't matter, and her conscious was begging her to keep control over these angry and violent thoughts.
Looking behind her, she noticed the horde heading towards where the sounds came from, the horde she had disappeared into only a few hours ago when those rapists chased her.
"Almost there!" A male voice, it was strained, like the person was lifting something heavy.
She didn't want to fall into another captive situation with some violent and murderous humans again, she wanted to leave them behind and find something to eat.
Why the hell haven't I eaten yet? She rolled her eyes, she was beginning to grow curious about the humans in the alley just ahead of her, but she, as she promised herself before, she would not be a victim again. The Voice told her that she would never be, that so long as she listened to it, it would guide her to where she needed to go to stay safe.
It was talking to her now, repeating nothing but food, food, food, food, food. It was disturbing at first, but then she ignored it.
She peeked around the corner of the alley, watching a human man climb a fire escape up to a blonde haired woman who grabbed his hand and helped him up. Once on the fire escape, they both laughed, exhausted from the days' events. They brushed themselves off and turned to climb the stairs higher on the fire escape before they crawled in through an open window.
She lost sight of them, which was a good thing for her. She didn't want to be caught again. Correction, she wouldn't be captured again.
Weak, hungry, but she wielded a gun. Sure, she'd never fired one before, but she knew that even a misfire would hurt anyone who threatened her. She would've practiced with it, but she didn't have much ammo and wasn't about to waste it all on practice.
Satisfied the humans were gone, she felt it safe enough to continue on her path.
The Voice wanted her to follow them, ambush them, then eat. All she could do is shudder at the thought of eating humans, it was such a revolting thought that she had a hard time believing it came from her head. In reply to this horrific thought, she whacked her head hard, winced, and realized that her father was right the entire time.
She wasn't very bright, was she?
With a lame groan of hunger, she walked down the road, ignoring the undead who sniffed her and then continued on their way like she wasn't even there.
What a good form of insurance, undead wouldn't attack her, she'd be safe so long as she dodged into a horde and hid there. Granted, they could probably still shoot her if they wanted to, but that would attract a horde and, well, humans and undead are not docile to each other.
She was walking passed the building the two humans had climbed into when she looked through the window and saw the woman and the man talking to each other in whispers.
Ducking behind a wall, she turned around and headed into the alley they had been in.
There were no windows back there so she could walk on without being interrupted.
That is, until the undead horde began converging on the humans position, it was like watching stealth warfare. The undead remained quiet, as if they knew making a sound would alert their human meals. They bumped into one another before she watched the first one pass the alley mouth.
She may be terrified of humans now, their violence making her want to keep a gun in between them and her, preferably the gun be in her hand, but she couldn't let them die.
The Voice told her to get to them before those other hungry creatures did and while she wanted to do just that, she didn't agree with the idea of eating them afterwards.
Her conscious came back in a hurry, telling her that she could save them and even if they weren't good people, she wouldn't regret anything. Better to try then not at all.
Who knows if these humans had families waiting for them? What if they were scavenging for them? Could she really let the horde of undead eat them alive when there was a chance that they had loved ones waiting for them, and even if they didn't, that they were living and worthy to continue on living. The question ate at her, ground into her head.
She couldn't not help them. They'd be eaten alive, humans eaten alive. And she had the power to stop it.
Not stopping it would be just as bad as her eating them herself.
Her shoulders slumped and she heard the horde stepping on broken glass, they were almost there. No sounds from the humans yet, they hadn't been eaten nor had they noticed the undead slowly approaching them.
She ran back down the alley as fast as she could, melding with the horde before coming back up to the front of the building. The first undead of the horde had already made it inside and they hadn't the faintest.
The Voice returned, it was growling desirably at them.
"Feed, they're so close." It made her flinch, she was so hungry... "Sink your teeth into them, rend their flesh. Sate your hunger and end your pain."
It wasn't angry like when those people hurt her or when her father locked her up. It was different, it was longing. Looking at the humans just made the Voice louder and louder, when she approached them, it was just below screaming at her. Hunger, pain, food, bite, it spoke quickly, its' words running together to where they were almost unintelligible.
She hurried though, ignored the loud Voice and they caught sight of her.
Again, her appearance was undead-like so they prepared themselves.
"H-h-hold on!" She raised her hands in defense, they were shocked to say the least. Their eyes wide and frightful as they stared at her and the horde gathering behind her. "R-run! Now!" She cried as loud as she could, they seemed to understand and turned to run.
The guy however, stopped and turned around. He offered a hand. "Come on!"
She shook her head, she wasn't going with them. Humans were cruel, not worthy of her trust or her life. "G-go."
His brows raised as the undead neared her back, he stepped forward before seeing the undead step around her. If it was possible for his eyes to get bigger, then they did. He was speechless as the undead passed her by without so much as the smallest consideration of her.
Gesturing him away, he did so this time and followed the blonde haired woman out the back of the store.
She walked with the undead, stepping in front of them and holding her arms straight out to the sides and tried to slow down the undead. It worked well enough, but they were still moving forward. Slower then they would've been shuffling to chase down the two humans, but it would give them enough time to leave the area. To survive.
