Telltale's Walking Dead: Last Man Standing

Episode 1, Chapter 5

Something's changed within Cain, Malcolm, Ian, Lilith, and Yurik after they push on past the bodies. It's a newfound determination, a renewal of their conviction to find the members of their community that were ripped away from them due to their failure to protect them. To Cain, it's a burst of righteous anger that wipes away his fatigue, his weariness, his exhaustion. He doesn't feel the soreness in his limbs anymore, he doesn't feel the exhaustion from the dozens of sleepless nights spent at Pyne. All he feels now as he treks on through the road is his sense of duty, his thirst for revenge, and the overwhelming feeling of failure that snaps at his heels.

He sees the set jaws, the eyes flaring with emotion, and the quickened paces of his friends, and Cain can tell that they feel the same. It wasn't that they hadn't been committed before, but seeing the bodies showed them the very real outcome if they failed. It reminded them who they were facing, and that this enemy was more ruthless than any they had faced before. The Delta's intended warning had been a wake up call for them, and a renewal of their purpose. They're coming, and they're coming for blood.

The next thirty minutes of their march passes without incident, and each of the group is left to their thoughts in the silence. Then, a quarter to noon, Cain smells it first. Something is in the air that shouldn't be, a faint scent that he can't yet place. After a few minutes, though, he sees the thin pillar of smoke rising above the treeline a little bit to their left, and he knows that something else in the forest has burned recently. A campfire, another settlement, or perhaps they've finally found the Delta's base. Cain motions to the others to stay silent and stay alert, and with his sidearm drawn, he leads the five off the road and back into the underbrush.

The stench of smoke fills Cain's nose for the second time this week, and he tries not to think about what happened the last time he smelled it. He knows they're getting close to whatever's causing it, whatever fire lies in the forest, but he remains somehow calm. He's... hopeful, he realizes. He's hopeful that this might be the break they need, the clue they're searching for to find their people. Perhaps now, he thinks as he catches a glimpse of something moving through the trees, their luck will finally change.

There's a small, circular clearing in the woods ahead, barely more than a few yards in each direction, and that's where the smoke is coming from. Cain holds up a hand and stops before they emerge from the treeline, and he stays low behind the cover of the bushes and the trees. He hears no sounds behind him, and when he turns, he sees that Lilith and Yurik have halted a few feet from his left and Ian and Malcolm lie to his right. They moved without sound and without alerting his well trained ears, which isn't something easy to do. To anyone who might be in the clearing, detecting them would have been impossible. Reassured by the friends behind him whose weapons are drawn and ready, Cain takes a cautious step out of the woods.

His eyes dart around the area, taking in each detail as quickly as possible. A green tent stands in the middle of the clearing, and although it might once have provided shelter to a struggling survivor, it's now torn and trampled beyond repair. Two bodies lie crumpled around it, and judging by the looks of them, Cain figures they were walkers only a short time ago. The source of the smoke lies on the opposite edge of the clearing, and it takes Cain a moment to figure out what it is. Then it clicks, and the young man realizes he's looking at a pile of now-charred bodies that are covered by the burned remains of another tent. Cain's looking at a funeral pyre.

"You want to sit down, or are you just going to stand there all day?"

Cain whirls as a man's voice, soft and unthreatening, breaks the silence of the clearing. Almost instantly Lilith, Yurik, Malcolm, and Ian burst out into the clearing on either side of Cain, weapons pointed at the man that just recently emerged from the tent. Cain braces himself, ready for trouble, but then is surprised when the man's face lights up in a smile. His close cut hair, dark skin, tattered clothes, and dazzling grin add together to make a very unexpected sight out here.