╳┊ A HUNTER IS BORN .

Rory wasn’t wrong. She heard the shuffling from he other end of the aisle, recognizing the rotting smell and the noise it made with its teeth — that disgusting, skin crawling clattering. But the woman with her turned around in a second and Rory watched as the arrow buried itself in the walker — she had never really seen a bow and arrow in action before; the reaction that it elicited from the teen was less than proper. She choked out a laugh, amused and impressed all together, with a smile as wide as her eyes. “Holy shit. That was — that was so fucking cool, I’m so — how’d you do that? Like - with that thing? And no - it’s okay, really. I can - I can live with what I got.” Her excitement had slowly drained away the fear that was once there, relaxing in her stance. She wanted to speak more, ask more questions but Brooke — that was her name, and Rory had never met a Brooke before — was more adamant on moving and surviving. This grocery store wasn’t a safe place, well the safest place to be in and they needed to move. Rory didn’t need to be told once or twice, she knew what to do.

She stuck the box of pills inside her backpack and pulled out her knife, it would be much better to get blood on her ( just washed! ) clothes than waste more bullets and wake up the rest of the horde ( but do they even sleep? maybe they just wander around all the time… aimlessly waiting for something to eat or get shot at ). However, more surprises kept coming at her and when Brooke offered ammo, Rory’s look of surprise was as clear as day. “I — uh,” Stuttering yet again ( she never usually did this; why is she like this? ), hands gingerly taking them. “Thank you — a lot, like for real. I’ve been trying to look for some more but I couldn’t get any without getting into a fight and —” Stopping short of her sentence, she forced a friendly smile and jerked her head to where she’d come from. “Do you wanna go, though? Before — before anymore come in? I’ve got a place to stay for the week, you can come with me? Especially since you got no group and all, I know it’s not really safe to be by yourself out there.”

   brooke hadn’t expected rory to be as surprised  by her bow skills as she was.    it almost felt good to be seen so highly by  the other survivor, never before  in     her life had she been viewed as something  special, something amazing. they    usually labelled her ‘the freak with the bow’,  before  the  apocalypse,  people     just couldn’t understand her way of life,  her  need  to  survive.  &  then  there     rory was, admiring her every being. it felt good. for a  second,  there’s  a  brief     smile lingering on brooke’s lips. for once, she’s actually happy. it soon passes    as she realises they don’t have  a  lot  of  time  before  more  walkers  passed     through. she didn’t want to waste arrows  &  have  to  leave  them  behind  as     they ran away from large quantities of them. eyes wandered back  to  rory  as     she quickly decided what she wanted to do. she had a place, somewhere she     could hide away in & be reasonably safe. her & that  alfie  kid  had  cleaned  it     out before she decided it  would  be  her  new  home.  thinking  carefully,  she     considered whether or not it would be a good idea to take the  other  survivor     back with her. 

   ❝ my dad taught me how to use it... the bow. it’s not that hard, just takes a lot    of practice.  ❞

   there’s a brief pause & a deep breath before she speaks again.

   ❝ i have a place up in the forest, near the lake. it’s a lake house, it’s pretty safe,    you could join me there if you want.  it  might  be  better  than  your  substitute    place.   ❞

It was luck. Sheer, dumb luck, that Charlie had stumbled across the young woman who was in such dire need of help. What had first caught her attention was the trail of blood heading in the direction of the hospital. It made sense, that someone hurt would go there. A hospital is a hospital after all. Or so you’d think. Without a second thought, the small young woman took off at a run, following the tiny droplets straight towards the source. And that’s where she’d found her, hunched over on her knees in the middle of the road. It was a jarring scene, and for a moment time seemed to slow, just a little, just enough for her to think straight.

