All Hope Lost ( TWD FanFiction )

This Is the Beginning

Practice went extremely well, in my eyes at least.

Turns out, Carl was right. My stance was all wrong, but thanks to him and Rick, I think I had an idea on what I was doing and how to do it right.

When we got back to Alexandria, we stopped at the armory to return the weapons we took earlier this morning, and on our way out, we heard yelling from the gates.

So we ran.

Carl ran ahead of me, turning every few seconds to make sure I was still behind him.

During the quick run, I tried my best to remember who was going out today. And I prayed with all of my might that it wasn't Aaron and Eric, but for the life of me I couldn't remember.

Aiden's beat up van came in to view when we turned the corner, and Glenn and Eugene stumbled out from the front of it, quickly running around to open the back doors.

And that's when I knew something bad had happened. I mean, their appearances could tell it all.

Rick continued towards the van but Carl stopped, grabbing me by the waist to keep me from going any closer.

"You don't need to see this, we need to go!"

"Aaron and Eric." I gasped, "Are they in there?"

When I didn't get an answer to my question, I stopped fighting against his grasp, and instead fell in to it, allowing him to hold me tight as I dropped to the ground, dragging him down with me.

Come to think of it, Aaron wouldn't dream of allowing Eric beyond the walls, not with his ankle the way it was.

So, the only one I had to worry about now was Aaron.

But Nicholas hobbled out from the back of the van, Glenn holding him by the neck. And after them, Eugene, who was carrying a limp Tara in his arms.

A small crowd had gathered now and I stared intently at the back of the van, it's doors swinging back and forth, waiting impatiently for anyone else to come out of them.

But no one else came and that terrified me.

Aaron's voice rang out over all of the others and I turned in the direction of it, seeing him and Eric standing together with Mr. and Mrs. Miller, who were staring on at the scene.

I know how dramatic this all sounded, but Aaron and Eric took me in. Instead of walking in that church and telling me about Alexandria and inviting me to come with them, they could have walked away. They could have seen me as this sick and feeble little girl and they could have walked away. But they took a chance on me and I will forever be grateful for them.

It was their job to scout out and return with new members, but their paths crossed mine for a reason.

And I loved them as if they were my own family, and hell, after everything they've done for me, they might as well be just that.

My thrashing around must have been too much for Carl to handle, and I can only imagine how silly we looked laying there on the pavement, so he let me go.

I clambered up and stood tall, all of my worries far gone now that I knew that the two people most important to me were okay.

"He's dead because of you!" Glenn had Nicholas pressed to the rusty wall, his hand tight around his neck. "You coward!"

Glenn threw a punch to the side of Nicholas' face and everyone in the crowd let out a gasp, both of them falling to the pavement.

Nicholas babbled quietly, blood oozing from his now busted lip.

Rick rushed over to Glenn, pulling him up and holding his arms tight against his chest, and Daryl did the same to Nicholas, although he had no fight left in him after the knock down he just got from Glenn.

Nicholas spat angrily at the ground before raising his voice, "And Aiden is dead because of you!"

Another wave of gasps sounded from the crowd, along with a loud cry from Deanna, who was now looking up at her husband.

"Glenn, look at me," Rick let go of his friend and turned his body around, holding him firmly by the shoulders. "Wh-What happened?"

"Noah's gone."

His voice was small but because no one else was saying a word, I could hear it loud and clear.

The tables were turned now.

I didn't know how close Carl was to Noah but I turned to him and wrapped my arms around him anyway, burying my head in his chest and squeezing my arms tight.

*****

After the crowd had cleared, I sulked over to the back of the van, climbing in to it and looking around at the supplies inside.

Aaron climbed in to the driver's seat and Eric in the passenger's, both looking back at me before turning their attention back to the front.

A muted hum sounded as the van switched back to life, and I rocked back and forth as we crawled slowly down the street.

My legs dangled over the back of the van, and the road sped beneath my feet as we continued back to the garages in which we stored our mission cars.

Once there, I crawled further in to the van, wanting to help empty it out and clean up the bloody mess that was there.

I began by picking up the bookbags, tossing them out the back for someone else to put away.

But a small leather journal tumbled out from the last bookbag, and I bent down to retrieve it.

The string holding it shut was lose so I peeled it open and read the few words written on the first page:

'This is the beginning.'

Indeed it was.

Everything was going to change now, I knew it would.

In fact, things changed the second Rick and his group walked through those gates. I wasn't trying to put the blame on anyone, because perhaps, this was a good thing.

Maybe it could be a wake up call to the people here.

We weren't promised a tomorrow before the outbreak and it's silly of us to believe that we are promised one now.

I flipped through the journal and noticed that the rest of it's pages were empty, so I quickly stuffed it in my bookbag.

*****

The overall mood of Alexandria was no longer happy and hopeful.

A community's mood reflects it's leader's, and our leader just lost one of her sons, so you can imagine how everyone else felt.

The morning after, I was up before anyone else in the house.

Echo slept soundlessly beside me as I sat up, retrieving the leather journal from my bedside table, along with the ink pen I found attached to it.

In the journal, I recorded everything. And I started from the very beginning.

I wrote about where I was when the outbreak was announced. I wrote about bumping in to Brian and Claire, and I wrote about how we survived with them for almost a year. I wrote about their deaths and how after that, we came across Negan and the Saviors. I wrote about my experiences there: losing my parents, being tortured and then escaping. I even wrote about the recent events: being saved by Aaron and Eric, coming to Alexandria, and being lucky enough to have a place like this to call home. I wrote about sneaking over the wall with Carl and sneaking in to the clock tower with Ron. I wrote about finding Echo. I wrote about Judith and her yellow sundress. And I wrote about the gun training I had with Rick. And then I wrote about yesterday: how we lost Aiden and Noah, and how Tara was fighting for her life in the infirmary.

I wrote it all.

And whoever found this journal, would have one hell of a time reading it.