algor mortis | rick grimes

Prologue- 02

The first fifty days of the end of the world are the hardest. The movies are always concerned with the first days, sometimes the first week, one time 28 days. However, fifty days after the end of the world is a horrible limbo to live in. A liminal space where everyone who has somehow made it this long is just waiting their turn. Expecting tomorrow to be the last.

Amelia expected just that. She awaited her death with baited breath, still not quite sure how she'd managed to survive this long. Alone, no less. Though she didn't stay alone. She'd been counting: day twenty five, she met the girl.

Running was all Amelia seemed to do anymore and that's just what she was doing. Hauling ass like her life depended on it— mostly because it did. Urban areas were hell. Too many of those things to possibly take down. She only had a shitty, old machete and a hand gun with six bullets. It was her mistake to duck down the alley, slamming the chain link fence behind her and hoping worse wasn't waiting on the other side.

Fighting to catch her breath, her eyes finally took in what was actually in the dead end she'd backed herself into. There were people at the end, staring back at her just as she stared at them. Her feet were dragging against the concrete, hardly able to keep them planted against the bodies pushing against the gate behind her. "Help me, for fuck's sake!" Amelia barked at them, feeling fingers scrape against her shoulders through the links.

One of the group moved while the rest remained rooted to the spot, bolting across the space to slam into the gate next to her. The bit of ground Amelia was beginning to lose closed quickly with the girl's help. "What the hell are you doing running around out there?" She seethed, "Are you stupid?" Even with their combined strength, their shoes scraped against the concrete as the door threatened to open again.

"It seemed like a lovely day for a stroll—" Amelia grunted, turning to press her shoulder against the door, "It's not my idea of fun!"

"This way!" One of the girl's companions called.

"On three—" the girl said from behind her, taking a deep breath, "Okay, Three!" She was already taking off by the time Amelia processed there was no one or two to be counted, pushing off the door as the weight grew too much to keep up.

"God damn it." She growled, shooting off after the group, skittering around the corner of the long alley, winding down a couple nonsensical turns to get the hell away. Debris scattering the ground making for uneven terrain as her sneakers slammed into the pavement.

"It's a fucking dead end!" One of the others shouted.

Amelia did a scan as she closed the small distance, "Link fingers and boost!" The others in the group, now that she could get a decent look were a man and another woman. None of them were particularly blessed in the way of height. The man was bulky and blonde, standing about a head taller than the rest of them.The woman with him, a smaller, frizzy haired brunette, boosted first, slotting her foot in his hand to scale the wall. The other woman, a lanky Asian girl with black hair went next, disappearing over the side.

Amelia and the man shared a look as the dead began to come around the corner, the distance between them growing smaller by the second. She groaned out a curse before she urgently decided, "I'll boost you, you pull me up. Deal?"

He nodded as she linked her fingers together, the tread of his boot dug hard into her palms as she mustered all her strength in guiding his leap up. "Come on!" She said when he got up, glancing over her shoulder. There were at least twenty coming down the small space, advancing rapidly. He reached his hand down and she leapt for it, shoes scraping desperately against the wall as she ascended until she could get her hands on the jagged edge of the top. "Thanks." She breathed out as they looked at the cluster formed just a few feet below them, "Would have been real easy to just hop to the other side."

"Would have been harder to live with myself." He said decidedly with a toothy grin. They'd landed in a small gated alley way, with dumpsters and restaurant doors along the side. A brief moment of relief from the horror of the city. They struck the ground on the other side and the brunette from before embraced, laughing tearfully while the other two stood idle.

"Amelia." She said holding her hand out to the girl who'd helped her initially. For a moment, her obsidian eyes just stared at the outstretched hand, lips pursed.

After a second, she broke and accepted it in a brief but firm shake, "Erin." She nodded towards the other two as they parted, "That's Terry and Val."

"Sorry to put you in a sticky situation," Amelia said cautiously, "was trying to get out of it myself."

"We made it, that's all that matters." Terry said with a tense smile. "Where you headed?"

"I thought.. since the bombing, there might be supplies in the city." She admitted, tightening her frayed pony tail, blonde pieces were sticking out of the elastic, others sticking to her sweat soaked face and neck, "I should have figured there'd just be a whole lotta dead bastards."

"You're alone out here?" Terry supposes, adjusting the straps of his book bag. Amelia nods in response, "It's just us."

Amelia considered it a moment in the moment of silence before she asked, "Are you guys sticking around or trying to get outta this hell hole? I'm on my way out."

"Us too." Val responds, glancing between her companions.

She hated to ask. The advantages on either side were favourable. On one hand, she went at it alone and snuck out of the city as clumsily as she'd snuck in. On the other, she accepted the safety of numbers and hoped they wouldn't feed her to the infected to save their own hide.

"Maybe we could help each other get out." She suggested, unable to totally mask the wince. "Go our separate ways outside of city limits."

"What's in it for you?" Erin asked, speaking for the first time since she'd said her name.

Amelia blinked a couple times, mulling over the stupid question before she responded, "I maybe don't die. That's my main draw, I guess." She responded with a nervous chuckle.

The three exchanged looks that she found unreadable before Terry gave an ironic frown, "Alright, we're in. Let's blow this popsicle stand."