( 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑻𝑯𝑹𝑬𝑬 !.˚₊ ❖ )
❝ dangerous roads ❞

THE WALK TO HIGHWAY 20 WAS LONG. 

The pair were exhausted, hot sweat now rolling down their faces and their shirts now stuck to their backs. Natalia's backpack straps dug harshly into her shoulders and collar, a strained pounding in her muscles. Her feet hurt from the uneven terrain and her boots were nearly falling apart, hair plastered to her face in the heat. 

"Natalia," Archie panted, a stumble in his steps as they trekked through the dense trees. "Do you think we could take a break? My damn legs are about to fall off." 

Worn-out and feeling as though she might melt under the blistering sun, the young woman peered down at the crinkled map clutched in her hands, the lines of red and blue hard to make out due to the faded condition. She traced the tip of her fingernail along the forest before looking up to the blinding sun, trying to pinpoint their location with strained eyes. 

She sighed. "We have only a mile or so to go, we can rest when we get there." 

After tucking the map safely into the pocket of her black jeans, which were torn not from the style of them but the beating they had taken, Natalia began to hike through the forest once more. She heard the vicious curses flying from Archie's mouth as he complained about the beating sun, the mud their shoes slushed through, and the vegetation that pricked their clothes. 

Listening to his panting and looking at the boy matted in blood and sweat, Natalia's eyes flickered in worry, her heart swelling in her chest. She suddenly stopped her trek, flinging the backpack off her shoulder and tearing the zipper open. 

"Nat, what are you doing?" 

Ignoring her companions questioning gaze, the girl rummaged through her things, past the nearly empty box of ammo, her small revolver that had belonged to her father (the only gun the pair had), the granola bars that were their last remnants of food, until she finally found what she was in search of. 

Natalia snatched the bottle of water from her bag, shooting a smirk Archie's way before tossing it to him with a simple command of "catch!". The boy shot her back a smile that glistening with pure relief and thanks, ripping the cap off of the bottle before gulping down the warm water as though it was the best thing on the earth (and to him, at that moment, it was). 

"Go easy on it," she chuckled, wiping the sweat off her forehead while taking a deep breath of fresh air.  "It's the last we have from the stream."

Archie took a final sip before screwing the cap back onto the light blue bottle, adjusting the navy baseball cap on his head that shielded the sun from his hazel eyes. "You think we will find more at the highway?" the boy asked as he gently threw the water bottle back to Natalia. 

She caught it with a small smile, undoing the cap before taking a drink herself. The girl was nearly shocked at how amazing the liquid felt on her tongue, making her mouth water for more and more despite it burning her cracked lips with every swig. 

After just a few more tiny gulps, Natalia sealed the bottle for once and for all, stuffing the crinkled plastic back in her bag before zipping the pack closed. She gathered and her strength while swinging the backpack back on her shoulders, which had gotten used to the lack of weight and cried out once more. 

"I hope we do, Archie," she replied simply. 

And without sparing a second more, the two continued their seemingly endless trudge. 

The weather was truly beautiful, she must admit  ─ or it at least would be if they weren't on the verge of collapsing with each step. Months before, such a day would be appreciated by the girl. She would sit on her porch with a tall glass of lemonade clutched in her hands, legs folded under her criss-cross style with a book propped open on her lap. The pollen from the cherry trees yards away would tickle her nose and her nightshirt and gym shorts would dance gently in the breeze. It would be a morning to praise. 

But everything had changed now. And now every morning just meant you survived the night. 

What I would give for a cold drink, Natalia thought to herself, almost, just almost able to taste the sweet juice on her lips, feeling it run down her throat and calm the fire of the heat. And she could almost hear her mother's gentle voice, singing from the flowerbeds while she tended to the bright white tulips. 

Just like that, the reminiscing smile fell from her mouth, and she fought her gaze down to the ground. 

Time drug on, slowly and tiredly. Her legs burned more with each step, fire splitting up her calves while her head pounded. Natalia began to count each time her foot left the ground and weakly slammed back down, reciting number after number. 

two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred

The numbers climbed on and on, and she was sure she had never counted quite as high before. Her mind raced through everything in her life before, no matter how hard she tried to make it stop. How wide her smile was when she got accepted into university, how she poured over her books the nights leading up to exams, desperately trying to pass. But none of her grades, bad or good, mattered anymore. It wasn't like she could slap a degree in someone's face to show her place in the world. 

She then remembered when her parents made her join track team to try and learn to socialize better (something she now laughed at since the world was a desolate graveyard). She was taught how the "run", how to conserve her energy by jogging everyone once and while before sprinting to the finish line. But she never really had to run until the world fell apart into a million pieces. The raw fear of running for your life, the feeling that death was around every corner, was different than even the most stressful of track meets. 

It was still a matter of two outcomes: you win or you lose. But they meant very different things now than they had before. 

"NAT!" 

The old memories finally ripping away from her thoughts, Natalia snapped her head over to her companion, who had a light in his eyes and a grin atop his lips. Baseball cap now turned backwards, his face glistening under the sun as he stared onward, drips of sweat racing down his red cheeks and neck, but he was too wonderstruck to care. 

