𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍. young and sad

THE PAPER WAS SOFT FROM AGE, WORN at the corners, slightly yellowed like parchment left too long in the sun. She'd found it folded neatly in a drawer beside a cracked porcelain lamp and a collection of brittle pinecones, relics from a life that had long since crumbled into dust. She didn't know who the cottage had once belonged to — some kind of artist, maybe, or someone who simply liked collecting scraps — but now it belonged to them.

Sophia didn't look up. Her little fingers took the paper like it was currency, like it meant something more than it did. She smoothed it flat on the rough wooden floor beside the others she'd already finished, her tongue poking slightly from between her lips in concentration. Her head bowed, the ends of her hair brushing the edge of the paper, and she reached for the stubby blue colored pencil from the pile Wendy had spilled from her bag earlier that morning.

Wendy stood there for a moment, hovering, watching. Then she dropped back down onto the worn couch with a quiet exhale that she didn't even realize she'd been holding.

The couch sagged. It was the kind that swallowed your body in one slow, dusty exhale, like it was still trying to remember what comfort felt like. She leaned back, one arm draped over her stomach, the other resting against the pillow she'd wedged between her ribs and the armrest to support her left arm from the fall. Her fingers twitched. She didn't want to touch her arm, but she was aware of it — like a second heartbeat, faint and deep and pulsing with each breath.

The cottage was silent except for the soft scratch-scratch of pencil on paper and the occasional creak of the old structure settling deeper into the woods. It had rained the night before. Everything smelled like wet earth and wood rot, like mushrooms and dust, like the whole world was trying to decompose around them. A piece of the ceiling had started to peel, curling inward like a page from a forgotten book. Water had pooled in the sink. The pipes, of course, didn't work.

Still, it was shelter. It was better than the forest.

Wendy had stumbled across it in a rush. She'd dragged Sophia most of the way, arms burning, body screaming, afraid to stop for fear that the geeks from the night before would catch their scent. When she saw the slanted roof through the trees, it looked like a dream. Like something her mind had conjured from a fevered wish.

But Wendy didn't know how to take care of a kid.

She could barely take care of herself. The knowledge sat in her bones like a cold stone, heavy and immovable.

Every time she looked at Sophia, every time the girl opened her mouth and said something soft and small and impossibly trusting, Wendy felt like she was being handed a test she didn't know how to take. She didn't know what to say. What did you talk to kids about, anyway? Imaginary friends? Rainbows? Talking animals? She didn't have it in her. That kind of gentleness. That kind of ease.

She felt like a man — stiff, uncomfortable, too big for the space she occupied. She was good with a weapon. She could fight. She could run. She could bleed and keep going. But this? Sitting in a dusty cottage with a quiet little girl who just wanted to color? It unraveled her in ways she didn't know how to name.

And in that moment Wendy thanked herself for had taken Jade's pencil roll.

She hadn't meant to. But in the final moments before she left the school — before everything fell apart, before Jade fell apart — Wendy had grabbed her bag and found herself unrolling the soft canvas pouch from Jade's desk. It was worn, tied with a piece of shoelace, filled with dull pencils and small charcoal stubs, and one half-used eraser shaped like a cat. Jade loved to draw. She used to sit for hours in the art room, sketching the same tree outside the window again and again, trying to get the shadow just right. Wendy used to tease her for it, calling it her "obsession tree."

But she'd taken the pouch. Tucked it away.

Now, every time Sophia picked up a pencil, Wendy saw Jade's fingers. Saw the calluses, the way she used to rest the side of her face on her sketchbook while she worked, humming tunelessly to herself. It was like holding on to something that had already gone to ash.

A beam of light — dusty and golden — angled through the slats of the boarded-up window, catching the edges of Sophia's hair. The child was hunched over a low, wooden table that looked like it had been dragged in from some forgotten farmhouse, the surface nicked and scarred with years of use. She worked in silence, her brow furrowed, her whole face wrinkled with the intensity of coloring.

Wendy watched her without meaning to. There was something rhythmic in the way Sophia moved the colored pencil across the page — slow, deliberate strokes, more pressure than necessary in every pass. Her tongue poked out between her teeth like she was trying to hold her breath while conjuring something delicate. She'd pause often, lean back, squint at her work as though measuring it against some internal standard, then dive back in with quiet focus.

Wendy expected nothing spectacular. Stick figures, most likely. Lopsided shapes. A few shades of uneven sky, the kind of childhood drawing you pretended to love because that's what adults were supposed to do.

Still, her curiosity tugged at her like a leaf caught in a breeze. She leaned forward slightly, peering over, and caught a glimpse of the paper.

Stick figures. Just as she thought.

Three of them stood in a row: one small, centered, with a shock of yellow hair rendered in uneven lines. Another, taller, with grey scribbles for hair — small colored lines radiating around her head like a halo. And then a third figure, taller still, drawn further away, like a shadow at the edge of the frame. There were names scrawled in heavy, capital letters: SOPHIA. MOM. And one name, violently erased until the paper itself had begun to peel from the effort.

Wendy's breath snagged somewhere deep in her chest. She looked away.

Sophia must miss them terribly — her family, her mother, the whole architecture of what used to be normal. That kind of ache doesn't just disappear. It calcifies. It nests inside of you, reshaping how you breathe. Wendy recognized it, though hers was a different beast entirely. Her family had vanished early, long before the fall.

Her left arm throbbed gently, a dull ache she had grown used to in a resigned kind of way. She shifted carefully, the sling made of a folded pillow and strips of cloth tied around her neck. It wasn't ideal, but it kept the limb immobilized. Every so often, the muscles would spasm, or her fingers would tingle like sparks were buried under her skin. The fall had been brutal. It was a miracle she'd landed in one piece.

Outside, the wind whispered against the panels of the cottage, the trees creaking and murmuring like an old ship groaning against the tide. Wendy sometimes imagined she could hear footsteps out there, just beyond the treeline. But it was always windy. Or squirrels. Or memory.

Sophia's head lifted suddenly, her hair shifting with the movement. Her eyes — wide, startlingly deep — met Wendy's with a kind of calm curiosity.

"You don't wanna color?" she asked, holding up a green pencil, dulled and half-broken at the tip. "You can pick any color. Even the shiny ones."

Wendy gave a soft laugh, more breath than sound, and shook her head. "Nah," she said. "I'll pass."

Sophia tilted her head, studying her. "You sure? It's kinda nice. Makes it not so quiet."

Wendy glanced down at her arm, shifting slightly. A wince ghosted across her face before she could stop it.

Sophia noticed.

"Is it still hurting bad?" she asked, voice gentle as she padded over to her in socked feet. She crouched beside her, hands hovering in the air like she wasn't sure if she was allowed to touch.

"It's fine," Wendy muttered. "Probably just a pulled muscle. Not the worst thing I've been through."

Sophia frowned in a way that was too practiced for someone her age. Her fingers reached toward the pillow-sling but didn't quite touch it. "You gotta keep it still," she said with a solemnity that didn't belong in such a small body. "And you shouldn't lie on it. Even if it feels okay sometimes. That makes it worse after."

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "That so?"

"Yeah. You need a real wrap. One of those bendy ones. Like my mom had. She used to keep them in the bathroom cabinet. And ice. But only for twenty minutes. You gotta put a towel in between or your skin gets burned."

Wendy blinked, staring at her. "Where'd you learn all that?"