“Okay… Oh, God.. Okay.. Hi, I’m Charlie, okay?” Getting down in front of the woman, the smaller female tried to capture her eyes, drawing her attention away from the wound, or the blood on her hands, hoping it would help to calm her. “Can you.. Can you sit back for me, so I can see? I’m…” It felt wrong to say it, because she’d only been an intern, little more than a student, when apocalypse had hit. But she knew it might calm her. “I’m a nurse. Can you tell me your name? What happened?” There was a lot of blood, and though she already had a good idea, she wanted to keep the other woman lucid, and conscious, at least until she could get her inside.

  blood pooled around her & everything began to fade. she  was  spinning     uncontrollably. if brooke didn’t know any better, she’d say  this  was  the    definite end. how could this be the way she was going to  go  out?  how    could she have let a stranger cut her open like she would with  the  prey    she hunted. choking, she stared up at the  blue  sky  &  thought  long  &    hard about the life she had led so far. it hadn’t been much of one, it had    only been short. yet, she was thankful for what she’d been given in that   time. as she lay there, she thought of alaska, thought of her dad.

  then out of nowhere, like a guardian angel, aid came rushing to her side.   hearing the word ‘nurse’, her survival instincts kicked in as she  realised    she was going to need to hold on if she wanted to  live  to  see  another    day. maybe this wasn’t the end, not yet. she  squinted  to  get  a  better    look at the nurse, charlie. she could only pray  this girl  knew  what  she    was doing. clutching her abdomen as blood  poured through  the  gaps    in her fingers, she opened her mouth to speak to the stranger.  it  came    out in gasps, painful mutters. 

Elliot breathed a definite sigh of relief after the woman lowered her bow. She wasn’t sure if she was going to get out of the scrape with the woman but she was glad she had some sort of compassion left. Most didn’t. Most just wanted to survive and that meant killing anyone who stood in the way of that; whether it was a definite threat or a supposed one. It was always difficult to figure out who posed an actual threat and who even thought logically about it all because some had let that go a long while ago. They preferred to shoot first and ask questions later rather than trying to figure out the enemy in front of them. This bow wielding woman however seemed to still have some heart left in her which was utterly appreciated by the artist, who was a little more shaken than she would have liked to admit. “No, thank you.” The taller of the two shot back, to show the woman that her mercy was very much well received.

She slowly moved towards the woman, not wanting to make any sort of sudden movements to make her regret her decision. Elliot watched as she went at the deer with a definite plan, unlike the way she would have. It seemed she’d probably done it before, a couple of times from the way she seemed to move with such precision. Elliot didn’t even know how to properly skin the animals she killed. Of course she’d been working on it but it wasn’t exactly a skill one just simply picked up out of nowhere. “Are you sure? I mean first not killing me and now offering me food? I’d swear you liked me or something.” The taller of the two said figuring she’d take the olive branch while it was out. “I’ll stay.. What do you want me to do?”

  she’d spared her life. the stranger would not die  today.  maybe  brooke    was being too naive, maybe she wasn’t being strong enough.  yet,  she    couldn’t find it in her to actually take her out. this wasn’t an animal, this   wasn’t another one of her prey. this was a human life,  it  was  valuable.    after skinning the animal, she wiped the blood away against  her  jeans    before beginning to cut chunks of meat out of what used to be  a  deer.    it was always a messy procedure, but  she’d  become  immune  to  the    nauseous feeling it used to bring. she wiped the sweat  away  from  her    forehead before looking over her shoulder to elliot. if they were going to   eat tonight, they would need to start a fire. she  decided  to  ignore  the    brief comment about ‘liking’ her. joking back wasn’t a strong quality  of    hers. 

  ❝ we’ll need a fire, to cook it. can you make one? ❞

Alfie wasn’t dumb, he didn’t need orders, he could’ve done it by himself – and very often, he did. Hence why he didn’t exactly take being ordered around by the stranger he’d taken the initiative to help well. He was happier now that he had a bit of space, a bit of space from being ordered around.

   brooke searched around the lake house, there wasn’t  much  else  for     her to do for the time being. with alfie upstairs, shooting  as  many  of     the undead as he could, she attempted to find something to keep her     occupied. she did a once over to  ensure  everything  was  locked  up    before searching rapidly through cupboards to see if there  would  be     anything of use - whether that be food, medical supplies or weapons.

