Walking Dead: Building Your Own Hope

Chapter 1 of Season 4 in my Walking Dead series, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Walking Dead or its characters.

Season 4: Episode 1

Tensions were running high in town following the shocking events that had occurred. Things all started during the previous school year, where a large group of friends began to change in nature and certain strange and worrying events began to overcome them. This all began with one of the group being kidnapped by a strange creep who kidnapped the girl, Beth Greene, to photograph her while bound, gagged and hazy from being drugged. This led to other people in town, most from said group of friends, meeting the same fate as the creep escalated his actions. It unfortunately led to the death of a girl named Lizzie Samuels before the creep was exposed as Philip Blake, a teacher at the school. The events only ended after his confirmed death and the friends were able to recover and pull themselves together. By this point one member of the group, Ron Anderson, had been ousted from the group and his relationship with another, Enid McKenzie, had ended. All due to his mistreatment of Enid. Now Enid was dating new member of the group, Alden. Other members of the group started dating too, Beth dating Brian Goring. Andrew Pierce and Marissa Garland, Jamie McIntyre, perhaps the most surprising, dating Carl Grimes, son of police deputy Rick Grimes. Sophia Peletier began dating Mikey Carr and so the last two members of the group, Laurel Williams and Eliza Morales, weren't dating, but actually had a crush on each other.

The incident with Blake did not prove to be the end of their trials however. For even now, as they came to enjoy summer vacation, the group instead found themselves getting caught up in a terrifying incident where The Saviours. A group of notorious criminals who were notably so dangerous and scary even the most hardest of Mexican Cartels were scared of them. They were after the Morales family due to past connections. The upshot of this horror was that Eliza was the last survivor of her family and was being comforted by those close to her and protected by the police. Aided by the FBI, specifically Agent Michonne Hawthorne, Rick had led the charge against the Saviours and, thanks to a mole within the group, Dwight, brought down the bulk of the Saviours. But Negan, the Saviours notorious leader and a handful of his most loyal followers had escaped. They had acted swiftly to claim vengeance for Rick's actions. As such there was heightened tensions as they tried to find three members of the friend group, Jamie, Andrew and Beth, all of whom had been kidnapped by these remnants. With an uncertain and worrying fate in store for them if they were not found and rescued before it was too late.

Late at night, in the police station, Rick Grimes ran a hand over his face, feeling his unshaven state but didn't care. He was too busy focusing on the case notes before him as he sat at his desk.

'There has to be something, anything that could save them.' He thought worriedly. 'Where could Negan have taken them, there must be some clue.'

He was especially frantic about Jamie, his son's boyfriend. It certainly was affecting Carl who had barely slept since Jamie's disappearance.

'Carl...I'm sorry, you need to rest but it's obviously it's not going to happen while Jamie is being held by this madman.' He reflected sadly.

"Rick."

He looked up to see Michonne standing there, looking serious, and worried.

"Michonne, have you-?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, there's nothing. It seems your son and his friends are getting restless and worried."

"I'm not surprised." Rick said sadly. "I don't blame them, especially not Carl, Brian and Marissa, their loved ones are the ones held captive...If we don't make progress soon, I shudder to think what will happen."

Michonne sighed heavily. "I know what you...I've been dealing with the Saviours for a while. But they've never had their backs up against the wall like this before. That makes them unpredictable."

Rick grimaced, but he knew it was true. They still had no idea where the captured trio were being held by Negan and his loyalists. Time was ticking and they still had no idea where to begin and were afraid what was happening to them.

They weren't the only ones freaking out about the disappearances, the kidnappings, as Dwight was also worried. He was doing his utmost to help them, there was no point in staying low profile anymore, simply for the fact that, with the bulk of the Saviours gone, the survivors would already know he was the traitor. But that didn't mean his connections to the group weren't still useful, but so far, they weren't bearing fruit.

'I can't believe this, there's still so many hidden bases they'll have.' He reflected. 'We only know that they're still in town, for Negan won't leave without getting his revenge, no matter what...so until then they are in town, that is until they do something truly terrible to those three...God, who knows when he'll do that, maybe sooner than later.'

It chilled him to the core, that he feared they'd be too late and it would take too long to track down Jamie, Andrew and Beth, before Negan decided to dispose of them.

End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.