Sophia hesitated. Her eyes dropped to the floor, then to her drawing. "I just... know," she said. Then, after a pause, "I saw my mom do it a lot. Sometimes her arms. Her legs. Her ribs, once. I helped."

Silence stretched between them, thin and vibrating. Wendy didn't press. She didn't need to. Some stories hung in the air, whether they were spoken or not. The kind that haunted the shape of a child's shoulders. The way she talked was like she'd had to learn things too early. The way she moved was like she was trying not to take up space.

Sophia stood up and returned to the table. She picked up her stub of an eraser and began rubbing at the farthest stick figure — the one drawn apart from the others. The one whose name had already been scratched out. Slowly, carefully, she erased him until all that was left was the faint outline of memory pressed into paper.

Then she began to draw someone else.

Long hair. A jacket. A lopsided shape to suggest the arm sling and a bow. She scribbled with delicate urgency, and then, above the figure's head, she wrote WENDY in big, slightly crooked letters.

Wendy let out a long breath, the kind that curled up from the base of her chest and softened the tightness in her shoulders.

If she was going to be stuck in this cottage with a kid — if she was going to keep feeding her, keeping her warm, figuring out how the hell to keep them both alive — then maybe she had to start acting like it. Not just surviving alongside her, not just coexisting like two strangers thrown together in the same storm, but really being here. Being present. Even if that meant picking up a stub of colored pencil with hands that hadn't touched anything close to comfort in weeks. Even if she had about as much artistic talent as a rock someone kicked down the road.

She shifted, cautiously bending down to reach the scattered sheets of paper on the low wooden table. Her left arm gave a sharp protest — stiff and biting pain radiating down from her shoulder. She hissed through her teeth, but kept it close, cradled against her chest and secured in the makeshift sling made from a pillow and a torn strip of flannel. The little things they'd managed to scavenge, to reuse. A few treasures in a world that had stripped everything else away.

Sophia beamed.

It was one of those rare, unguarded smiles — soft, lopsided, childlike in a way that seemed almost foreign on her often serious, watchful face. Like the sun peeking through a window whose curtains had been closed for too long. She held up her newest drawing like a trophy, grinning with a sort of pride that made Wendy pause.

"Look! I made you gold. That's your jacket. I thought it should be gold 'cause you're kinda like a knight. Like, not the shiny kind. But, like... a forest knight. The kind that shows up when it's all dark and stuff."

Wendy squinted at the page. The lines were uneven. Stick figures with stiff arms and legs, little heads with too-big eyes. But there was something in the way Sophia had drawn her — taller, solid, with a golden jacket and the telltale bow and sling over one shoulder. The intent shone through the crude pencil marks like sunlight between clouds. It was endearing. Strange. A little heartbreaking.

She let out a breath of a laugh — a quiet huff that felt foreign in her throat. "You made me look good," she said, nodding toward the picture. "You even got my bow. That's attention to detail."

Sophia puffed up, pleased. "I think you look cool. Even if you don't smile a lot."

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "I smile. Sometimes."

"Not really," Sophia said, completely matter-of-fact. Then, as if remembering some basic social rules, she backpedaled a little. "But it's okay. My mom didn't smile a lot either. Only when I did something really funny. Or when she thought no one was looking."

The words landed heavier than Wendy expected. Her hand froze just above the table, fingers splayed open like she meant to grab something but forgot what. She let her eyes settle on Sophia's small face — those wide, dark eyes, the cheeks still rounded with baby fat, the lips chapped and serious. There was a sturdiness to her, a weight. The kind that came from surviving things she never should've had to.

Wendy reached for a pencil. A dark blue one, its wood nicked and the tip dulled to a stub. She turned it in her fingers once before speaking. "Alright," she murmured, "my turn."

Sophia scooted closer, her socked feet whispering against the floorboards. She leaned her elbow on the edge of the table and rested her chin in her palm, watching with rapt interest. Like something important was about to happen.

Wendy drew slowly, clumsily. Two stick figures, side by side. One taller, one shorter. She gave the shorter one short hair and a dark coat, adding a tiny slash to the shoulder to suggest the bow. The taller figure got spiky hair, sticking out in all directions like they'd run through wind or chaos. She paused, squinting at it, then carefully added a mark above one eyebrow — a faint suggestion of a scar. It was faint, but she remembered it. A little crescent of white from a childhood fall.

"Who's that?" Sophia asked. "That's you, right? But who's the other one?"

Wendy didn't answer right away. Her eyes stayed on the paper, her thumb brushing along its edge. She pressed too hard with the pencil and had to go back to correct it. Something in her face shifted — not quite a smile, not quite a frown.

"That's my brother," she said finally. The words were quiet, almost fragile.

Sophia blinked. "You had a brother?"

Wendy nodded. "Have. We got separated when... you know. When everything started. It was fast. Too fast. We didn't even say goodbye."

Sophia's gaze dropped to the drawing. Her fingers curled over the edge of the paper, like it was something fragile, something worth holding on to.

"You think he's still out there?"

Wendy's voice steadied. "Yeah. I do."

It wasn't blind hope. Not some naive fantasy that the world would give her what it had taken away. It was something deeper, more rooted. A kind of stubbornness. A thread she refused to let go of, no matter how frayed it got.

Sophia glanced at her again, then down at the golden jacket she'd drawn on Wendy's figure earlier. Slowly, without saying anything, she picked up the yellow pencil again. Her hand hovered above the second figure — the brother — and she began to fill in his coat with the same golden color. A quiet, thoughtful gesture.

They didn't speak for a while after that. The only sounds were the wind outside brushing against the wooden slats, the occasional chirp of a bird far off in the trees, and the faint scratch of pencil on paper. The cottage seemed suspended, held in a soft kind of stillness.

Sophia, her eyes still on the drawing, broke the silence with a voice barely above a whisper.

"What's his name?"

Wendy blinked, her hand still resting beside the paper. She looked down at the little blue figure she had drawn, at the long, wobbly lines that were supposed to be his legs, the uneven arms hanging at his sides. Her fingers twitched slightly. A strange pride bloomed in her chest, mixed with something quieter and harder to name — tenderness, maybe. Or longing.

"Glenn," she said. The name tasted like sunlight after rain. Familiar. Steady. Like the echo of laughter through an old hallway. "His name's Glenn."

Sophia nodded slowly, as though she was storing the name somewhere important, like folding it up in a secret drawer inside her heart. Then, with a sudden burst of curiosity, she tilted her head and asked, "Does he wear a cap? Like, a baseball one?"

Wendy raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, actually. Most of the time. Even when I told him it looked dumb. He said it was lucky, but really, he just liked how it covered his hair when it got all messed up."

Sophia giggled, kicking her heels against the wood. Her legs swung under the table, just slightly above the floor. "Is he tall? Or like... not tall but taller than you?"

Wendy gave a low chuckle. The sound was rough, like a stone turned over in dry grass. "He's taller than me. That's not saying much, though."

Sophia nodded, then asked again, leaning forward now, her face lit with an eager flame. "Does he talk a lot? Like, weird jokes? Kinda awkward but funny?"

"Yeah," Wendy said slowly, her smile caught somewhere between surprise and affection. "He does. He always tried too hard to make people laugh. Got that goofy thing going on. But... it works. Sometimes. When you're tired or angry or scared, and you don't want to laugh — but then you do anyway, and it kind of saves you. He was always good at that."

Sophia looked at her, eyes wide and bright with some knowledge Wendy couldn't yet place. She reached across the table and took Wendy's hand, small fingers curling around calloused knuckles, warmth meeting roughness.