Once she reached the back door, she closed the door and shoved a bunch of trash cans in front of it. It would slow them down, but not much and not for long.
She caught sight of the humans who seemed hesitant to leave her with the herd of undead.
The man approached her again, there were no undead in the alley so he felt fine backtracking without losing much time. "Come with us." He held out his hand again, she only recoiled and shook her head.
"N-no." She wasn't going to change her mind. Humans were not her friends. She couldn't go with them. "Go a-a-away. G-get out of h-here." Her hand hovered over the gun in her pants.
He seemed to notice this and backed away slowly. People at the end of the world were strange, some of them witnessing terrible things. He figured she was one of these people who couldn't bring themselves to trust anyone anymore.
Understandable, looters, plunderers, all around bad people roamed the apocalyptic world. He just didn't want to leave her here with a horde behind her, and while he did notice the undead paid her no heed, logic told him that once they reached her, they would eat her.
A painful death that he didn't want anyone to face.
"I can't just leave you here, the city's dangerous to be in." He sighed, "Just come with us, we have food, shelter, and people who watch out for each other. They're good people."
"Glenn!" The blonde behind him called out quietly, "If she doesn't want to come, then we can't make her."
"I know, I just... don't want to run away and abandon her here!" He argued, glancing to the woman and shaking his head tiredly. "Look, she helped us out. I don't know how she managed it, but I don't care about that." He turned to her, "I only want to help you."
The Voice told her that they were lying, that they'd hurt her like the last few humans she was with had done so. She couldn't possibly accept the offer, it was too risky.
She shifted uncomfortably, the sounds of the undead banging on the door startled them all.
"We have to go, now Glenn!" The woman grabbed his arm and tried to pull him with her. He stepped back but didn't look away from her. He knew she looked like one of the undead, maybe why they didn't attack her earlier, but all he could think of is her being left alone out here, having to deal with hordes of the undead and whatever else came her way.
He would do everything he could to convince her.
"Come on, it's not a long walk back to camp. The people there are nice, they protect each other, we can help you, protect you too." He pleaded, it was extremely rare for him to find other living people in the city, the few he did come across were either unfriendly, very unfriendly, or in a small group.
However, this far into the apocalypse it was highly unlikely for him to see a living person, much less one that was friendly.
"Please, just come with us for a little while, meet the group, if you don't like it then you can leave whenever you want. We won't stop you. Just give us a chance." The woman understood his attempts to get her to follow them, to help her, but the blonde could see she wasn't going to change her mind any time soon.
With a slight shake of her head, she urged them to leave again. "C-can't, have ta' s-s-stay." She cautiously pushed him with his friend, "Y-you need t-t-to go now."
Her throat was tight, constricted and pained now. She couldn't utter another word no matter how hard she tried, the difficulty of speaking was lessening a little bit, but her voice was still sensitive.
Accepting her rejection he turned and left with the blonde, the two of them making their way out of the alley and back to their camp, wherever it may be. She wondered briefly if he was telling the truth, if their group was made of good people unlike the many people she had faced in the last few weeks.
Her father, those men, what was next? The undead were her only allies, their great numbers protected her. She liked it, she felt safe with them.
The Voice told her that they would always work together to reach their food, that together they made a formidable force unlike a few wandering around alone, they posed no threat to a human with enough intelligence to defend themselves.
The safety of their numbers made her feel better, when she traveled with them she relaxed and felt no need to fear what was around the next bend. Any human who sees such a large number of undead wandering the streets would run away, no matter how many weapons they had or how good they were at killing the undead.
When she felt they were far enough from the undead, she left the alley and wandered the city. She was so hungry.
She dreamt of food, broccoli, apples, chocolate cake, the delicious things that she used to spoil herself with when the world was normal. Now, those foods seemed almost ethereal, like they were the luxuries of a fantasy world. Pure fiction, but lovely to think about.
She smiled, this city was hers now. She could survive it, after everything she'd been through to be here, in Atlanta. The undead didn't concern her, but the humans would be forced to out run them, to do whatever they deemed necessary to survive.
That was fine and all, but with a gun at her side and the undead hordes as her allies, a wave of relief washed over her. She had helped someone today, her history as part of the undead came in great handy.
She couldn't imagine what would've happened without her previous... life.
In fact, she realized that her ability would be of great use to the humans surviving in this world. She could help the good people of the world, those left over by the infection.
Like Glenn and that blonde woman, they weren't bad people, just survivors trying to make a living.
With a bright grin, she gently buried herself within an immobile horde, they were just standing around doing nothing. She took a seat on the side walk and stared at the sky.
She could help people, good people, she loved life and when she awoke from being... undead, she came to see true life, to respect it and care for it. Life was amazing, she didn't want anyone to die.
That wasn't the kind of person she was, the Voice was dark and arguably evil, but she wasn't inherently so.
She'd help where she could, everyone deserved a chance at life.
Laying on her back, she stared at the passing clouds. She was happy again, blissfully happy. She wondered momentarily that if she were to find a guitar that she'd be able to play it around the undead without them becoming too interested in her.
Then she realized the chance of finding a functioning guitar was extremely low, but it wouldn't stop her from trying.