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NIGHT CAME.

Most were asleep. A few of them tried to muffle their crying. Seraphina laid near the doors, trying to keep watch. She looked up at the ceiling, listening to the wind blowing and some rain slip in through the cracks. She tried sleeping but grew restless as she thought about how they were gonna eat tomorrow. There was nothing.

Nothing. No water. No food. They couldn't stay in the barn forever. She knew what she needed to do.

Sitting up quietly, she picked up her weapons and grabbed a few sacks that was found around the barn. Turning back, she sighed and looked over at her family. Her new family, and said a small prayer before turning.

"Where are you going?" a quiet voice asked. She stopped in her tracks, mentally cursing herself for not checking if anyone near her was awake.

She turned back around and it was Glenn waiting for an answer. She sent a nervous smile before adjusting her sheath.

"Just gonna check some few things out. See if i can scrounge up anything." she replied softly. His eyebrows furrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest.

"You're leaving us, aren't you?"

Her eyes widened. "God, no. Why would you think that?" she asked incredulously. He looked down and shrugged in defense.

"Just the way things are going now. We all know, deep down, that you and your brother can hunt the whole damn population of deer in like a month by yourselves." he replied, trying to joke. She sighed and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I would never leave you guys. You guys are my family." When he said nothing she squeezed his shoulder. "There's nothing i wouldn't do for you." she said. She dropped her hand and held up the sacks in her other hand. "I'm gonna head south this road. There's stores. We can't leave here tomorrow without food. I won't allow it."

He took a step forward. "Well, then let me come with you." Seraphina shook her head softly and nudged towards Maggie, who was sleeping after crying for hours.

"You gotta take care of Maggie. And keep watch out for Daryl. Don't tell him where i went, he'll try to stop me." Glenn started to open his mouth in protest, but she cut him off.  "Please, Glenn. I'm trusting you. I won't be back until i know for sure that i have enough to feed all of us for days."

"What if you're not back by tomorrow?" he asked, his voice laced in worry. She stepped back and smiled. Digging in her backpack, she found a set of walkie talkies. Daryl and her used it when they were hunting in wide areas. She handed him one. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"Do you really have to do this? I mean, we could all go tomorrow as a group." he argued quietly.

"The place i'm going to check out is in opposite direction of where we're supposed to be heading." Glenn sighed again. She patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Glenn. Afraid that i can't do it?" she teased.

"Shut up." he countered back. She laughed before hugging him and quickly pulling away.

"Channel 40. That's how we'll communicate."

"Don't die."

She winked. "Nobody can kill me but me."

* * *

It was well over midnight and still pouring as hard as it was earlier. Seraphina had stayed in the outskirts of the woods but still enough for her to be almost invisible. Moving quickly and having a sixth sense for direction made her trip cut in half.

She still had two miles left. No biggie. She'd walk a thousand if it meant that she could help her group stay alive.

Finally, after half an hour walking again, she had found the small town. If she could even call it that. She saw cars blocking the entry point. Some flipped, some empty, while some had a walker or two trapped inside of them. She slowly smiled to herself in triumph. She could do this.

After maneuvering around the blockade of cars, it was time to face the next challenge. The walkers. There was many in the streets. Too many to take on her own. She contemplated taking down a walker and using its guts to disguise herself, but the rain would wash it off in a few seconds and she would be as good as dead.

Looking over to her left, she saw a small store overlooking the woods she came from. It was barricaded from the front, so she would have to enter from the back. She scanned the area and the store didn't have that many walkers surrounding it like the rest of the town. She could take them. Raising her machete, she crouched walked over to them, slicing off the head of the walker nearest her. She caught the body before it could land with a hard thud, laying it gently on the floor.

Taking a deep breath, she continued to on and stabbed another walker in the head. There were six left. She decided to create a distraction to not waste any more time. Grabbing one of the heads, she flung it as far as she could to a car that had a walker trapped in it a few yards away. She made sure the throw wasn't that hard to trigger the alarm, so that the rest of the herd wouldn't come her way. Quickly ducking behind the car behind her, she watched as the walkers slowly turn and scatter towards the car, and wasted no time running and dashing into the store. Closing the door softly, in case in walkers were inside, she then caught her breath when she saw the condition of the store.

It looked untouched. Many, many aisles of food, water, even cheap clothing were stacked neatly together. She was so lucky to find this store the way she did. Her stomach did little flips of excitement. Staying on task, she held out the top of her machete and banged it against one of the metal shelves. A snarl could be heard at the very front of the store, but she saw no walker. Creeping to where the noise was coming, she saw a walker sitting on the floor, trapped under a very heavy looking cash register, money sprawled all over them. She scoffed and slapped its arm away as it reached out to her to bite her arm.