"He's great," she said simply.

Wendy furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

Sophia's voice dropped lower, as if she were sharing a secret with the wind itself. Her tone became careful, almost reverent. "Glenn was with us. Before I got lost. He was in the group. He helped me with my shoelaces once 'cause I was crying. And he always gave me the last rations. And he... he talked about you. All the time."

The words landed like a punch to the ribs. Wendy froze, staring at Sophia like the child had just reached into her chest and touched something sacred. Her ears rang, not from sound, but from the echo of a silence breaking after too long. Glenn. Alive. Not just a hope anymore, not a prayer thrown into the dark, but real — his name spoken by someone who'd seen him, heard his voice, knew the curve of his cap and the awkward way he joked.

"He talked about me?" Wendy said, and it didn't feel like her own voice. It felt like a whisper inside a dream.

Sophia nodded again, gently. "He said he had a sister. Said she was tougher than him, but in a good way. Said you were good with a bow. He said he was gonna find you. He used to sit by the fire and look at the trees and say, 'Wendy'd hate this camp. Too many bugs.' And then he'd laugh."

Wendy felt the wetness gathering in her eyes before she could stop it. The edges of her vision blurred. Her throat tightened. Her right hand curled slightly on the table while her left arm throbbed, forgotten. There was a quiet, burning ache in her chest — not the painful kind, not the kind that tore through muscles or bones. It was something else. Something raw and warm and unbearably alive. Her heart beat like wings behind her ribs, soft and frantic.

She tried to picture him — his face a little rougher, his laugh deeper, maybe. Did he still wear that stupid cap? Did he still carry peanut butter crackers in his bag, the way he always used to? Had he kept looking for her, really looking, all this time?

Sophia squeezed her hand again, grounding her. "You're gonna find him," she said, as though it were the simplest truth in the world. "I know it. He was looking for you, too. So... you'll find each other, right? That's how it works. People who look for each other always do."

Wendy closed her eyes. Just for a moment. She let herself believe it. She let herself imagine the forest opening up not into more shadows and hunger, but into light. Into reunion.

She opened her eyes and looked at Sophia, really looked. This girl, small and impossibly kind — she might be the thread that led Wendy back.

The map she hadn't known she'd needed.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING HAD FELT like Christmas morning, except instead of a child tearing through the house in a frenzy of joy, shrieking and flinging open doors in search of bright-wrapped gifts and sleepy-eyed parents, it was Wendy — sharp, quick, deliberate — shaking Sophia gently from her curled-up place on the couch.

In the gray stillness before dawn, the inside of the cottage felt too large, like the walls had stretched overnight, making space for something they didn't yet understand. Wendy's hands moved quickly: sliding cans into her battered canvas backpack with a practiced touch, nestling them between a few slim water bottles, a crumpled pack of matches, a half-used roll of gauze. She had packed and repacked this bag countless times before — it was an extension of her body now, an evolving map of their survival. Into one of the inner flaps, she slid the folded drawings from the night before, careful not to crease them.

Sophia groaned in protest and rolled away from the light Wendy had just opened to the room. The air smelled faintly of old ash and pine needles, the remnants of firewood and the damp weight of dawn. For a moment, she tried to pretend she could sink back into sleep, deeper than the rustling sounds of packing, deeper than the wooden creak of Wendy moving back and forth like a determined ghost. But it was futile.

One might think that in a world where the sun rose and set without fanfare, without news broadcasts or digital clocks or school bells, a person would lose track of time. That the structure of days would collapse without the rituals that had once tethered them to meaning.

And yet, somehow, Wendy always woke up an hour before the sun, no matter where they were or how exhausted she had been. Her eyes would open, focused and alert, before the birds started their tentative morning song, before the sky changed from ink to navy.

Sophia found it impressive — reluctantly so.

But also deeply, deeply annoying.

Back with the group, she had been allowed to sleep in. She was a kid, after all. Kids didn't need to be useful at all hours. They weren't expected to keep watch or take inventory or drag heavy bags through underbrush. Her job had been simple: stay alive, don't wander off, and let the adults handle the rest. It had been easy, in a way — boring, sometimes, but simple. There was comfort in not needing to make decisions, not needing to think too hard beyond what to play with Carl or whether there might be yet another fish for dinner.

But everything was different now.

Wendy didn't give orders. She didn't hold Sophia's hand like she was breakable. She didn't patronize or coddle.

She expected her to pay attention.

To notice things. To move with purpose.

She spoke in a voice that didn't rise to meet the child in Sophia — it stayed grounded, calm, as though she believed Sophia was capable of understanding more than most people gave her credit for.

It was strange. And kind of scary. But also... exciting.

And deep down, Sophia hoped this new rhythm would do her some good. That it might be the start of something that mattered.

She imagined herself a few weeks from now, helping her mom wash the group's clothes by the creek, scrubbing out stains while adults marveled at her. She imagined holding a knife properly, like Wendy did, slicing apples with precision instead of hacking at them with clumsy fingers. She imagined standing watch, alert and proud, like she'd seen Rick and Shane do — eyes scanning the tree line with purpose.

She wasn't sure what else there was to do besides hunt for food or keep people safe. But she figured she'd get there eventually.

Wendy's final attempt to wake Sophia wasn't as gentle as the others had been. She had whispered, had shaken her shoulder with a slow persistence, had even let the smell of warmed canned beans waft through the air like bait, but the girl remained wrapped in her dreams, buried beneath the musty old quilt that had once belonged to a family long gone.

The couch gave a soft groan as Wendy leaned over, planting one foot to steady herself, the other bracing behind her as she placed both hands on the edge of the cushion and pushed.

Sophia tumbled with a dramatic yelp, her limbs flailing like a startled kitten. She landed with a dull thump, the quilt tangled around her knees, her hair sticking up in wild directions like reeds caught in the wind. For a moment, there was silence — a beat of held breath — and then, laughter.

It was light and airy, unselfconscious in a way that only children could manage. A giggle that cracked open the tension of morning like sunlight piercing through a raincloud. Wendy couldn't help it; a smile tugged at her

It was light and airy, unselfconscious in a way that only children could manage. A giggle that cracked open the tension of morning like sunlight piercing through a raincloud. Wendy couldn't help it; a smile tugged at her mouth, the kind that wasn't forced, the kind that rose from something tender and almost forgotten. But the moment was brief — too brief. She tore the smile off her face like a sticker that wouldn't quite peel clean. Her jaw tightened. Her eyes flickered to the door.

Happiness was dangerous. She had learned that lesson the hard way.

The last time she'd let herself feel something close to joy, something free and unguarded, it had been standing on a rooftop with Jade, watching the moon drift behind a veil of clouds. They had been laughing — truly laughing — because the night was quiet and they had made it through another day. And then everything shattered. Jade's blood on the floor. The echo of Enzo's voice screaming through the chaos. The long, cold road after, paved with exile and grief and the kind of silence that stretched too far and never snapped back.
By the time Sophia rubbed the sleep from her eyes and staggered upright, Wendy was already tightening the straps of her backpack, her boots planted by the door. The girl stretched with the boneless grace of youth, yawning like a cat in a sunbeam, her body still lingering in the warmth of the quilt.

It didn't take long for them to begin the journey.

The plan had formed in Wendy's head the night before, growing like ivy up the framework of everything Sophia had said. She had listened as Sophia explained where she had come from, how she had gotten separated, the details trickling out between sips of water and mouthfuls of beans. It was enough. Enough to triangulate something, to give the ghost of a route form.

