cruel summer/negan.

1. teddy bear blues

Your body has a buzz. Every movement feels like you're underwater just too far from the surface. Standing behind the old deteriorated building your head pounded.
"Fuck," You breathed.
You keep your hands on your neck desperately gasping for air as quietly as possible. The beehive sound in your head still hasn't quieted but you've been in the same spot for far too long, screwing your eyes shut you force your body off of the brick wall. Your human blood was probably attracting dozens of zombies by the second.
Thinking that you're finally alone you hear light shuffling coming closer to you. Your eyes flash to the rotting body. It's missing an arm and for three seconds you feel bad. These were people with families and children. But that was before. They're dead now, and they wanna tear you apart until you're nothing but gooey flesh splattered on the sidewalk.
Shuddering at the thought you ask yourself, "What is wrong with my brain?"
Shaking away the image of your body plastered on concrete you grip your light pick colored bat and swing. The sound will never become normal. The fleshy squelch of meat being ripped apart. The zombies head is red pieces of mush now, no way it can hurt you.
Your entire body is shaking from exhaustion. Your eyes are swollen and puffy from constant crying. Rubbing your eyes with your knuckles in a childlike manner you feel your dry, blood spattered skin. You desperately need to bathe, you're a mess-inside and out.
You're used to the routine of running, hiding, surviving. But killing will never feel good. Swinging your bat over your shoulder you begin back on your way. You stay away from populated places as much as possible but sometimes it's a necessity. Desperately needing to get settled before sundown you pick up your pace. The soft pitter of your shoes slapping the pavement makes you cringe. Being alone for so long meant few sounds, you hadn't heard another human talk in over a year.
Scanning the washed out, broken down buildings you see what you've been looking for; a dollar store.
The memories of your mom taking too long in them while you wait in the car enters your mind. What you would give to go back to those times. Taking a deep shakey breath you push those memories to the back of your mind and step over the broken glass windows and into the store.
You slightly smile, eyes twinkling in delight, joyous at the fact that you'll get new supplies. The crunch of glass under your shoes makes your mood quickly go down. The glass couldn't have possibly made enough noise to alert a walker but you're still on edge. Security is nonexistent in the apocalypse.
Twenty minutes later you've cleared the shelves of your necessities. You left what you didn't need just in case some other soul stumbled apon the store.
Unzipping your backpack and shoving everything in you smile a true tooth showing smile. You managed to grab a large pack of pads, three lighters, a candle, two sodas, and a stuffed bear.
"Woah...I'm so lucky." You murmur in astonishment. Lightly giggling at your find you lightly stroke the light brown bears face.
It can't hurt to keep it.
Shoving it back into your bag you sling it onto your back, walking over the broken glass yet again.
"Bad, bad boy, Shiny toy with a price, You know that I bought it." Your scratchy voice attempts to let out a hum. sigh.
Attempting to stay on full alert you resist bite your already chewed nails. There's not a walker to be seen. The town you've travelled to isn't big, when you arrived there were multiple roaming; now there's none.
Feeling suspicious you duck into the nearest alleyway to check out your surroundings. Attempting to keep quiet you don't dare let in a breath. There's a light rumbling that's unmistakably a car. "I haven't heard a car in months," You mumble. It's hard to find a working car these days, let alone gas. Whoever it belongs to is obviously not the type to let supplies go easy.
The car rumbling gets too close. It's too late to attempt to book it out of this town. You're no match against a car. You're a human; naive, but not stupid. People who've made it this long usually aren't good people.
The thoughts of what these people could do to you paralyze you. You're not weak. Maybe you could take them, but the odds aren't in your favor.
The rumbling stops abruptly and you hear metal the metal freaks of a car door. Footsteps atleast thirty feet away make your stomach turn.
"Oh...oh no."  You shakily whisper. In your head you beg whatever god let these people not find you.
Poking your head out you see the men enter the same store you left just moments ago.
Minutes later when they come out they look pissed even though their bags are full of what you had left.
They argue over something until one of them walks closer to you. His shoulder length blonde hair flows against the wind as he walks. The other man speed walks after him.
"I have no idea," He grounds out through his teeth.
"You think I fuckin' know?" The blonde man barks.
"Well the fucker is here somewhere! There's fresh bodies."
Why are they so mad? Your eyebrows furrowed.
"Then we go home and tell boss. It's getting dark out." He turns around and trudges to the large truck.
You hear the truck roar back to life. Whatever zombies are around definitely heard that. There's no way you can safely make it out of this town now with just a baseball bat and small axe.
Stupid men, always leaving me to deal with their issues.
By the time you snap out of your trance the trucks are gone. Somehow without noticing it you had started crying.
Why can't I ever catch a break? You thought.
The horrors you had witnessed during the apocalypse changed you. Men were filthy. Raping and killing anything that moved.
You missed your old group terribly, but it taught you a lesson that it's better to be alone.
You wipe your tears on the back of your bloodstained hands. Collecting yourself you step out of the dark alleyway. The sun was starting to go down and you could barely stay awake.
You decide to head back to the small store you were at earlier. There was a back room and large shelves to barricade.
An hour later the sun is down and you've successfully barricaded the store. You've left one window uncovered for means of escape.
Sadly scraping the bowl of stale crackers and cold chicken noodle soup you yawn. Swallowing the last droplet the bowl could offer, you flop onto the tattered couch.
This thing has probably has bugs.
You grimace at the thought but close your eyes. Sleep is sleep.

ch.1 words
Negan will be in the next chapter! This chap. Has not been edited.