So let's get something straight. I don't own any of these characters besides the ones I put in. I am super fan of The Walking Dead; I have seen every episode multiple times, read all and own every issue of the comics. I love The Walking Dead a lot. This isn't going to follow the show word for word event by event, nor will it follow the comics like that, this merely my own version of the comics and the show. Yes there will be a lot of the same characters and basic story line, but if you don't like me changing a few things stop reading now. I hope you enjoy.(: Thanks for reading I love any type of feedback and feel free to correct by mistakes! So here we go!

-Hope!

In times like this it's people that matter, people that keep you alive. Then if you think back to before the dead came back to life it was people that mattered then too. Maybe you didn't rely too heavily on them, but it was still your parents who worked to put food in your stomach and doctors and paramedics to save lives. Yet, now all of that was gone. Have you ever thought what you would do if you were still young and had to do everything for yourself? That was life for me. I was an 18 year old trying to get by.

Of course legally I was an adult, yet in the world before this one I was just a senior in High School. I was getting ready to graduate and go off to the Air Force when this all happened, two months from the end of the school year. If things were still the same I would have been happy for an early summer. Now I would kill to be in that pre-calculus class again.

Living in an apocalyptic society your family starts getting picked off one by one, until you're the only one left.

About 10 months ago when the dead started to reanimate, it had already gotten pretty bad, my family and I had just walked into an abandoned house. It looked safe, but of course it wasn't.

While my older brother and two parents were downstairs in the kitchen, I went upstairs to check out the rooms. I entered the first door on the left and inside was dead silent. So my little sister Susie and I walked in, she sat down happily on the bed and played with her doll. I should have been paying attention, but I wasn't I was looking through drawers. Then louder than time itself my sisters scream rung through the air. I still hear that scream as clear as day. I turned around and killed the son of a bitch without a second thought. It was too late; her entire neck was taken out in one bite.

Soon after my gun was fired my family came running up the stairs and into the room. My mother's face went white and then her body melted into my father's arms like an ice cube on a hot summer's day. She sobbed so loudly it was almost unbearable. Susie laid in my arms blood and family surrounding us.

My brother and father were as silent as silent gets, both looking down at her damp blue eyes. One after the other they both said "I love you."

Susie had moaned in pain I had assumed it was her way of saying it back, but she was already on her lasts breaths. Then it was my mother who kneeled down beside her little girl and brushed her finger over her brow and kissed her forehead. All I did was look at my poor innocent sister. She had hardly even got to live her life. As I laid there with her in my arms my sister had took her tiny hand and brushed it down my cheek leaving a smear of blood, as she took her last breaths as the tiny five year old she was.

I still remember that day like it was yesterday and it sits heavily on my mind. The rest of my family slowly died out over the months. Each one was as depressing as the first, yet each becoming less foreign then the next. You would always have to keep moving, I never really had the time to really mourn, but I am sure other groups who lost people never had time either. In a world like this you have to keep moving, you have to keep pushing onward. The truth is you never know what is on the other side of the mountain.

My brother, Nathan, was the last to go. Just a moment ago he died, another family member dying in my arms. In his last few moments he held my hand goodbye, and every breath he took I knew I was a second closer to being the last of my family.

My whole family was dead, so now I am standing in an open field with a bloodstained knife. The knife I used to keep my brother from turning into the turned. That's what my family called them. Over the months in the apocalypse I heard plenty of different names for them. It's not like it's only been my family and I. We have come and go between groups, all not having that certain thing we were looking for. Real civilization, real hope. Now that I've come this far I think there isn't such thing as hope. Hope is dead. Hope has turned.

I slowly un-grip the knife from my dirt ridden hands falling slowly to my knees, I hold in a scream. I know the turned are nearby, so unless I want to be dead too I know I should keep quiet. Tears run down my face rapidly seeming to never stop, I want to weep I want to scream, but I can't. A morbid thought occurs to me, when I die, there will be no one to keep me from turning. I will have to walk the earth as one of them taking innocent lives. This world isn't what it should be. It never will be again.

After about 10 minutes of pure sorrow, I stand. I take in my surroundings, it looks like there is nothing for miles, it is just forest and field and forest and field. There is lots of walking soon to come. As the suns falls the sound of the cicada's raises, my warning sign that night is approaching. Although it is almost night the hot summer air still makes sweat beat down my back, making everything that much more unbearable.

I would like to give my brother a proper burial, but I do not have the strength nor do I have the time. My first priority now was sleep. Even in times like this sleep is a top priority because the more tired you are the more you let your guard down.

I step about 100 feet away from my brother to set up camp. I sit Indian style on the ground opening up my red back pack. This was a nice back pack in its day, but now every inch of it was being held together by duct tape. I pull the dirty smelling tent from the depths of my nearly empty back pack, I lay it out on the ground. As I try to start to put stakes in the tent, all I hear are my thoughts rambling through my head.

I hear my mother scrutinizing voice. '" Your brother is dead Annabel, and all you doing is focusing on yourself." My heart starts to race and I softly say back to my thoughts "That's not true." I did what I could, don't you forget that. Nathan would want me to do this, keep fighting for our family. "Live for the Family." I mumble under my breath.

Tears start to fall down my face again reminding me of my brother's lasts words. "Never go down without a fight Annabel, don't let this world change who you are. Fight, fight for us." I think I was more upset to see him go then he was to leave this horrible world. I take a look at the sun again, 1 hour till total darkness. I need to get crackin on the tent.

It is a two man tent so I should have plenty of room. I start to put stakes and poles in slowly but surely, yet this is so much easier with another person. After about a half hour my house (tent) is complete. I roll my sleeping bag into it not even caring how it looks.

Just before I crawl into it I look up at the moon, and how it is in its proper place. Wouldn't it be nice to be the moon, no people to deal with no turned dead people to kill? All you have to do is rise and fall at the proper time. I take my water bottle out of the bag, observing once again its deterioration from over use. I then take a huge gulp savoring every last particle. I drop my bottle gentle into my pack, and start to crawl into my tent.

As I zip the last corner, I see a light shining so brightly in the distance. Something deep inside my body tells me to head for it, I am aware it is too late now, so I would head for it in the morning. I lie down in my fairly comfortable bed and stare up at the ceiling of my tent, throughout the night every howl of the wind and crack of a branch made my heart pound. Yet knowing there's someone. Something out there makes it a bit better.

Like? Yes no? I haven't put in The Walking Dead characters yet, but they are coming in the next chapter . Any suggestions opinions? I know there wasn't any action really, but I promise there will be plenty to come. Thanks for reading!