Author's Note:

Hello everybody, thank you for clicking on this fanfiction. This is my first story, and I'd like to address a few things before you read it.

Firstly, I will welcome any constructive criticism. Fanfiction is all about becoming a better writer.

Secondly, I wrote this story with the intention of being realistic, and there will be no fluff or romance. As people have told me that my story is very realistic, I suppose that I have done well, but tell me immediately if your Mary-Sue sensors start going off.

Third, basic sex/violence/language warning. It is, after all, the Walking Dead.

Fourth, a medical disclaimer. I have a bit of medical knowledge, but if some things are inaccurate, I'm sorry. I sincerely hope nobody is reading fanfiction for accurate medical information.

Fifth, this is more of a prologue than a chapter, and it's written in a somewhat detached manner. It's also past tense, which will change when the story sets in as I write in present tense.

Lastly, this story is currently completed and I have, as of May 30th, 2014, completed a first official error check and cleanup. Still, if you find any issues (related to grammar, spelling, formatting, or just something that seems off) anywhere in the story, please PM me.

Also, from this point on, I will only use Author's Notes when they're needed.

So, let's set off on this grand adventure together.

End Author's Note.

That first day—the day that everything went to hell—started off so normal.

The first day was a Friday. Mom and I were going to my cousins' house to watch the kids while my aunt and uncle were on their fifteenth anniversary trip. I didn't mind because I love my cousins so much, but Mom was really grouchy because it was almost inevitable that there would be another cousin in nine to ten months. And it's not that my aunt and uncle were bad parents, it's just that I had a lot of cousins.

Lucy was twelve, Drew was ten, Julie was eight, Fiona was six, Will was three, and Jamie was almost one. I liked to call them the Brady Bunch. Mom liked to call them the Horde.

I always thought my mother was a strange person. She could handle all of the crazy cases in the ER, but give her a house full of kids and she completely loses it.

One kid was her cap, and that was me.

The ride to my aunt and uncle's house was when we first heard the news reports. There was something happening in major cities all around the world; people attacking each other left and right. Some radio stations said that it was a global riot due to the economy tanking, and others said that it was some sort of terrorist attack. I wanted to listen, but Mom changed it to music.

When we got to the house, my aunt and uncle were packed and ready to leave. After a goodbye to their children and a few instructions to me and Mom, they left.

I didn't hear anything about the problem for the rest of the day. I was wrapped up playing video games with Drew, talking about books with Lucy, playing princess and tea party with Julie and Fiona, giving Will piggy-back rides, and making sure Jamie didn't feel too bad about his mommy being away.

That night, as soon as Julie, Fiona, Will, and Jamie went to bed, Mom checked out too.

Lucy, Drew, and I stayed up for a bit later. Drew was mostly savoring the extra computer time, whereas Lucy and I were discussing our various books and TV shows. It happened around nine o'clock.

"Darn it!" exclaimed Drew.

"Hush." I muttered, getting up to see what the problem was. It looked like Drew's game had been shut down and replaced with some sort of pop-up add, but as I got closer I saw what it was. The moment I realized was when it started talking.

"The Emergency Broadcast System has been activated. Please stay in your homes. Do not let anybody enter unless you are sure they are not infected. Turn to your local news station for more information. If the power goes out, turn on the radio. Repeat: The Emergency Broadcast System has been activated. Please stay in your homes. Do not let anybody else—"

The generic male voice was cut off by me hitting the mute button on the keyboard. I looked at the words printed across the screen of the computer. It was the same words that the man had just said.

"Lucy, turn on the news." I instructed quietly. Lucy nodded and rushed to find the remote.

"What's going on?" asked Drew "I don't like this."

"Just go to some other websites." I told him "See if this is everywhere or if it's just a virus."

Drew nodded and turned back to the computer. The Emergency Broadcast System announcement thing didn't have an exit button, so he typed in some lines of code and did… something. Drew was always amazing with computers in a way that I just didn't understand, and at that point in time I was certainly grateful for it.

"Sami," said Lucy, calling my attention to the news report she had just turned on. The words that had just been spoken by the generic male voice were running across the crawler on the bottom of the screen, and the news report itself was ghastly. It was a helicopter video of some city, but we had already missed the name of it. There were fires, gunshots, explosions, screams, and mobs of people ambling towards a bunch of soldiers. The people were getting shot at, but they just kept coming. When the people reached the soldiers, it wasn't clear what was happening, but it was apparently gruesome enough for them to cut the image.