She had to laugh. "Was it worth it? The money?" she asked it, and it growled in response. She shook her head in disbelief and impaled her machete in its head.

Going back to the aisle of canned food, she went to work and stuffed as many cans as she could in the sacks. Eyeing a can of sliced peaches, she checked the expiration date. It wouldn't even expire till the next year.

"Thank God for preservatives." she muttered before dropping it into the sack. She didn't even bother to check the dairy section and moved to search for water. Thinking she could hot wire a car then drive back to her group, she didn't care about the weight or quantity of the items.

Everything was going so smoothly, she even had opened one of the bottles of water and downed it since there were many more to spare. Eyeing a few stack of comic books on a rack, she flipped through them and shrugged, taking all of them and stuffing it in with the rest of the supplies. Grabbing t-shirts from the back, she was considered done and was about to leave when she saw baby products.

She quickly opened a new sack and filled as much diapers, wipes, rash creams, baby bottles and formula as she possibly could. Even grabbed a little chew toy for old times sake. Judith's teething already. Tying together the sacks, she dragged them to the entrance before opening the door.

A car speeded past the store and guns were a blazing. She quickly ducked down and ran for cover as bullets zipped by her carelessly. Hearing people whooping loudly and laughing as if they had no care for the world, she cringed as she thought on how she was going to escape now. The people haven't even paid attention to anything else other than killing the walkers like it was some sort of a sick game, hearing them count off points they were gaining for each kill. They reminded her of Merle.

Crazy son of a bitch.

As long as she was away from the front and the windows, she'd be fine. Hot wiring a car was now out of her reach. She opened the back door softly, hearing them wasting bullets like it was nothing, not even, made her sick. Doing a quick double take, she quickly ran out and grabbed a strong looking branch from the outskirts of the woods. Going back to the sacks, she slid to her knees and started double knotting the stacks onto the ends of the branch.

"Whew, ain't this herd a tough crowd!" a man had yelled happily. She cringed as she heard how close his voice was. He could be right outside in the front. Looking out from the shelves to take a peek, she was right, his silhouette right in front of the door, looming over the painted glass.

"Quit your yappin and keep shooting, boy! I'm ahead by 60 points!" an older sounding voice boomed. Four laughters were heard. Four men. Could she take them?

She didn't want to, she wanted to avoid them at all costs.

Putting the branch over her shoulders, she lifted it up but fell abruptly to the floor. She grimaced as all the cans clattered to create a loud clunk. It was too heavy.

No,no,no. She couldn't leave the supplies, they were too valuable, and the group was too desperate. She should've taken Glenn on that offer. Cursing silently, she hated her self righteousness sometimes.

She felt like she had to prove that she was not useless. The thing was, no one doubted that she wasn't. She was too priceless, her and her brother; they were the backbone of the group. Though, they would never admit it. Both equally felt as if they were expendable. It was hard trying to convince them otherwise with the way they grew up. With Merle. With their father.

Instead of hearing four guns go off, she heard three and she stopped struggling as she tried to listen on what they were saying over the loud groans of the dead, and the bullets firing in the air.

"Y'all heard that?" a man asked, she saw a another silhouette come next to the other guy and they carefully tried to open the front door.

"Don't worry about us, pricks. Yeah go on, we're just fine!" a new voice bellowed. She closed her eyes tightly as they shut the new voice up.

"Anyone in the store? Come on out and we just might not kill you!" a man shouted. She heard the madness in his voice. She cringed as she closed her eyes again in defeat. She couldn't leave these supplies. She just couldn't. Getting up quickly, she started to open the door and go over to drag the bags out.

"It's locked out front, man."

"Well go through the back!" the older voice from before had scolded them. She stopped dragging the bags and silently cursed. The bullets and snarls were so loud, she felt as if her ears would bleed. The men and their taunting voices were no help.

"You're outta luck! Whoever is in there, we coming for you!" a voice shouted, a throaty laughter cutting their sentence. She left the bags, putting them in the corner before looking for a place to hide. She was left with going under the counter where the money hungry walker was. She had no choice. Hearing the footsteps of two of the men, she winced at every step and tried to grab the walker to position him over her, but only received half an arm. She stopped moving as soon as she heard the back door fling wide open, hearing the footsteps slowly come into the store.

"Wherever you're trying to hide, we're gonna come find you!" one of them bellowed as they knocked a couple of objects off the shelves. The other one laughed and soon spotted the sacks.