The cottage had supplies, and not just random stockpiles from desperate looters, but methodical caches — rows of preserved goods, labeled and stored in cool corners, carefully wrapped utensils and water bottles with faded manufacturer seals. It was a strong indicator that a town was nearby, likely one that had been partially cleared, maybe even fortified. Towns meant resources. Towns meant search parties. And if her hunch was right, it also meant Glenn.

They didn't stray far from the highway. Sophia had mentioned it more than once — the grey ribbon of cracked concrete where her group had camped, the rusted cars with their long-dead batteries, the yellow-striped sign half-covered in ivy. That kind of detail stuck. It meant they hadn't been aimless. It meant they were close.

And if they were close, and if they were smart — and Wendy suspected they were, if Glenn had been among them — they wouldn't venture too deep into the woods. Too risky. Too easy to get turned around, to be picked off by whatever still lurked in the shadows. They would have followed logic. They would have gone toward civilization, toward shelter and tools and a place where they could defend themselves.

The town was their best shot.

It was a weird plan, she admitted that. Built on assumptions, stitched together with threadbare facts and hope that smelled too much like desperation. But it was the only plan they had. If the town was a bust, if they found only empty streets and broken windows and the silence that followed too many bad endings, then they'd double back. They'd return to the highway. Maybe the group had waited. Maybe they'd circled back after searching and found no trace of Sophia and decided to stay put.

The road ahead stretched long and uneven, littered with bramble and the remnants of lives that had long since unraveled. They walked through fields overgrown with goldenrod and dry thistle, their shoes catching on roots and forgotten fences. The trees on either side swayed in a breeze that smelled faintly of decay and old leaves, and the sky remained a pale, unforgiving blue.

Sophia didn't complain much. Wendy had expected more. She was a kid, after all, used to being shielded, protected, let off the hook. But she walked, her stride small but steady, her mouth set in quiet determination. Occasionally she would glance up at Wendy, as if measuring her pace against the older girl's, as if silently asking how far they still had to go.

Wendy adjusted the straps of her backpack, feeling the familiar pull against her shoulders, the soft groan of the material straining under the weight of their gathered supplies. Beside her, Sophia huffed, her small body folding in half as she pressed her palms against her knees, her breath a high, exaggerated whistle through her teeth.

The town — or what passed for one — stretched out below them. If Wendy squinted, she could almost imagine what it had once looked like, bustling and noisy and filled with the mundane lives of people who believed in tomorrows. But now, it was skeletal, a mere suggestion of civilization. A handful of buildings leaned against one another like aging villagers, their roofs caving inward, windows blank-eyed and watchful. The signage that once might have proclaimed hardware stores, cafés, barbershops had been bleached by the sun until the words were little more than ghostly impressions. Only the steeple of a small church broke the horizon, crooked and precarious like a broken finger, pointing at nothing.

Power lines drooped overhead, sagging under their own weight, following the bend of the road that wound like a tired river through the ruins. The pavement was cracked and upturned in places, weeds splitting it apart with the quiet, relentless force of nature reclaiming what people had abandoned.

Sophia wiped her sleeve across her forehead dramatically and sighed, the sound teetering between despair and playfulness.

Wendy didn't blame her. They hadn't exactly marched a marathon, but the stops had been few and far between: once for water, gulped hastily under the brittle shade of a skeletal oak, and once when Sophia spotted a rabbit darting across the roadside brush. She had chased it for a few seconds, hands outstretched, more with the thoughtless energy of a child who thought she might keep it as a pet than any real understanding of survival. Or maybe she had been thinking about food. Wendy wasn't sure. Hunger had a way of changing the way you looked at the world, softening the boundaries between what was cute and what was necessary.

Wendy scanned the buildings again. Going into the town immediately didn't sit right with her. It was too quiet. Too still. A stillness that wasn't natural, even now, when most towns were abandoned to time and weather. Instinct prickled along her spine.

She spotted a pharmacy, a squat brick building with barred windows, its front connected to what looked like a boutique and a handful of other narrow businesses stitched together along the same block. It wasn't far — maybe a hundred yards. Close enough that she could reach it quickly if she needed to, far enough that if something was wrong, she'd have a few precious seconds to react.

"We're not going straight in," Wendy said, her voice low but firm, breaking the thick hush that had settled over them. "First, we get a better view."

Sophia straightened slowly, rubbing her thighs where her jeans had stuck to her skin with sweat. She glanced at Wendy, then the pharmacy, and wrinkled her nose.

"More climbing?" she asked, her tone hovering on the edge of a whine.

Wendy crouched so she was eye-level with Sophia, setting her pack down beside her. "Yup," she said. "We see what's what before we walk into a trap."

Sophia looked skeptical, her mouth puckering into a pout, but she didn't argue. Wendy picked up her pack again, slinging it over her shoulder, and started down the slope, not fast, but not slow either. She knew Sophia would follow. Eventually.

And if she didn't — if she decided to sit down and cry, or complain, or tell Wendy that her legs hurt too much to move — then Wendy would let her. Because the truth was, being a kid didn't mean anything anymore. Age wasn't armor. It wasn't an excuse. In this world, kids learned fast or they didn't survive at all. And if Sophia's group was gone — if all they found were memories and empty spaces — then Sophia would need to know how to keep herself alive.

No one else was going to teach her.

The gravel crunched under Wendy's boots as she crossed the parking lot, shards of broken glass glittering among the weeds like constellations in reverse. At the pharmacy's side, an old steel fire escape clung stubbornly to the brick, its rusted ladder dangling just a few feet too high to reach from the ground.

Wendy scanned it, judging. Then, with a grunt, leapt, and caught the bottom rung, the metal groaning under her weight. She hauled herself up in a fluid motion born of necessity more than strength, fingers scraping against the rust.

Above her, the ladder led to a narrow landing and a battered door that might once have been a fire exit. She didn't bother with it. Instead, she turned and climbed the stairwell, spiraling upward to the roof.

Halfway up, she paused and looked back.

Sophia stood at the base of the ladder, scowling.

"It's too high!" she called, her voice petulant and frustrated. "I can't reach!"

Wendy didn't move to help her. She didn't shout encouragement. She just leaned against the railing, arms crossed, and waited.

"You want to see the town?" she asked, voice level. "You figure it out."

Sophia stamped her foot once, the stomp weak and unsatisfying against the cracked pavement. But then she set her jaw, determination flickering to life in her eyes. She grabbed a plastic milk crate that had been discarded nearby, dragging it over with a series of grunts and muttered curses that Wendy pretended not to hear.

Sophia climbed onto the crate, which wobbled alarmingly under her weight, but she managed to jump just high enough to catch the bottom rung. She dangled there for a second, legs kicking, before pulling herself up with a sound that was halfway between a sob and a growl.

It took longer for her to climb the stairwell. She moved slow, hands white-knuckled on the railings, pausing every few steps to catch her breath and glare upward. Wendy stayed where she was, silent and steady, a fixed point.

When Sophia finally reached her, cheeks flushed and sweaty, she collapsed onto the landing with an exaggerated gasp.

"I'm dying," she moaned, flopping backward.

Wendy crouched beside her, brushing a leaf out of the girl's hair.

"You're not dying," she said simply. "You're learning."

Sophia cracked an eye open and made a face, but she didn't argue.

Wendy gave her a moment, then stood and continued the climb, Sophia dragging herself after her with a series of theatrical groans that gradually faded into determined silence. They reached the roof together, stepping out into the open air.