"The government is declaring a state of emergency," explained the unfamiliar news lady. I had heard those words in so many movies that it made everything feel like a dream. "There are reports from every major city across the world. All flights have been cancelled, all borders closed, and the government is urging people to stay in their homes. The Centers for Disease Control has made no statement on the subject. Martial Law has been declared until further notice. Prisons in urban areas have released their inmates." The woman just kept staying stuff like that, listing all that was happening, how they had no idea what it was and that it was spreading like wildfire.

We woke up Mom and she started barking orders at us. We filled up bathtubs, sinks, old soda bottles, and anything that we could with water. We locked the doors and put some supplies in the car in case we had to leave at short notice.

Drew was put on phone duty. Since the lines were so jammed, he had to keep dialing numbers. He took turns—my uncle's cell phone, my aunt's cell phone, my home phone, my dad's cell phone, the grandparents that we shared, the grandparents on their dad's side, the grandparents on my dad's side. He couldn't get through to any of them, so he just kept repeating the pattern.

Lucy was helping Mom with supply stuff. Food, water, clothes, and things like that. I was prepping my uncle's two guns and watching the news report. Mom couldn't shoot a gun, but my dad had been taking me shooting since I was about eight.

Eventually, Drew got through to his dad's cell phone. He talked to his parents, and then gave it to Lucy, and when Lucy was done she gave it to Mom. I didn't talk to them because I didn't really have anything to say. They talked for as long as they could, and then they hung up. Mom told Lucy and Drew that they were trying to get home, then set them both back to their tasks. She pulled me into the den and explained to me what was really happening. "They can't get out of Virginia; there are too many road blocks. They really are trying to get to us, but it's doubtful they'll make it here. They said that they could see planes dropping bombs on a nearby city."

That was the point when Mom lost it. She didn't break down and cry or anything like that, it was just the point where I replaced her as the adult presence because she couldn't handle it anymore. I held her for a few minutes and then told her to get some rest. She was going to need it.

I wasn't worried about Lucy and Drew. We were nerdy enough to have pulled all-nighters over things like Harry Potter premiers and a new Doctor Who on the BBC. Sleep wasn't an issue.

The first of the crazy people wandered onto the street around three in the morning. I watched him out the window as he lumbered toward one of the neighborhood strays, that Julie had long ago christened Blackie.

The crazy man's shirt was torn off, and he had an awful-looking gash running all up and down his side. He was pale as death, and it looked like he was limping. Blackie looked up at him hopefully, used to getting fed by the neighborhood residents. I realized what would happen a moment before it did.

I shut the curtain and turned around just before the wailing started. Blackie was being ripped apart and eaten alive—I just knew it. I covered my ears and breathed deeply in and out. Animals are my soft spot. The fact that they can't reason makes them so innocent. They can't understand why something is happening or make a plan to get out of it—it just happens.

My motto is that there's always a way out. My dad taught me that. But animals can't think like that.

Lucy entered the room cautiously. "What is that?" she asked me quietly. I stood and made my way towards her, then wrapped her in a big hug. I tucked my head into her shoulder and quietly explained to her what was happening outside. "Don't tell Drew or any of the rest of them." I whispered "Not my mom, either. None of them will be able to handle it."

Lucy nodded and held me for a few more moments before we got back to our various chores. By that time it was more busy work that actually getting anything accomplished, but busy work was better than sitting and waiting for something to happen.

It was around six-thirty in the morning when the news man who had taken over for the news lady a couple of hours ago gave the breaking news. The sick people weren't sick—they were dead. The dead were coming back to life.

In a horrible way, it made sense. None of them ran because they were stiff, they were pale because they were dead, the wounds didn't stop them because they were already beyond repair. And the eating… that was the basest instinct of nature. Somehow, the dead people's basest instincts were being reawakened after their passing.

The fact that they were dead made them a nearly impossible enemy. The only way to stop them was to inflict wounds so bad they could no longer move. The news said to cut off the legs or the arms to keep them from getting at you. Don't let them bite you because the bites were making people sick.

Julie and Fiona didn't understand why they couldn't go outside on the second day. They threw multiple fits and it got to the point where we had to put heavy objects in front of the doors just to keep them from sneaking out. Will was easier, because he was happy doing anything that involved people, but it was hard to keep even him happy with his older sisters throwing conniption fits.

Drew and Lucy slept that night. I took a few light naps throughout the third day. The power went out on the fourth day. The radio said that the government had lost contact with places like Singapore and Taiwan, who had high population densities. They said that New York City was a battleground with no one left alive but the soldiers trying to hold off the hordes of the dead. On the fifth day they lost LA, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, Providence, Louisville, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Dallas; all the major cities were going to hell in a hand basket.