"Look ere', Bill. They'd already done a shopping spree. Well shucks, we came in and ruined it for ya, didn't we?" the man called out, and soon kicked one over. She closed her eyes tightly, and buried herself deeper into the corner. "Why don't you come show yourselves and get em, then? Huh?" and he kicked them again. Their laughters, their horrible, manic laughters, almost made her want to bash her head in. Hearing footsteps walk around the store she grabbed her machete, preparing herself to strike. She already knew how it was going to end.

Bloody. It was kill or be killed.

Bill, she guessed, suddenly appeared in front of the cashier walker, and she almost jumped in fright. Though he didn't notice her, since she was blended in the dark corner. He laughed as he saw the walker, slinging his gun over his head and putting it on the counter.

"That's a hell of a way to go, champ!" he laughed as he slapped its face lightly and crouched down to inspect it more.

Why don't you just leave?

He started pressing the buttons of the cashier, presumably trying to get the money. For what? She had her chance now that he was distracted. To strike him and get his gun. Seraphina softly clanged the blade at the edge of the counter. Bill stiffened. Slowly turning to his left, he saw the cold, hard eyes staring back at him. Before he could process what was happening and/or scream, the machete plunged into the side of his head.

His body fell forward, on top of the walker, and the cashier clanged open from the weight and impact. She holstered her melee onto her thigh, and crouched up, grabbing his assault rifle.

"Aye, Billy!" the other man's voice called out from afar. She needed to shut him up. "Where'd you go man?" A few aisles away, she could see the top of his bald head peaking over from the shelves. The shooting outside and snarls still kept on going, it sounded like it was on a loop. Surely they had to have run out of ammo, right?

She sneaked her way over to the man, careful of any fallen goods on the floor. Standing behind him, she made her presence known by kicking a can of expired beans on the floor. The man chuckled, thinking it was his friend behind him. "Dude, you have no idea what i just found." He started to turn around, holing up a porn magazine and stopped shortly before seeing the women holding the gun, ready to shoot. "Hey!-"

Two bullets later, his body loudly thudded onto the floor. She huffed and slung the gun over her soldier, walking over to him to get his ammo. Seraphina knew she would need it.

"Eh, what's going on in there?" the older voice called out from outside. She stiffened. She now had to face the other men and the walkers. Running over to the supplies, it must've been the adrenaline, because she lifted the branch up and was about to head out the door when bullets rang out and shot at the store, completely shattering the glass that was shot at before. A bullet grazed her arm and she hissed in pain but continued to run out of the store and started up the hill. She almost forgot that it was pouring.

There was walker bodies everywhere. She didn't know that there could be so many at once. Now, they weren't going down as fast as they were before since the older man had turned his attention to shooting the store. A flashlight shone over her body and the older man called out, spotting her. Many bullets soon showered around her, barely missing her and hitting tree barks, as she started to dash into the woods.

"Get back here!"

Of course she ignored him. The new voice from earlier stopped shooting at the now almost nonexistent herd, and turned his attention to the woman running away. Only a dozen walkers or so remained. She kept running even when she heard a car engine roar loudly, her shoulders and back screaming at the weight of the tree branch and supplies. With it and plus the downpour of the rain, she wasn't running as fast as she would like, but she couldn't do anything about it now. She would couldn't leave the supplies. She wouldn't.

Climbing over a fallen tree, she crouched down and hid from the men who sought out to have her head. The reason? She had no fucking clue. Humans were the true monsters of the apocalypse. The dead were just planted on Earth as a test to show peoples true colors.

She heard the car drive on the outskirts of the woods, searching for her, and she buried herself deeper into the ground. She tasted the metallic taste of blood caused by the branches clawing at her face when she was running. Setting down the sacks, she grabbed the rifle that she took from Bill and checked the magazine. Half full. She also had some from the other loudmouth she shot. So annoying.

She soon heard the engine cut off and footsteps running into the woods.

"Come on, girl! Let's have ourselves a lil POW WOW!" the new voice shouted as she heard his voice come nearer. She couldn't pin point exactly where he was coming from and that terrified her. Gripping the gun tightly, Seraphina pursed her lips, trying to think of a way to get out of this situation.

Five feet away from her, she heard a twig snap and she stiffened.

"You have no where to go, girl!" the voice echoed, right above her. She could shoot him right there but then she'd have to deal with the other one, and he'd most likely just empty his entire clip on her. She had to take them down one by one using her stealth.

She needed to get them apart.

Hearing another set of footsteps, she pressed herself lower, as low as she could, into the soft, wet ground.