    Jude needed a place to sleep, that’s how he justified breaking into a home ( was it really breaking into a home when there were no more people to call those places home? ) when the ever present   guilt in his chest started to swell again. He couldn’t help it, he was the good kid, the one who told his friends no — they could get in trouble! The apocalypse didn’t take that guilt from him, but it did make him even more exhausted than he was in his life before ( he never thought it possible, since practices were grueling and he often thought he might die under the Texan sun ) and sometimes, basic necessities like slumber were more important than a clean conscience. The place was big, spacious, it reminded him of his cousin in Montana’s lake house. Looking for a bed, why not take advantage of normal world luxuries?, Jude carelessly opened the door and found an arrow pointed at him. Jumping back, Jude lifted his hands in the air. ❝ Shii—shoot, I’m sorry! ❞

   it wasn’t until she heard the panicked reaction from the stranger  that  she    realised she was the actual threat. he seemed just as confused as she did,     maybe he’d assumed the lake house would be empty. wrong. it had  been    claimed already. she continued to grip her bow, heart racing in  her  chest.     men worried her,  after  all  the  things  her  father  would  tell  her,  always     advising her to avoid them at  all  costs.  maybe  he  was  just  being  silly,     maybe he was just overreacting because she had been his only  daughter.    still, the words he’d uttered numerous  times  lingered  in her  mind,  eyes     intently focused on the male opposite her. she wasn’t about to  lower  the     bow & allow him the chance to harm her. she  continued  to  take  steady,     slow breaths, debating what to say next. what could she say? she had to    figure out if he was safe first, that he wouldn’t attempt to take her out. 

   ❝ what do you want? ❞ 

Jax was not having what one could call a good day. Granted, it could be worse, but it was not going according to plan. Due to a turn of events that best went unmentioned, it was simple chance that he stumbled across a scene that had the potential to go very, very badly for the woman.

Well hell, at least he wasn’t in her position. If Jax was smart, quite frankly he’d of kept on walking. Now, while he was of the opinion that he was reasonably intelligent, he also wasn’t a completely insufferable jackass. “Hell’s bells, give me a second.”

Ideally there’d be a perfect way to draw those damned things off without making all of them (because there was quite a few of them) head right to him instead. It just wasn’t making itself immediately known

  there was a complete sigh of relief when she  heard  the  man  utter  the    words that he’d be back to help her. she wasn’t entirely sure how  much    time she had left, but she was thankful regardless. as she stood  on  top    of the lorry, she planned her escape route. began to decide which street   would be the best to run down once she’d got down from the lorry.  she   began to look around for the man again, hoping he  hadn’t  just  left  her    like most people would. still, there was no sign of him. she held her bow    tightly in her hand, knowing it would be her only chance  of  escaping  if    the lorry did tip over. she began to feel it shake beneath her as the dead    continuously knocked into it. it  was  becoming  difficult  to  balance,  to    remain steady on top of the vehicle. 

  panicked, she looked for the man a few more times before calling out to    wherever he could be. 

Arabella was the least prepared person for this, for an outbreak, for the world or well most of it ending, she was used to fancy things and people always doing things for her that this was all more than a huge challenge for her. She glanced up at the girl before nodding “I guessed I was going to need new shoes, no one can really walk in a broken heel can they? This is why I don’t step foot into the woods, my heel breaks and my clothes get ruined”

   brooke sighed heavily, realising she would have  to  accompany  her  to     the nearest clothes shop. she needed shoes,  warmer  clothes.  fashion     didn’t matter in this world anymore. it was whatever was comfortable &    would help you survive longer. heels weren’t that. brooke  returned  the     bow to her back before glancing back towards the fashion queen. 

As soon as her words had left her mouth, Sam knew she should have been so harsh at the girl. Why was everyone so irritable these days, herself included. She watched the other girl put her bow on her back and eased up a tiny bit. Listening to her words, Samantha nodded. “Whatever. Shouldn’t have acted on it like that either. I’m Samantha. ‘s nice to meet you actually.”

     brooke wasn’t used to having conflict with people, let alone having  an      actual full blown conversation. the girl seemed sweet,  she  knew  how       to communicate. she was obviously raised in a world where she could.      there was a quick flash of a smile across brooke’s face before  it  soon       disappeared again, she was attempting to seem friendly. it  was  a  lot       harder than it looked - she felt like a robot.