On the sixth day, they declared all of the Hawaiian Islands but Honolulu safe and on the seventh day, we lost Hawaii.

That first week we never left the house once. Julie and Fiona figured out fairly quickly to do as we told them and to stop throwing tantrums. We didn't tell them what was wrong, but they knew that something was up.

Drew stopped dialing numbers. He said that it was no use. I told him he was wrong, but I think he knew that it was a lie.

I didn't worry about Dad as much as I should've. We lived on a big property with guns that he knew very well how to use, so I knew he could defend himself. I worried more about my aunt and uncle, which was new for me. They were somewhere in Virginia with no way to get back home. Best case scenario they were in some sort of refugee camp. Worst case scenario… I refused to think about it back then.

Lucy did a lot of praying in those first few days. She wore all of her rosary beads and knelt in front of their little statue of Christ and just prayed. I didn't bother her unless I really needed something, because I knew that her faith was probably the only thing keeping her sane at that point.

On the eighth day, they said that everybody should go to Atlanta. The CDC had set up a refugee camp. We didn't want to go at first because of what had happened with Hawaii, but three more days passed and Atlanta was still being declared a safe zone.

So we decided to go for it.

We made it out of North Carolina and into South, then through into Georgia. We had steered clear of any cities and highways, staying on the back roads. We didn't pass too many of the dead people, but the ones that we did pass were bloody and mangled and horrible to look at. We made sure that Julie and Fiona had their eyes closed whenever we passed them.

We got to Atlanta on the fifteenth day.

When we got there, we knew that something was up pretty quick. Where were the helicopters and the army trucks and the walls? We drove slowly down the city blocks, but there was nothing except for burned out cars and very dead bodies. Mom got out of the car and headed up the road with the whispered promise of finding help that I was pretty sure didn't exist.

Mom got around the block up ahead and I clambered over the center console into the driver's seat in case we had to leave in a hurry. I rolled down the window and listened.

And I heard it.

It was one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. First, it was like a low hum, but then it turned into a squelching and moaning and groaning melody of the worst sounds that a human throat can make.

Mom came running around the block, and at first I was relieved, but then I saw what was behind her—hundreds of those sick, dead people. They were all ambling after her, and Mom was limping. Her leg was bleeding, and I just knew that one of them had bit her.

I've always been indecisive. I have trouble with commitment. The decision I made next, however, boiled down to logic.

Mom could make it to the car, but if we waited for her, the dead people would get to us as well. We might be able to drive away, but there were so many of them, and if Mom was bit she was going to die anyway.

So I made my choice.

I leaned out the window. "I LOVE YOU!" I shouted, and then I aimed the gun at my mother's head. Pulling the trigger wasn't as hard as I thought. The hardest part of the decision was the 'I love you', and knowing that I would never get to tell her that again.

Then I did a U-turn and got myself and my cousins out of Atlanta, running purely off of the shock and adrenaline. I had no doubt that I would break down later.

"Sami, why are we leaving without Aunt Jenny?" Julie asked.

"She had to go somewhere without us, baby." I whispered. I wasn't even completely sure that she had heard me. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that Lucy was holding Jamie close to her with tears running down her face.

"Lucy —"

"I get it," she had grumbled. She wiped the tears away from her eyes "I'm not mad at you. And it was mercy, so God won't be either."

I knew that Lucy didn't mean that. She was a good Catholic, believed so strongly, and she didn't believe in mercy killing. She didn't believe in any kind of killing. She was pissed at me to a degree that I probably couldn't even fathom. For all I knew, she was scared at me.

So I ignored her.

We spent the next day driving as far into the countryside as we could, hoping to get away from anywhere with even a mildly high population density. Those places belonged to the dead. Drew started calling them Dead-Ones. It stuck.

We raided a small pawn shop and got a rifle, a pistol with a silencer, and a nice set of throwing knives. Lucy was good with throwing knives, which was something we'd discovered long before the dead came back to life. It was the kind of thing we always laughed about, but we didn't laugh anymore.

I liked to think that I was taking good care of my cousins. To an extent, I was. I kept them safe, got them the food, water, and supplies they needed. But I wasn't giving them as much love, and they needed that. I was going cold and I knew it, but I tried to ignore it and keep on.

We figured out that you had to aim for the head with the Dead-Ones. That was the only sure fire way to kill them. On day twenty-four (I was counting) we were hiding in a house that got surrounded by more than we could avoid, so I started shooting at them from the upstairs window. I aimed for the head on the first one I shot and it crumpled.