The view from the top was better, but not kinder.

From up here, Wendy could see how the town sagged inward like a punched lung. The main street was mostly intact, but side alleys had collapsed under the weight of neglect. Storefronts gaped open, doors hanging crookedly, glass glittering like shattered dreams. A few cars sat abandoned in the road, their tires melted to the asphalt from long exposure to the sun.

No walkers.

No people.

Just silence.

Wendy let the landscape sink into her bones, mapping exits and choke points automatically. She noted the back alley that snaked behind the buildings. The grocery store with a half-caved roof. The remnants of a barricade made of shopping carts and broken plywood near the town's center.

Sophia wandered to the edge of the roof, peering over with wide eyes.

"It's so empty," she said, her voice soft, awed, like the way she might speak about an aquarium or a cathedral.

Wendy came to stand beside her, their shadows long and stretched across the gravel.

The morning clung to the edge of the world, the sun barely a rumor behind the low, mottled clouds, and Wendy realized with a small breath of relief that they still had time. Plenty of it, in fact. Time to scavenge. Time to plan. Time, maybe, to rest for a minute, to let the aching in their feet ease and the tightness in their bellies loosen. The town wasn't going anywhere. And neither was the hunger gnawing at the edges of her patience.

She glanced at Sophia, who stood at the edge of the roof, her small body silhouetted against the pale, drowsy light. There was a droop to her shoulders that hadn't been there yesterday, a kind of settled weariness, the sort that adults carried like permanent scars. It made something in Wendy's chest throb.

She dropped her pack with a thud, kicking a flat piece of gravel free to clear a spot, and sat down, motioning Sophia over with a short, firm jerk of her chin. Sophia came willingly enough, folding her legs under her like a tired colt, and Wendy pulled out what supplies she had been hoarding, rationing with an iron will she hadn't even realized she possessed.

From the depths of her bag came a can of beans, dented but intact, a battered water bottle, and two Rice Krispies treats she had hidden deliberately, shoved deep beneath the more "boring" rations. She knew how children's minds worked. Sophia would have begged for the sweets hours ago if she'd seen them, and Wendy hadn't been ready to deal with the inevitable pleading.

Now she laid the offerings between them like a tiny feast, pretending she didn't see the way Sophia's eyes widened, or the little hitch of breath she tried to swallow down.

Sophia picked up one of the treats carefully, almost reverently, and smiled. Not a big smile, not the kind that crinkled the corners of her eyes or sent a ripple of laughter through her body. It was a solemn, trembling thing, and it pierced Wendy straight through.

She knew that smile. She had worn it herself, not long ago.

It was the smile of someone remembering something they'd lost, and trying not to shatter under the weight of it.

Wendy didn't push. She opened the can of beans with a small grunt of effort, poured a little into the plastic lid they were using as a bowl, and handed it to Sophia before taking a sip of water for herself. The girl ate quietly, neatly, manners clinging to her like second skin despite the ruin of the world around her.

For a long while they sat like that, eating slowly, the rooftop warm under their legs, the town spread out before them like a broken map.

When Sophia finally spoke, her voice was small and hesitant, a pebble dropping into a still pond.

"I miss my mom."

The words hung in the air between them, fragile and unsteady.

Wendy looked at her, really looked at her: the too-thin arms, the dust-streaked cheeks, the hair matted at the temples from sweat. A child who had learned how to be quiet, how to follow without question, how to survive without needing to be told.

She didn't say "I'm sorry." She didn't offer empty comforts or platitudes. Instead, she nudged the second Rice Krispies treat toward Sophia with the back of her hand and said, "Tell me about her."

Sophia's face lit up in a soft, mournful way. She peeled the plastic off the treat with careful fingers and held it between both hands like something sacred.

"She's strong," Sophia said, her voice growing steadier with each word. "Way stronger than me... and she makes stew out of almost anything."

Wendy nodded, the ghost of a smile brushing her lips.

"Everyone in our group loves her," Sophia went on, her mouth full of sticky marshmallow, words tumbling out between bites. "Especially the ladies. She just... she knows what to do."

There was pride in her voice, real and bright.

"And there's Carl," Sophia added, more animated now. "He's my age. We play a lot." She trailed off, rambling about their play times together.

Wendy didn't press. Sophia picked at her treat and started talking again, her words spilling out faster, loosening like knots untying themselves.

"There's Lori — she's Carl's mom. She's nice, but she worries a lot. Like... all the time. And Rick, Carl's dad. He's the leader now, I think. He's really serious but he always listens to everybody. Even the kids. And Shane... Shane's like Rick's best friend. He's funny but sometimes he yells."

Sophia frowned briefly, then shrugged, pushing the memory away like a stone too sharp to hold.

"And Dale," she continued. "He's old. He watches over everybody. Like... like a grandpa. Andrea too. She's cool. She's learning about guns. T-Dog, super strong, he's also funny. Glenn..." She smiled a little at Glenn's name, a genuine, warm smile that made Wendy's chest ache. "Glenn's fast. He can get into places and find stuff nobody else can. And Daryl. He's... he's kinda scary. But he's good. He found food for us when nobody else could. He uses a bow just like you. When Glenn mentioned you, he said he'd take you on, that he was better. but I think he's wrong."

Wendy took it all in silently, filing the names away, the descriptions, the tiny portraits painted in a child's broad, unguarded strokes.

And then Sophia's face softened even more, her eyes going distant.

"There's Thomas too," she said, saving the name for last, as if it were something special.

Wendy tilted her head slightly, attentive.

"He's new," Sophia said, twisting the wrapper of her treat between her fingers. "He came with Rick. He's not like the others. He's not a fighter. I never saw him shoot a gun without freezing up. It's... it's kinda sad, the guys get on to him a lot, especially Shane. Just... he's not scary. Not like the others can be when they fight."

Sophia paused, searching for the right words.

"He helps a lot," she said finally. "Mostly the ladies. Carries stuff. Watches the little ones. Fixes things. They all love him, not 'cause he's cool or anything, but 'cause he's kind."

Wendy raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Sounds like a pain in the ass," she said lightly.

Sophia giggled, but shook her head fiercely.

"No," she said, the laughter dying into something softer, more protective. "He's nice. Really nice. He helps even when nobody asks. He never yells. Never gets mad. Not even when stuff goes wrong."

Wendy leaned back on her hands, tilting her head toward the sky, the clouds swirling slow and patient overhead. A kind man who couldn't pull a trigger. In this world, that was a rare thing. Rare and dangerous. Kindness wasn't armor. It was a target.

But she didn't say that.

The roof beneath them radiated a faint, comforting warmth, and Wendy found herself reluctant to move, to shatter the stillness that had settled between them. But the world below, the uncertain sprawl of the broken town, was a reminder that stillness was a luxury they couldn't afford for long.

Still, she needed more. More than names and friendly faces painted through the rose-colored lens of a child's hope. Wendy needed to understand who she was walking toward — who she might have to fight, or flee, or plead with — if this strange little odyssey of theirs succeeded.

So she shifted her weight, leaning a little closer to Sophia without making it obvious, keeping her voice casual, as if it were just curiosity and not strategy curling in the pit of her stomach.

"Rick is the leader?" Wendy asked, pretending to toy with the lid of the bean can, her voice lazy, almost bored. "And Shane? Sounds like they run the show."

Sophia nodded immediately, her small hands drawing invisible patterns in the dust at her feet. She was comfortable now, lulled by food and the warmth of company, her guard lowered.