With a smile as big as the sun that had tortured them for hours, he looked at her and breathed out with an exhausted breath, "We made it." 

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ASPHALT HAD NEVER FELT SO GOOD BENEATH NATALIA'S FEET. She longed to take off her shoes, feel free for the first time in what felt like forever and skip down the streets in a victorious dance. But the ground below would be like hot coals on her feet, and despite the excitement bursting within her, death was still on the horizon. 

Archie and Natalia walked side by side, following the white lines faded on the pavement while still hauling their belongings on their backs. But the young woman's shoulders did not scream out as they had mere minutes before. She was content, breathing in the fresh, Georgia air with a small smile on her dry lips. 

They marched on further and further, passing signs with the names of homely towns on them. Together, the pair read every single one silently, looking at the former glory while now knowing those cities were nothing but ghosts, charred remains in a world on fire. 

Yet those sad thoughts, as horrible as they were, failed to stunt their moods, and the two felt good at last, away from the thick brush that they had gotten so used to. The loss of their camp was in the back of their minds, all that mattered was their long trek was over with, and Natalia felt as though she had somewhat of a grasp on reality. 

"You think we will be able to find a car?" Archie asked, trailing his hazel gaze over to the girl. 

At his words, she snapped her head to face him, the smallest of smiles on her lips, a smile her comrade hadn't seen in what felt like decades. "I heard about a big pile-up a while back, during the first evacuation. If it's true, we can siphon some gas from a couple of cars and find one to get running." 

"You think we can get a cool one?"

Natalia let out a deep laugh, a grin glistening on her mouth while her head lulled back. "And what exactly is a cool car, Arch'?" she retorted with a snort.

The boy shrugged nonchalantly, clasping his hands together behind his back with a light smirk atop his face. "I don't know, Mustangs, maybe a Camaro, Audi r8, Corvette," he listed, going on and on as the girl beside just listened with amusement, peering as his smirk grew larger and larger. 

She had begun to long for his happy rambles, the light that sparkled in his eyes with a childish gleam. Natalia often wondered how in such a broken world, Archie could still see the good in everything, how he would become excited when they merely found a pan or tin can. Some might call it a survival tactic, a way to keep himself from losing his mind, keeping it from depleting and becoming lost in the devastation they called home. But she knew better ─ he was choosing to still live in a dead world. 

"Well," Nat cut in, stifling a chuckle while clamping her left hand onto his shoulder. "As long as these cars have good gas mileage and run, you can choose whichever you want."

Archie laughed with her, wiping the sweat pooling atop his forehead with a single question leaving his lips. "How are we going to even get the car to work? What if there aren't any keys?"  

"You know there are more ways than one to get a car running," she snorted, the left corner of her cracked mouth tugging up in a smirk.

The girl shoved her dirty hands in the back pockets of her dark, weathered jeans, the crumbled map tickling the fingers of her right hands, rubbing against her cut cuticles with a slight sting. Natalie wished she could let her guard down as her bright companion had, she wished she could have a truly joyful beam on her face as well. But something in the back of her mind ate away at any confidence she had, it plagued her and suddenly, she didn't feel so safe. 

But the boy beside her didn't notice her darkened demeanor, he didn't notice how she stopped in her tracks with her dark eyes widening. He just began to chuckle again, asking humorously, "What methods are you referring to, Natalia?"

She didn't answer. 

Natalia couldn't move, her mouth dropped and her lips parted. And she looked ahead. There was the pile-up she mentioned before, hundreds of cars wrecked and beaten from the weather, some abandoned and some with victims sitting inside. The corpses weren't what made her stop, though, death no longer fazed the girl. 

What made her freeze was the distant sound of voices, the shadows reflecting on the streets. The sound of footsteps on the ground, but not the lifeless shuffle of walkers, true, upbeat steps. By then, Archie too had stopped, his jaw on the ground like hers and a shocked look on his face. 

The voices turned the shouts, shouts turning to fingers pointing at the pair. The young woman's heart raced, her hands fleeing from her pockets and forming a tight grip on the rusted blade sheathed in her belt. 

A man in what she believed to be a police officer's uniform began to approach them, hand too clasped on his weapon, a firearm. Archie muttered a curse beneath his breath, his voice shaking as though it were an earthquake on his tongue ─ their knives would do nothing against a gun.  And in a blink of an eye, Nat made a grab for the revolver in her bag, flinging it off her back and tearing it open in a hurry as the man's walk quickened and his voice shouted commands. Her heart fell to her stomach. 

It was then when Natalia realized, she feared the living more than the dead. 

( 𝑨𝑼𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑹❜𝑺 𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑬 !.˚₊ ❖ )

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Not me updating two things in one week,,,what the hell is wrong with me. 😃 Anyway, this is the first chapter OVER 2,200 words and after this the chapters will be about 3,000 because BOY do i have a lot of episodes to write for. I realized yesterday that this book was gonna be SO MF LONG so I might consolidate a couple of seasons into one! I am currently rewatching season two (all the seasons of the walking dead bleed into one for me tbh) so i will see what happens and might add season three into this act. 

Thank you for reading and please vote/comment what you think 💝💝💝! I love you all and thank you for supporting my books!!! 

GLXNNRHEES / FAITH 2021