Hey guys! It's Galen Devereaux, and this fanfiction is going to have 3-5 chapters, possibly longer if it is requested, at the end of every chapter is a choice to make. Each choice will change the story majorly and each will have a very different outcome. Vote in the comments. Please like, comment, review, whatever else you want. Please review, as I am always open to criticism, thanks and read on.

Chapter 1: A Frozen Smile

The first step caused the slippery surface to crack. Immediately, she knew this was not a good idea. They all reluctantly trudged onwards, each of the ragtag team wincing as they heard that terrible, sharp sound below them as the peril heightened. The danger and a sense of apprehension was thick around the group. Mike slowly stayed ahead, clasping AJ, comforted and cautioned by his soft cries.

Clementine silently tiptoed forward, being extremely careful, like everyone else. The bitter wind and light snowflakes wrapped around them. A chill of both anxiety and cold had set deep within all of their bones. They all made it to the halfway point, giving reassuring, yet nervous smiles to one another, except for Kenny, Jane and Arvo. Then everything went to hell.

The survivors turned at the all-too-familiar sound of walkers approaching, still meters behind them, moaning at their next targets. Knowing how unintentionally stealthy they were, and how their luck had been going recently, Clementine wasn't surprised. She saw the ice under Luke begin to break, but quickly reached forward and yanked him off of the hazardous zone of solidified lake, although, that seemed like the entirety of the lake now.

He sighed in relief, thanking her incessantly for rescuing him. But, they suddenly heard Arvo's yell as he noticed the undead creeping up on their location, and then ran forward towards the skeleton of a residence. Kenny pursued him screaming, "Get back you fuckin' Ruskie shitbird!"

Mike avoided the chase and was the first to make it unscathed to the other side of the petrified body of water. "STOP! KENNY! DON'T HURT HIM, HE'S JUST A KID!" Bonnie shouted. "Be quiet before you attract more of them!" Jane retorted as the redhead looked on, scared. Mike was yelling for Kenny to slow down. Worry consumed the entire lot of them. The pop of fracturing ice quieted all of their voices. Arvo suddenly fell into the below-0 temperature water, and Kenny yanked him up. Or tried to.

Arvo's flailing form only broke more ice. Kenny was pulled down by Arvo's crazy movements. He fell, and that was apparently the last straw as a large section of ice dissolved, plunging both the redneck and the Eurasian down into the frosty depths. Clementine yelled and ran towards them, but Jane and Bonnie both held her back. "No, let go of me, stop, they'll die you idiots!" Clem screamed at them. She managed to knock Jane down with a well-placed kick to the leg, and Bonnie let go of the 11-year old to help the young woman up before she fell through as well.

Clementine rushed to the site of Kenny and Arvo's disappearance. She abruptly heard the sounds of thumping hands on ice. Clementine sprinted to the now, irregular noise, a few feet away. Kenny was there, giving the warm smile that had been directed towards her so often at the Motor Inn, the manor, the streets of Savannah, even Crawford and the Ski Lodge, and on the road. The kind only Kenny, the kind bearded fellow who had befriended Lee, and took care of her in his stead, even if she wasn't a child anymore, could give.

She raised her Glock 17 to shoot out the only thing keeping them apart, but he shook his head no. She did the same. Firing a single 9mm round into the frozen layer of lake water, a small hole appeared. Kenny instantaneously threw out his crowbar and Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol. Before lunging at the tiny gap to reach the Southern man, she looked at him once more, and then realized. He wanted this.

After everything he had been through, his one and final wish was death. Even if he didn't know it. So she placed her hand against the ice, directly above where his was. He continued to smile, and then a reanimated Arvo, who skin was taut and gray agains his bones and covered with teeth marks, reached out from the murky surface and chomped down hard on Kenny's throat, filling the dark water with a bright red substance similar in color to cherry Kool-Aid into the surrounding volume of water. Kenny went limp and his fight just died with him.