"Yeah," Sophia said, tapping her finger against her knee thoughtfully. "Rick's the boss. Ever since... well, ever since he found us. Before that it was Shane. But when Rick came, everything kinda changed."

Wendy watched her carefully, her mind cataloging every word, every pause, every flicker across the girl's face. It was instinct, ingrained deep after months of having to guess people's intentions before they were spoken out loud.

"Rick's good," Sophia continued, the words slow, deliberate, as if choosing them from a shelf in her mind. "He's... he's fair. He tries to listen to everybody. Even to Dale and Andrea and the others when they argue. He doesn't yell. Not like Shane sometimes."

Wendy's fingers drummed lightly against her knee, the only sign of the tension coiling inside her. Fair was good. Fair meant she had a chance. But fairness had a sharp edge in this world. Sometimes being fair meant making ugly decisions.

"And Shane?" Wendy asked, careful to keep her tone even, disinterested. "What's he like?"

Sophia wrinkled her nose slightly, a fleeting shadow crossing her features.

"He's... loud," she said. "And he gets mad fast. Sometimes at Rick. Sometimes at other people. He's good too, I guess. He protects people. But he doesn't always... listen."

The words floated in the thin air between them, fragile and telling.

Wendy sat back, letting her eyes drift across the empty sky, pretending she wasn't studying every syllable. In another life — one with sidewalks and grocery stores and teachers grading spelling tests — Shane might have been a high school coach, barking orders across a football field, pushing kids too hard and calling it love. Here, he was a hammer looking for something to smash.

Rick, though. Rick sounded different. A leader by necessity, not desire. The kind of man who might ask for the truth first before drawing blood.

Still. Wendy wasn't naive. Being Glenn's sister wouldn't buy her a free pass. Blood ties were thin protection when suspicion was thicker than air. She knew how survival twisted people. How even the kindest face could hide fear sharp enough to cut.

They'd ask questions, of course. They would pick apart her story, examine the gaps. How had she survived alone? Why hadn't she found her brother sooner? Where had she come from? What had she done to stay alive?

Wendy could almost hear them already, could almost feel their eyes crawling over her like insects, looking for cracks, for lies.

And what would she say? How could she tell them about the school, about Jade's reckless laughter echoing in the halls just hours before she died? About Enzo's furious, broken voice as he cast her out like garbage, as if exile could erase the weight of what they had all lost?

How could she tell them that sometimes surviving meant leaving pieces of yourself behind, and not always the pieces you were willing to part with?

Sophia was still talking, her voice low and musing, drawing shapes in the air with her words.

"Rick and Shane, they're kinda like... like two sides of a coin. Rick thinks a lot. Tries to make plans. Shane just... does stuff. Fast. Sometimes before anyone can stop him."

Wendy nodded slowly, tucking the information away. Rick might listen. Might be reasoned with. But Shane — Shane would be a problem. A short fuse. An unpredictable element.

She glanced at Sophia, who was absently picking at the frayed hem of her shirt, oblivious to the calculations spinning behind Wendy's tired eyes.

It wasn't just about finding Sophia's people anymore. It was about navigating the minefield waiting at the end of the road. About understanding the dangers hidden not just in the walkers that stumbled through the woods, but in the hearts of the living.

Trust would be a currency rarer than ammunition. And Wendy had very little left to trade.

Wendy had seen what fear could do. It turned neighbors into enemies, turned kindness into suspicion, turned safety into a razor-edged lie. And no matter how much Sophia wanted to believe in her fairytale ending, Wendy had to be ready for the reality waiting behind the broken windows and crumbling walls.

If Rick and Shane saw her as a threat, there would be no mercy. She would have to earn her place, or carve it out.

She flexed her fingers, feeling the calluses there, the scars she no longer bothered to count. She was no stranger to fighting for space, for breath, for existence itself.

And she would do it again, if she had to.

The quiet stretched and breathed between them, the way mist sometimes curled over water, soft and almost tender. It lulled them into a strange, fragile peace, but Wendy felt it in her bones — that peace was as fleeting as morning dew, already evaporating under the weight of the day.

When they finished eating, Wendy folded the empty can carefully, crushing it into a flatter, less conspicuous shape before stuffing it deep into her pack. Every movement was deliberate, practiced. No scent left behind. No trail. She wiped her hands on her jeans, adjusted the straps of her backpack, and gave Sophia a slight nod. It was time.

Sophia rose without complaint, brushing crumbs from her lap, her small face set in a grim seriousness that didn't belong to children. Wendy felt the ache of it, the wrongness of seeing such gravity etched into someone so young. But there was no space left for childhood. Not here. Not now.

They descended the side of the building with care, Wendy moving first, scaling the crooked fire escape with the smooth economy of someone who had done it a dozen times before. Sophia followed, clutching the rusted railing so tightly her knuckles blanched white. She clung to Wendy's backpack when they hit the ground, a small, trembling shadow.

The town swallowed them in silence. No birds. No dogs. Only the whisper of the wind through broken window frames and the occasional creak of a sign swinging on its last hinge.

Wendy reached behind her and drew her bow from the sheath she had fashioned across the pack, the string taut with memory and purpose. She nocked an arrow, fingers steady, movements fluid. The bow felt like an extension of her body now, a second spine. A lifeline.

She approached the first building with slow, deliberate steps, Sophia almost glued to her, one hand curled around the strap of her backpack like a lifeline. The boutique's doors hung open, one cracked at the hinge, glass spiderwebbed but mostly intact. Wendy slipped inside first, lowering her body instinctively, the dim interior swallowing them whole.

The smell hit first — dust, mildew, something faintly sour. But no immediate rot. Good. No swarms.

Wendy's boots were soundless against the floor as she advanced. Her bow lifted, tracking each shadow, each shape that seemed too solid. Sophia's breathing was ragged behind her, loud in the hush, but Wendy didn't shush her. Fear was natural.

She caught the first walker near the back, slumped behind a toppled display rack. Its head snapped toward them with a wet, hungry hiss, limbs scrambling against the clutter. Wendy's arrow flew, slicing the air with a clean hum before sinking into the skull with a soft, sickening crack.

The second came out of the fitting rooms, staggering on uneven legs, mouth gaping. Wendy loosed another arrow, and the walker crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, limbs splaying awkwardly.

The silence closed in again.

Wendy lowered her bow but didn't relax. She scanned the shadows twice more before slinging it back across her chest.

Sophia edged closer to the clothing racks, eyes wide. Wendy allowed her a moment of small victories — watching the child root through the garments, tugging a zip-up hoodie from a fallen stack and tying it around her waist with an awkward knot. Practical. Preparing for the night's inevitable chill.

Wendy found herself by a shelf of folded jeans, worn and dusty but still usable. She peeled off her own shirt, sticky and damp from sweat, and changed quickly into a fresh one, stiff with age but blessedly clean. Her jacket went back on, the fabric whispering comfort against her skin, the faded embroidery of her high school archery team worn but still recognizable.

She pressed her palm to it, briefly, a prayer stitched in touch.

Some things you didn't let go of. Some things you carried, even when everything else had fallen away.

A crash shattered the moment.

Wendy's body reacted before her mind caught up, her bow already in her hands, her stance wide and ready. Sophia shrieked behind her, the sound sharp enough to split bone.

The noise had come from the far end of the boutique, somewhere behind a fallen shelving unit. Wendy's eyes cut across the shadows, scanning, dissecting every shape, every whisper of movement.

