Tomorrow Never Dies

Chapter 1

In the three months since Eithan died I have learned a lot by being alone. I figured out that the virus has no effect on animals, making it easier to hunt. I became very good at that too. I did target practice every day until I finally perfected my skills. I have since got rid of the guns, with the exception of two. I don't need the extra weight and I don't ever use them, so I only keep them with me for emergencies. Being alone makes you more aware of your surroundings. Even though it was nice to have someone to watch your back, I preferred it this way- being alone. Don't get me wrong, I do miss Eithan, it's just better this way. There's no emotions attached and you only have to worry about yourself and if you die, no one will ever know or have to carry around the guilt and heartache. Like I had to. But I don't anymore. The first week after Eithan died hurt like hell because I missed him so much. But then I got used to being alone. And I liked it. Being alone was what I was always good at.

I was in the woods trying to catch some rabbits for dinner when I heard shuffling nearby. I quickly lifted my bow, drawing back the arrow. It's just a walker. I sling my bow over my shoulder and take out my bowie knife. I look up to see five more walkers ahead, meaning there must be more heading my way. So I decide to just leave and when I exit the woods I get back onto the path of a long road. I look behind me and in the distance I can see a herd of walkers. Good thing I left when I did or I would be dead. I take out my binoculars to see if they are moving in the opposite direction of me. I sigh in relief to find that they are, not wanting to change the path I was on. I knew there was a neighborhood nearby and since I didn't catch anything I needed to find some food.

And then I heard a gunshot in the distance that sounded like it came from up ahead near my destination. Great. I look through my binoculars once more behind me. Shit. The walkers changed course, heading towards the sound of the gunshot. Towards my path. Because the walkers are brain dead and walk around aimlessly, they can only be attracted by sound, light, and of course, the living. I begin to run so I can get a head start on them. I didn't want to change my path because I didn't want to go somewhere unknown, and I have been scoping this place out for weeks. And I needed to find food. They're relatively slow, but when there is a herd of walkers, and they're all going towards the same sound, they all follow each other and won't change course unless they're attracted to something else. Like a gunshot.

I run for about 30 minutes before I reach the neighborhood. I begin looking through houses, checking if they're clear of walkers before I look for supplies. The first two houses were empty. People must have already gone through them. When I get to the third house I see that the door is not shut all the way. I put my ear to the door and I hear the all too familiar groans of walkers. I grab my bow and prepare to shoot. I slowly push the door open with my foot, not wanting to make noise. I can see them from where I'm standing, there is three of them on the second level of the house all crowded and clawing at the door closest to the stairs. They haven't noticed me yet so I aim and let the arrow fly right through the first one's head and he falls over. The second one I shoot topples down the stairs making the third one notice my presence. She's about to fall down the steps when I shoot her and she falls backward.

As I walk up the stairs I pull my arrow out of the first walker's head. I get to the top of the steps and take out the other two arrows and put the three of them back in my quiver. And I look curiously to my left at the door they were clawing at. I hear muffled noises behind it as I grab the doorknob... It's locked? I take the bobby pin that's holding my hair back and pick the lock. I take another arrow from my quiver and once again draw it back, ready to shoot. I take a deep breath before kicking the door open.

It was no walker. In front of me, sitting in on the floor was a boy with his head in his hands. He quickly looked up at me, obviously startled as he jumped up from where he was sat. I observe his disheveled blonde hair and his ocean blue eyes. He looks not too much older than me. Maybe a year or two. He puts his hands in the air at the realization that he has a weapon pointed at his face.

That's when I notice his puffy red eyes. He was crying before I barged in.

"I'm unarmed." he manages to croak.

"I don't know that." I say still pointing the arrow at his head.

"That's my gun there" he motions behind me toward the gun laying in the hallway. "I dropped it so I had no other way to defend myself. Why else would I be in here?" To have a good cry? I think to myself. Hell, I wouldn't blame you.

"Why are you here?" I ask, not moving my bow.

"My group ditched me when we got attacked and I was left behind." He explains. "I-I tried to shoot 'em but they just kept coming at me and then I dropped my gun an-"

"So you were the idiot who shot the gun and made the herd change its course?" I interrupted, lowering my bow to my side.

He looked at me in confusion.

"Do you even have any Idea how to even kill them?" I ask referring to the walkers, my mind registering what he said before about when he tried to shoot them.

He furrows his eyebrows and looks at the floor, confirming my thoughts. This kid has no idea what he is doing. How is he even still alive? It aggravates me for a moment. How is this clueless kid who is running scared still alive, when Eithan, the one who taught me everything I knew and worked so hard to protect me, was dead. But I soon only feel sorry for the kid. It wasn't his fault he didn't have someone like Eithan to teach him to survive.

I can't just let this kid die.

"Well come on, thanks to your little gunshot incident, there's a herd of walkers heading in our direction. We have to move now unless you want to be dead. Now help me look for some food before we go and be quick about it." I say to him and he looks up at me as I sling my bow over my shoulder.

"You're going to let me come with you?" he asks.

"If you don't want to die I suggest you do. You have a lot to learn" I say as I turn and begin to walk out of the doorway. I turn to see him still standing there almost in disbelief. "Well are you coming or not?"

He snaps out of it and looks up at me. "Yeah, sorry." And he follows after me.

As we ascend down the stairs he looks at the walkers I killed.

"Did you take them out yourself?" he asks surprised.

"Yeah?" I answer simply, shrugging my shoulders.

We're quick to gather up some food and shove it into bags and we head out of the house. I grab my binoculars out of my backpack to see if the walkers were catching up to us. They were, and so it was a good thing I ran earlier because it saved us some time to get away. So we begin to head in a different direction than the herd's path.

"Hey, so um...what's your name?" The blue eyed boy asks hesitantly, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

"It's (y/n)." I sigh. All I can think of is not getting attached to this kid, so I want to share as little information with him as possible. I don't even want to be friends with him. Hopefully we'll just end up hating each other so I can teach him to survive and he can be on his merry way and I can go back to being by myself. But god, he is attractive. The way he bites his lip and plays with his lip ring when he's nervous, and the cute dimples in his cheek almost makes me- NO. No he's not attractive, he's not cute. He's just some innocent kid I saved from being eaten alive and now I'm going to help him. Because that's the right thing to do. Eithan did the same for me.

I snap back to reality when I realize I haven't asked for his name.

"What's yours?" I ask, trying not to sound too interested.

"It's Luke" he replies, mimicking my response to when he asked me previously.

The rest of the walk was silent as we made our way out of the path of the walkers.

In that moment I remember Eithan's last words to me before he died. 'You have to survive. Your still here for a reason and you have to figure out what it is'

And just then, I hear a voice in my head.

What if it's him?

What? What do you mean?

What if Luke is the reason?