On day twenty-seven, we hit the luck jackpot. We found a cabin in the woods with a little bunker underneath stocked with enough food to last us for a good while. It was like a miracle from heaven itself.

The days in the bunker were boring, but boring was a small sacrifice for keeping away from dead cannibals. My biggest worry was having enough formula for Jamie, but eventually I realized that we would at least have enough to get us through the days in the bunker. He started eating some other foods as well, which certainly came as a relief. It was easier to find apple sauce than baby formula.

My second biggest worry was me and the fact that I have asthma. It had been months since I had an attack, but with all the running that we would be doing I knew that it was only a matter of time before I had another one. I had my inhaler, but it was running close to empty before everything went to hell and I knew that we would be hard-pressed to find another.

I never thought of such a small medical issue as asthma to be a killer. But it turns out that my lung problems were the least of my worries.

On the fifty-third day, Fiona died.

She threw a tantrum about not being able to go outside, and charged out. I yelled and ran after her, but she was screaming by the time I made it up the stairs. One of the Dead-Ones had her by the arm—the arm that was now a mangled hunk of flesh. My vision went red and when it came back, I was holding Fiona close to me and was surrounded by three really dead Dead-Ones.

It only took Fiona a few hours to die.

It only took Fiona a few minutes to stop being dead.

I was the one that ended up killing her, because Lucy and Drew just couldn't do it. I didn't blame them one little bit. I stabbed her a couple times in places other than the head, just because I couldn't bear to kill my baby cousin. But it had to be done, and eventually I did it.

We couldn't bury her. We couldn't risk being outside that long. But I covered her in some blankets and moved her out of the bunker, and that would have to be enough.

We stayed in the bunker until day sixty-eight.

I really wanted to stay longer, but we just couldn't. We didn't have the supplies to stay there any longer and I didn't trust myself to find my way back to this random cabin in the middle of the woods. So we left.

A day passed.

That's when we ran into the group of Dead-Ones. Smaller than the group in Atlanta that got Mom, but just as deadly and just as terrifying.

We got separated in the chaos.

I knew that Lucy had Will, and Drew had Jamie. Julie was supposed to stay near Lucy.

I wanted to turn around and find them, but I was running for my life. The Dead-Ones were everywhere except for ahead, like a peninsula of the walking dead.

I just kept running, ignoring the cramps in my side, my asthma, and my bad ankle, stabbing any Dead-Ones that got too close, watching out for trees between my tears, trying not to think about my cousins who were probably dead. If Julie got separated she was dead. If Jamie got too loud then he and Drew were dead. If Will got too fussy then he and Lucy were dead. It was all a matter of luck, to be honest. But something in the back of my head was saying 'You ran out of luck when you found that bunker.'

The bunker kept us from having to venture outside for about six weeks. We lost Fiona, but that was out of her own foolishness. Our luck was out. And this was it.

I don't know how long I ran. There was a tightening in my throat and I had to stop and use my inhaler for the first time. It wasn't an attack, but I knew that one could be coming.

I ran again.

Then I heard the gunshots. The Dead-Ones around me began dropping like flies, and for a few minutes I thought that I was saved. I dropped to the ground and watched as three men gunned down the Dead-Ones chasing me, and I thought that they were going to save me. I was imagining finding all of my cousins and setting out with these men that I didn't even know and surviving. I thought that the world had let me get lucky again and that Lucy's prayers were being answered.

I don't think I've ever been more wrong about anything.

As soon as any Dead-Ones posing an immediate threat were taken care of, I stood up and walked cautiously towards the men, thanking them. And then they came forward and grabbed me.

They tied me up, ripped my clothes up, and did things to me that I couldn't even fathom before it happened.

I'm grateful that the shock eventually set in, but now it's gone and the men are still here and I know that I'm bleeding out from the places where they slashed me.

This is where I am. This is how it's all going to end for me. The world goes to hell, the dead start walking, and I'm going to be killed by people.

My name is Samantha Dawson. I have lived fourteen years. I shot my mother in the head. I failed my cousins. I don't know where I am.

I am going to die.

In this world of walking dead cannibals, I am going to be killed by people. I don't know if that's embarrassing, or ironic, or just plain stupid, but that is how it's ending for me.

I glance down at the bleeding cut on my left leg. I think the guy hit an artery. That's okay… maybe I'll die faster.

I think about the blood loss, and I think about seeing Mom and Fiona and whoever else has died again. I let the sleep creep into me, and I don't mind at all when everything finally goes black.