Nothing immediately visible.

But Sophia's scream told her the real danger was not ahead — it was behind.

Wendy whirled just in time to see it: a walker lurching out from a side room, greasy fingers clawing at the air, jaw snapping in wild, feral hunger. It was almost on Sophia, so close Wendy could see the flecks of rot and blood staining its teeth.

There was no time for hesitation.

Wendy drew and fired in one smooth, desperate motion, the arrow thudding into the walker's forehead with a sound like breaking fruit. It collapsed in a heap at Sophia's feet, its hand still twitching.

Sophia's scream cut off in a ragged gasp as Wendy dropped her bow and pulled her close, arms wrapping around the child like armor.

She could feel Sophia shaking against her, small hands fisting in the fabric of her jacket, sobs hitching silently in her throat.

Wendy bent her head, whispering nothing into Sophia's hair, her hand rubbing slow, grounding circles on the girl's back. It was instinct, ancient and wordless, the way mothers calmed frightened children. The way people anchored each other against the darkness.

"You're okay," she murmured, the words spilling out like water, meant more for herself than for Sophia. "You're okay."

But the tremors didn't stop immediately. Fear had rooted itself deep, and Wendy knew better than to yank it out by force. It had to be eased, coaxed, taught to live alongside survival.

She closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself feel the fragile heartbeat thudding against her chest, letting herself be more than just a weapon, a shield.

The boutique around them seemed to sigh, as if releasing a breath it had been holding.

They moved on.

The town yawned open before them, the road cracked and weed-split, the air heavy with a low, vibrating stillness. Wendy could feel it against her skin, like static before a storm, an unseen pressure gathering along the edges of the buildings, the rooftops, the doorways. It prickled at her, raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Sophia clung tighter now, her small fingers wrapped around the hem of Wendy's jacket, trailing at her heels like a reluctant shadow. Wendy didn't scold her. She understood too well that fear was a language even the young learned fluently here. But she still flicked her hand once, a quick signal: Stay sharp. Stay ready.

The next building crouched at the end of the block—a squat, grimy storefront whose faded blue awning sagged like tired eyes. The paint on the windows was chipped and peeled, but a weathered sign still clung stubbornly to the glass: Pharmacy.

Wendy's lips pressed into a line. Pharmacies were valuable. Which meant they were dangerous.

She tightened her grip on her bow, pulling it close to her chest, and approached in a half-crouch, every step careful, toes striking first, body ready to recoil or spring. She nudged the door with the tip of her boot. It creaked inward, moaning a thin, pitiful note into the stillness.

Inside, the place was a skeleton of itself. Shelves half-toppled. Bins overturned. Bottles shattered underfoot, littering the tile floor with a glitter of broken glass and faded pills. Someone — or many someones — had already picked this place clean, scraping what they could from the bones.

But not everything.

Wendy's sharp eyes caught flashes of color between the debris — labels half-peeled, boxes kicked under shelves, vials wedged into forgotten corners. She stepped inside.

The air smelled wrong. Sour and metallic, like old blood sealed up too long.

Sophia whimpered behind her, but Wendy only raised a hand, a gentle, firm wait.

Then she heard it — the soft, wet shuffling, the low, guttural breathing that meant one thing.

Walkers.

Wendy drew an arrow, nocked it, breathed in deep. She pushed farther into the pharmacy, each step deliberate, her heart slowing to a hard, heavy drum in her ears.

The first walker staggered into view near the back of the store, its lab coat flapping in torn ribbons around its skeletal frame. Its face was a ruin of collapsed flesh and missing jawbone, and it moved in twitchy, convulsive jerks, hands clawing at empty air.

Another lurched behind it, this one heavier, its gut split open and leaking dark, viscous fluid onto the linoleum, leaving a sick trail behind it.

They hadn't heard her yet.

Wendy raised her bow. Her fingers trembled — not from fear, but from the sheer necessity of precision. She exhaled through her nose and released.

The arrow struck the first walker clean through the eye socket, pinning its head back against the empty shelving behind it. It gurgled once and sagged to the floor.

The second, alerted by the motion, stumbled forward with a moaning croak, arms flailing. Wendy was already moving, swift and sure, circling around an overturned display, lining up her shot. She fired, the arrow lodging into the walker's temple with a dull, meaty sound. It dropped heavily, rattling the pill bottles that lay strewn around it.

Silence returned, heavy and watchful.

Wendy didn't move immediately. She let the moment settle, let the tension bleed off like steam from a cooling engine. Only when she was sure nothing else stirred did she lower her bow.

Sophia crept up beside her, small and trembling but wide-eyed with a kind of awe that made Wendy ache somewhere deep in her ribs.

"Stay close," Wendy murmured. Her voice was low, almost reverent, absorbed by the ruined walls.

Together, they began to pick their way through the wreckage.

Wendy crouched by the pharmacy counter, pulling aside the debris with careful hands. She found a cracked plastic bin half-buried under a fallen shelf and pried it free. Inside were bottles, miraculously intact — some half-empty, some expired long ago, but still worth something. Painkillers. Antibiotics. Antihistamines.

She set the bin on the counter, sorting through it methodically.

Sophia watched, her head tilted in curiosity.

"What's that one?" she asked, pointing to a bottle Wendy had just pocketed.

"Amoxicillin," Wendy said quietly. "Fights infection."

Sophia nodded, solemn and serious, absorbing the information like it was gospel.

"And that?"

"Tylenol. For fever. Headaches."

Wendy turned another bottle over in her hands. The label was faded, but she recognized it — Albuterol. An inhaler tucked inside.

She slipped it into her pack.

Sophia leaned closer, peering into the bin.

"What about that one?" she asked, tapping a white bottle with a bright blue cap.

Wendy gave a thin, humorless smile. "Vitamins. Not a priority, but... good if we can spare the weight."

Sophia nodded again, biting her lip. She seemed to understand, in her small, careful way, the arithmetic of survival — the constant balancing of needs, the impossible choices between what you carry and what you leave to rot.

As Wendy worked, her mind ticked over a different calculus.

Sophia's scream earlier — it gnawed at her. Sound traveled far in places like this, carried on empty streets like an invitation. Whatever dead were still holed up in the surrounding buildings might already be stirring, drawn by the scent of blood, the echoes of fear.

They didn't have much time.

She cast a glance at Sophia, who was now crouched by the counter, tracing circles in the dust with her fingertip. Small, distracted motions.

Quickly, she finished gathering what she could. A few more bottles. A pack of gauze. An ancient, crumbling box of bandages.

She slung her pack over one shoulder, bow in hand.

"Come on," she said quietly, brushing Sophia's shoulder.

Sophia looked up at her with those wide, trusting eyes, and for a heartbeat Wendy wanted to promise something — safety, salvation, something beyond just another hour of breathing.

Sophia's small hand slid into hers, warm and trembling, and for a fleeting second, Wendy allowed herself the comfort of it — the simple, human weight of trust.

But then, like a blade tearing through silk, the world outside fractured.

A sudden roar — loud, mechanical, shuddering through the broken streets — split the air wide open. The choked, coughing snarl of a motorbike engine, heavy tires crunching over debris, sending up clouds of grit and dust. It came fast, a savage, uncontrolled sound, like something wild that had caught their scent.

Wendy didn't think. Instinct slammed into her harder than fear.

She yanked Sophia behind the crumbling pharmacy counter, crouching low, pressing the girl down with a firm but gentle hand. Her heart banged against her ribs, furious and desperate, each beat screaming move, hide, survive.

