Twisted [Negan Fanfic]

Ch. 1

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

The woman's heavy boots thud against the tile floor of the convenience store. Her hazel eyes skim the bare shelves as she searches for food and supplies. She finds a few rolls of gauze and tosses them into her backpack. She continues to look through the shelves, adding some rubbing alcohol and band-aids to her stockpile. She knocks an item over, causing it to roll off of the shelf and crashing onto the tile floor below. "Shit," she mutters under her breath as she picks the item up, brushing off its dust and turning it over to read its label.

"Lube," she smiles to herself as she places the item back onto the shelf, "somehow I just don't feel the need to add that to my stockpile." She continues sorting through a few more things, finding lighters, a pack of cigarettes, a few bottles of water and a can of green beans. She stuffs everything into her heavy backpack and adjusts her jeans as she rises to her feet. As she rises to her feet she hears a thud in the back of the store. She's quiet as she scans the area, nothing coming into focus.

She quickly pulls the handgun that's tucked in the back of her jeans as she slowly moves towards the direction that she heard the noise in. In the back of the store she finds two doors, one that leads to the bathroom and another that looks to be some sort of storage closet. She pulls on the handle of the bathroom door but the door doesn't budge - it's locked. She turns to the her left where the other door stands. She clutches her gun tighter as she breathes in slowly and carefully. She yanks the door open, pulling her gun directly in front of her. She assumes that a walker would charge towards her but nothing happens. She stares into the storage room, scanning the darkness before she hears a squeak as a rat charges towards her feet. She shrieks, quickly placing her palm over her mouth and nearly crashing into the wall behind her.

She places her palm on her racing chest as she breathes in and out quickly as she attempts to catch her breath. She clutches her eyes shut for a second before turning to see where the rat went. She watches it guide itself along the exterior wall, running towards where the clerk would be if one was there. As she continues to lean against the wall, she hears a deep rumble come from outside of the convenience store. Immediately, she runs to the front of the store and peers outside into the parking lot.

A man hops off of a motorcycle before pushing his long, orange hair behind his ears. A few trucks are parked alongside him as a small group of men forms in the parking lot, around the man from the motorcycle. They talk for a few seconds before the man points in the direction of the stores doors. "Please," the woman whispers to herself, "please don't come in here." As soon as those words escape her mouth, the men begin walking towards the doors.

The woman quickly jumps away from the doors and hides beside a tall lottery booth in the corner. She keeps her gun held in front of her, it's tip pointing towards the stained tile floors. She waits for them as the doors swing open, the bells tied to the doors ringing - a warning that someone is here. The man with the orange hair heavily walks through the center of the store, a line of men following after him. The men search the empty shelves for items as they knock stuff around, deep laughs filling the small space. The woman groans internally as she clutches onto her gun tighter.

As she stands beside the lottery booth, her attention turns to her backpack which is laying around the corner from the shelf she was scavenging. She can see the edge of it as the man with the orange hair walks along the shelf, his eyes scanning the nearly empty space. Crap. "Hey D," one man says as he approaches her backpack, "you see this?" The man bends down, lifting her backpack up with one hand to show who she assumes to be the leader.

She squints closely, watching as "D" approaches the man holding her backpack. She notices that he has severe burns on the left side of his face. Ouch, that had to have hurt. "A pack of cigarettes, some gauze, band-aids....all bullshit," the man mutters before throwing the backpack to the ground and pushing the pack of cigarettes into the pocket of his jacket. Before moving on, her kicks her backpack to the other side of the store. "Someone must have forgotten about it...." he mutters as he walks alongside the edge of the store, walking right in front of her, "unless they're still here."