T U C K E R × twd

twentyfour

.twentyfour
WELCOME

THE GATES OPENED SLOWLY, revealing the clean streets of Alexandria. There was a loud crash to the side of me, dad and I whipped around to face it with our weapons drawn. Dad shot, a bolt shooting from his crossbow and killing whatever was near the trash can. As I was closer, I stepped forwards and picked up whatever dad had shot.

I showed dad the dead possum before passing it over to him. There was a loud click as the gate had fully opened, revealing a man standing with his gun at his sides. Dad raised the possum up slightly, shaking it.

"We brought dinner" he deadpanned, I chuckled loudly at his joke. Everyone looked towards me, Noah smiling at me, making me stop and turn my head into my shoulder. The man standing at the gate just looked scared as we all paused outside of the community. Aaron and Eric walked in first, greeting the scared man who stood there before turning around and motioning us forwards.

"It's okay, come on in guys" I couldn't tell if he was telling us that it was okay or the man that we weren't dangerous, either way we all walked through the gates.

From first impression Alexandria was huge. It had wide streets the seemed to stretch for a while, with the houses that I could see being large with lots of windows. People walked around the streets, children playing with each other and I frowned when I heard laughter. It was like they didn't know what was happening outside. Behind us the gates shut loudly, the tarp staying open for a bit longer.

Dad and I stood to the far side of the group, staring at Aaron and the other man. I held my gun in front of me, my hockey stick tucked into my belt next to my knife. I stepped up to Noah, gently touching the back of his arm to show him I was there. He looked at me and smiled grimly, it was more of a twitch but it showed me that he was nervous but okay. I nodded and turned back towards Aaron as the other man started to speak.

"Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn over your weapons" he tried to sound authoritative but his voice had a certain shake to it that wasn't fooling anyone, we scared him. "Stay, you hand them over" At his demands, we all adjusted our weapons. I know that I wasn't comfortable handing over anything until I knew more about the community - apparently Rick had the same idea.

"We don't know if we want to stay" he shot back, stepping forwards dangerously.

"It's fine, Nicholas" Aaron quickly butted in, trying to defuse some of the tension that had risen between Rick and the so called Nicholas.

"If we were gonna use them, we would have started already" Rick drawled out, Judith fussing in his arms. Nicholas hesitated, stepping back slightly and adjusting the grip on his own gun. He looked over to Aaron, who just shook his head at him and tried to reason with the man.

"Let them talk to Deanna first" he concluded.

"Who's Deanna?" Abraham shouted from the back of the group, his voice seeming to boom. I glanced back at the man. Other than the odd interaction and obviously him nearly choking me to death, Abraham and I hadn't really spoken much.

"She knows everything you'd want to know about this place" Aaron explained calmly, looking at each of us as if to say that everything was okay. So this Deanna was obviously the leader of the community, and to be honest I didn't know what to expect. From the looks of the place they hadn't had much experience with the outside. "Rick, why don't you start"

Turning around at the sound of a walker, I gulped at the view of the metal walls and gated fence. This place was stressing me the fuck out. Noah seemed to understand my stressing without me saying anything and discreetly took a hand into his. He squeezed it like he always did but didn't say anything, obviously to keep any unwanted attention off us and to help me calm down. I often found it crazy with how much Noah knew about me without me going into detail about my past.