The motor cut out with a final angry cough just outside. Wendy could hear the engine ticking, cooling, settling into silence like a snake after a strike.

Bootsteps, heavy and unhurried, crunched onto the broken sidewalk.

Then another set. Lighter, but no less sure.

Wendy risked a glance over the counter's edge.

Through the broken front window, framed against the dying light, two figures emerged. Men — scraped raw by the world, faces shadowed under the brims of worn caps, rifles slung lazily across their shoulders like extensions of their bodies. Predators. Not the dead kind. The worse kind.

One of them kicked at a fallen trash bin, the crash of metal sharp and echoing.

"You sure you saw somethin' movin' over here?" one drawled, his voice low and careless, dragging over the ruins like oil over water.

"Swear it," the other replied. He spit into the dirt. "Figured it was a deer or somethin'. Could still be worth it. Ain't seen fresh meat in days."

Wendy's gut twisted.

Sophia clung to her jacket now, so tightly Wendy could feel the child's fingernails biting into the fabric. She turned her head just slightly, her mouth a whisper against Sophia's hair.

"Do you know their voices?" she breathed, so low it barely existed.

Sophia shook her head — sharp, panicked, immediate.

Wendy closed her eyes for half a second, shutting out the outside world, letting the information settle deep inside her bones.

Not Sophia's group. Strangers.

And in this world, strangers meant danger.

They couldn't run — not yet. The pharmacy was too open, the windows shattered, no back exit she could see without moving from cover. If they bolted now, the men would see them. They had to wait, to melt into the building like ghosts, hope that the wreckage would swallow them whole.

She pressed a finger to her lips for Sophia. Silent now. Trust me.

The men moved closer, voices growing louder, their boots sending tremors through the ruined floor.

"Could be kids," the first said, a note of nasty excitement threading his words. "Little ones're easy pickings. Scared shitless, usually."

"Or bait," the second muttered. "Wouldn't be the first time some asshole set up a trap."

"Still worth checkin'," the first man insisted, his voice turning sing-song, mock-gentle. "C'mon out, bambi," he called into the broken pharmacy, his words slicing through the heavy air. "Ain't nobody gonna hurt ya. Just wanna talk."

Wendy's skin crawled. She knew that tone — the oily, coaxing tone of someone who had learned how to lie with his teeth.

Sophia pressed her face into Wendy's side, shivering so hard that Wendy could feel it through both their clothes.

One of the men laughed — a short, barking sound. "Bet they're shakin' like leaves. Easy."

The other grunted. "Or armed. You wanna get shot in your ass, be my guest."

Wendy's muscles coiled tighter.

The bow in her hand felt both too light and too heavy at once. She measured the distance — twenty feet, maybe less. A clean shot was possible. But one arrow wouldn't drop both of them. And if she missed...

No.

Not unless she had no choice.

She would stay still. She would wait.

She counted the seconds in her head, each one drawn out like a razor across her nerves.

Outside, the men muttered to each other, scanning the streets with lazy, sweeping glances.

"Could've gone into one o' them other buildings," one said after a moment, his voice slipping into boredom. "Ain't worth the trouble. Nothin' here but rot."

"You sure?"

"Sure as I'm breathin'. Let's move. Ain't wasting daylight."

Wendy had begun to shift her weight, ready to slip out from behind the counter, when she heard it — the low, wet gnashing sound of teeth on wood, the faint, desperate scrape that was unmistakable in a world like this.

A walker, half-shrouded in the shadows of a neighboring building, had staggered toward the broken window of the pharmacy. Its arms, gaunt and skeletal, pawed at the remains of the doorway, mouth working mindlessly, gnawing at the splintered wood as if it believed it could chew its way back into the world of the living.

The two men turned, drawn like moths to the misery.

Instead of alarm, they laughed. That awful sound — sharp, mean, all teeth — carried down the empty street.

"Would ya look at that," one crowed, elbowing the other. "Poor bastard. Probably some office drone back in the day. Tappin' away at a computer. Look at him now — big shot."

The second man snorted. "Bet he was one of them type to kiss the boss's ass. Look at him, still beggin' for scraps."

Their voices dripped with cruelty, a kind of glee that made Wendy's stomach knot.

But cruelty meant distraction.

And distraction meant opportunity.

Wendy touched Sophia's shoulder lightly, a butterfly touch, and jerked her head toward the far corner of the building.

The alley. She remembered it now — narrow, twisted, half-choked with debris, but still passable. An artery away from this disaster if they moved quickly enough.

Keeping low, Wendy led Sophia along the broken aisles, their footsteps silent on the cracked linoleum. Each breath was like breathing in glass, sharp and cautious.

Closer to the front.

Closer to freedom.

The men were still laughing, their backs turned, the walker now clawing pitifully against the frame of the pharmacy.

Wendy tightened her grip on her bow, ready to bolt the moment they reached the door.

She didn't look back.

She should have looked back.

Because just as they crossed the threshold, just as daylight stretched greedy fingers toward them, it came.

Out of nowhere — from the blind spot she hadn't checked — a walker lunged.

It was a flash of rot and ruin, filthy nails and blood-matted hair, the stink of death a living thing. Wendy barely had time to register the movement before it slammed into her, driving her hard into the cracked pavement.

Her bow clattered from her grip, skittering out of reach.

Pain exploded in her ribs, sharp and raw.

She scrambled backward on instinct, trying to twist away from the gaping jaws descending toward her face, the walker's breath hot and rancid against her skin. Her hand scrabbled across the ground, nails clawing at concrete, reaching —

There.

One of her arrows, lying just inches from her fingertips.

She stretched, heart pounding so violently it drowned out everything else.

The walker's teeth snapped shut just above her cheekbone, and she could feel its fetid spit against her skin, feel the raw hunger that didn't know her name, didn't care who she was. It only wanted to consume.

Inches.

Inches.

She screamed through gritted teeth, straining, every muscle in her arm taut and burning.

Then, a crack.

The world fractured.

A gunshot tore through the air like the wrath of some angry god.

The walker shuddered, then collapsed onto her, its dead weight pinning her like a nightmare come to life.

Wendy gagged, twisting violently, finally managing to shove the corpse off her body. Her hands trembled as she snatched her bow from the ground, drawing it up in a single breathless motion, the arrow notched and ready before thought even caught up.

Her eyes snapped to the street.

To the source of the shot.

And there was Sophia.

Not running.

Not safe.

But trapped, a small, trembling figure clutched in the grip of one of the men, a filthy knife pressed against her fragile throat.

"Easy now," the man crooned, smiling with too many teeth, his other hand holding the smoking barrel of a pistol. "Wouldn't want little missy here to get hurt."

Sophia's wide eyes locked onto Wendy's across the wreckage of the world between them, silent, pleading, trusting.

Wendy's hands didn't shake.

But inside, the storm raged.

She had failed.

And now everything balanced on a razor's edge.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

this was so long but i needed to expand more on sophia and wendy's relationship because they're so cute

and i need it to be more devastating when sophia doesn't make it

also, i planned on having wendy and glenn reunite during like the middle of season 3, and wendy was going to be a part of woodbury but now im thinking of a different way to get her to the farm but still losing sophia. i have it all planned out!

i also hated the governor plot like i could not write it to make it interesting at all

plus im too eager to have wendy and thomas interact like i need them to fall in love rn.

did we like the sophia and wendy scenes???

i really like that wendy has like no maternal instincts while thomas is the complete opposite LOL

much love,