"Jonah, she ain't here. Should we split up?" the new voice asked. He sounded definitely younger than the other one. The old one was probably his mentor. Disgusting.

Please split up, Seraphina thought. Please split up so i can kill you and go.

"These grounds are difficult, kid. Be careful." Jonah said. Oh how lovely. Who knew that the man could be caring.

Prick.

Hearing a pair of footsteps retreat away from her, her confidence started to come back. She stiffened when she hear Jonah chuckle under his breath.

"Girl, you have no where to run. We're gonna make you pay a shit ton. You're gonna wish you were dead." He called out the last part, and thunder boomed throughout the sky. How fitting. He started to walk around the fallen tree and her heart dropped. Nononononono.

He turned westward and she almost gleamed with glee. He kept walking then stopped, looking around from side to side. She had a good view of his back as he stood 20 feet in front of her. Should she risk it?

Should she?

What if it goes wrong?

I can't afford mistakes.

Fuck it.

Slowly standing up, she winced, her arm throbbing as she picked the assault rifle. Clicking the magazine in place, Jonah tensed and quickly turned around, and was met with the brunette smirking.

"You bitch!-" he yelled and was about to raise his gun when she shot him multiple times. She kept going even when he was obviously done with, bullet casings falling to the ground as she wasted the rest of the clip on him. His body thudded onto the wet soil, and she took out her machete and stalked over him and roughly impaled the blade through his head.

All of a sudden, loud footsteps were heard behind her.

"NO!" the younger man cried and she quickly turned around and immediately felt pain as a bullet entered her left thigh.

She screamed in pain and fell onto her knees, holding her thigh as the man ran up to her, ready to shoot her again but was met with a click. He shouted in anger and threw the gun to the side and pulled out his knife.

"We really gonna do this?" she rasped out, tightly gripping her leg as she chuckled dryly at him. He didn't like her response and he raised his knife to impale her in the head, but she was quick enough to grab her machete from her holster.

Sparks flew as both blades collided against each other. She head butted him on his groin and he fell back, buying her some time. She groaned as she felt blood seep out, however the adrenaline took over and she stood up, and walked over to him rolling over on his stomach. The rain weighed her down and she almost fell down again.

She clenched her jaw in anger and kicked him with her right leg, and watched as he doubled over in pain. He quickly regained his bearings and he slashed his knife in her direction and was satisfied when he heard her grunt in pain.

Seraphina fell back-first to the ground, her shin bleeding. She cradled her leg, her teeth clenched as she watched him slowly get up as he gripped his knife, ready to strike again. Thunder and lighting erupted throughout the sky and for the first time that night, she felt fear.

"You gon' pay a shit ton for this." he seethed, stepping on her shin and jolts of pain shot up her leg. Her head shot back as she tried to hold back her scream, and tried to kick him with her only good leg but he caught it before it could make contact. She was really starting to get annoyed. She glared at him.

"Bite me." she spat, spitting out blood from her mouth, as she continued to struggle under his weight.

Lighting struck again but this time it was a golden color. It's struck the tree a few feet away from them and both jolted in surprise as the sudden act of Mother Nature. He let go of her leg, now distracted at the sudden fire ignited, and her lower body thudded. Despite the agonizing pain, she wasted no time trying to get up.

She crawled backwards to the supplies, leaning back on the bark as she looked down and groaned at what she saw. Her left leg was trembling and she closed her eyes as she dropped her hand and felt the cold medal of the rifle. She glanced up at the man, and he stared at the tree, as if he was in a trance. Even from where she was, she could see as if his face was empty, just a body staring into the flames.

Seraphina furrowed her brows. What the hell is he doing?, she thought.

She looked through the sacks and found the extra mags she threw in there while she was on the run. After changing the clip, she aimed the rifle at the man, who stood in the same spot.

She whistled. "Hey, asshole!" she called out, yet he didn't move. She looked the the scope and watched as the man continued to look at the fire. The rain seemed to have no effect on it, and it didn't seem to be spreading. As soon as she was about to pull the trigger, something in the sky flickered.

Looking up, she saw dark clouds circling, forming a large O and she tilted her head in confusion. Lighting erupted and struck 5 feet away from her. She jolted backwards as yelped, her skin digging into the bark as she glanced up at the sky. The circle of clouds swirled around in unison, yet stayed in the same spot.

The same spot she was in.

What the hell-

Another struck of lighting formed and before she could finish her thought, her body felt as if it was on fire. She couldn't scream, she couldn't do anything as electricity pulsed through her body.

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sis went ⚡️🍗

ANYWAYS:

this was sosososossoodsood bad but I've been stalling on this stupid chapter for weeks so-