#zwhacking

          there’s a decent sized dead horde between them, but it wasn’t his group that killed the majority of them. it was her, this redhead from out of nowhere, a wanderer who didn’t belong to any group. her spiked bat dripping with blood and brains of the fallen biters isn’t lifted, and instead remains dangling from her hand as she watches the male cautiously. people are a bit more unpredictable and desperate now, last thing she wants is to die for moving the wrong way.  her shoulders shrug.                ❛ my name’s addison carver, i’m looking for my old group. who are you? ❜

They were fighting through one hell of a horde, and it wasn’t long before he realized the undead were dropping faster than his group was hitting them. There was another member of the living knocking them out from the other side and as the last one falls, he sees her.

“Damn,” he utters, regaining his breath. Look at her. Where’d she come from? Negan immediately takes note of the spiked bat in her hand, his own bloodied Lucille being held in a similar fashion at his side.

            there was a sound that roused at his consciousness -- he had just managed to slip off; which, in itself, was a dangerous thing to do when alone in the hell that was the world they lived in. he had learned, early on, how to stir quickly and easily in order to try and preserve his life. if he was perfectly honest with himself, his self preservation had tipped downwards quite a bit since he had nearly died -- and he would’ve too. some days, even years later, part of him wished he had. he had no idea where the self dubbed operation bite mark was. no IDEAS where addy was, or if she was even still alive.    there was no california. no light on the horizon to keep moving towards -- nothing to continue fighting for, except for a fool’s hope that he would find something to latch onto to continue moving.     he’s standing, albeit reluctantly, and using the wall as a crutch to momentarily get himself into an upright position -- ignoring the lack of appropriate response from his bad leg; taking an off weight step towards the noise as he cradled his gun with both hands.          “who’s there?” he called out, a harshness underlying in his tone that he had learned over the years to cover up whatever tentativeness or fear might be harbored there. fear and hesitance would only get him killed, as far as he was concerned, and keep him from finding a tether of hope to latch onto. “ain’t nothing here for you to steal -- and it would just be a waste of time to kill me, i encourage you to move on.”

       “ ADDY -- “ he breathed, sticking out a hand to stop the other,  “ --- did you hear that? i don’t think we’re ALONE in here. “

“Addison.”

Though he was walking upright, Murphy might as well have been crawling at her feet. The humility which overcame him then and there was harrowing. For the first time in his miserable existence, he truly believed he owed another human ( since Lucy ) his life.

“I wanted - “

He stopped. Speaking was so hard, nowadays. Words never came easy.