He drifted down, and Clem cried as she watched the last known remaining survivor she had been familiar with from the start of the collapse of the world, become just another meal for a shambling cadaver. She stood up, sobbing as she grabbed Kenny's things, and noticed the small, filthy orange hat rise to the small bullet hole she had made. Clementine daintily reached down and grabbed AJ's inheritance. Then she continued to where the others were waiting, on the opposing side of the lake.

…

After starting a fire, and feeding AJ half of the remaining formula, Clementine looked out the window to where Bonnie was keeping watch, as Jane searched for more supplies in the half-built house, and Mike worked out back on the truck. Luke was sitting with her, tending to the fire Clem had created with her nail file. "Listen Clem, its terrible that this happened… I…I'm so-so sorry. It should have been me. It should have been me." He muttered to himself more than the young survivor. Although she had busy starting a fire, giving the group's members tasks to fulfill, and feeding AJ, whom she held while he contentedly slept, her thoughts kept returning to the single moment where the Floridian's eyes glazed over, with his mouth trapped in an expression of pride and hope for Clem and AJ's future, like a moth to a fire.

Staring into the bright yellow flames, reliving the visceral scene again and again, something dawned on the small African-American girl. Kenny was harmful to the group. She had always known it, even on that train. Katjaa and Duck were everything to him. When they died, something broke inside of him. Something that had remained in disrepair until his death. Kenny had brutally bludgeoned a man to death with the crowbar lying with his softly glimmering sidearm on the mantle now. He had tied up and practicaly tortured a young boy for trying to protect his own, something Kenny certainly should have understood. Clementine had seen the bruises on Sarita's arms and torso. He had threatened Clementine, after she had somewhat caused his girlfriend's death. He had truly been driven mad by his son and wife's gruesome passing. Killing him was no more than a rabid dog's putting-down. It should have happened a long time ago. Absorbed in this new revelation, Luke promptly called her and she took AJ outside, where the group was meeting by the truck.

"Well, we all know North is a bad idea." Mike was saying. "Maybe, we could go down south, on the highway to any state we can find, hell, I don't know Texas even. As long as we can be a helluva lot warmer than we are now." Creases appeared in Bonnie's forehead. "No, no, no. We should go to the town, we know for sure there's places to scavenge and somewhere we can hole up at for a bit. It'll be safer then the road at least." Luke sighed. He opened his mouth a couple times, and then finally told them," Let's stay here, we have plenty of supplies and firewood. We'll all sleep together to conserve body heat, and there's half a dozen blankets we can use. We get some rest and decide after that." Jane immediately scowled and gave the six of them a piece of her mind.

"Hell to the no. This house is pathetic, and we can't defend it. We don't have a lot of baby formula left, and the food and water will run out. We can't just pack up and head south, we don't have a map, the main roads are blocked by cars, and we won't know if there will be any place to resupply at or spend the night, and that town might be full of walkers, bandits, and have no fortifiable buildings. Or it could be picked clean of anything we can use. But we do know where Howe's is," An eruption of refusals and accusations of insanity flew towards the short-haired female. Her hand immediately grasped the bowie knife at her thigh in its sheath. She eased her palm off of the smooth wooden hilt of the shining fixed blade. "Alright, alright. I can see where you are all coming from. But, the defenses were down, and the walkers will have cleared out by now. We have enough weaponry and muscle to take down any lurkers and Neanderthals too dumb to flee that place. We know there's food, water, and most importantly baby formula. There'll still be a lot of guns and ammo left, along with plenty of other resources. The greenhouses will be intact. It's also a fortress on the inside, and it's a definite long-term place. It's the best chance we have, that AJ has." she concludes, practically out of breath. The five of them all look extremely shocked. That's the longest any of us have ever heard out of her in one breath. Unfortunately, everyone continues to stick with their own guns-sorry opinions, since everyone does the former now-and the deciding vote comes down to their brunette eleven-year old, who looks up from that tiny cooing carrier of hope. "Well? Waddya say Clem?" Luke asks.

PACK UP AND HEAD TO TEXAS

DRIVE TO THE MYSTERY TOWN

STAY AT THE RUSSIANS' FORMER CAMP

HEAD TO HOWE'S

Vote below in the comments!