signal | the walking dead

0 • prologue

Bea was exhausted.

The weight of the body she was dragging might have been the cause of it, because of course, dead weight is heavy weight. But that was the least of her worries now.

She was more concerned about the fact that said dead weight was now slowly but surely chasing her. And, as unfortunate as it was, Bea hadn't become accustomed to this cruel, new world, and so she didn't have the heart to kill this walker.

Not this one.

Bea almost felt some sort of responsibility over it, like it would be a betrayal to put down the very thing that is the reason she is still alive. If it wasn't for them, she wouldn't have made it back from the airport.

Oh god, the airport.

It was a bloodbath.

All of the screams and shrieks of pain, horror, terror. Nothing would compare to it. Bea was lucky to escape. As much as she was determined to find her family once again, she decided that in her head, that moment had happened for a reason. For if she had stayed and not thought about where she could go, Bea too would have been drowning in the perils of the infectious outbreak.

Well, she didn't know it was infectious, not for sure. All she knew was that if you got near one of those things, you would end up joining them, becoming one of them, which is the precise reason as to why she was stumbling away from the rotting figure on her tail.

She didn't know what to do, she needed something to happen, someone to come along and change things now.

"Help!" she cautiously let out a yelp, hoping not to attract more of the things. Flitting between different trees as she worked her way through the woods, Bea suddenly went on high alert, hearing three male voices and their hurried footsteps headed right in her direction.

She caught sight of them, all three of them holding some sort of... metal pole?

"Please, help," Bea gave in to the living, tears running down her face. The men approached her, frowns on their faces as they took in her fearful state and the walker trailing behind her.

The younger man raised his shotgun defensively, aim not even on Bea, but she still felt anxious.

"No! Please don't shoot her, please," Bea pleaded as she continued to move away from the person who had saved her life, to the people who were about to.

"It's ok, it's ok! We don't kill them, they're just sick, we can help the both of you," the older man calmly reassured the young girl. She barely noticed the third guy watching them quizzically as he took a backseat on the whole situation.

And suddenly Bea understood that the questionable metal pole was in fact a piece of veterinary equipment and it was used to hook round the grumbling, snarling being. Regrettably, she wasn't quite sure she agreed that they were just sick, but these people had some hope, and that sat right with her.

"Ok, just, help her, please..." Bea nodded, suddenly feeling a rush of dizziness in her head as she stood still for the first time in maybe 12 hours. Her hand pushed against the tree, scraping against the ridges of the bark as she tried to hold herself up, but then her knees buckled.

"Woah, woah! Jimmy, help this little lady up, we best get her back to the farm, we can help them both."

A farm?

"Rick, I'm going to need you to help me grab the other one."

Bea had never been to a farm before, she thought to herself as the younger guy wrapped an arm around her waist to support her fatigued state and walked her in the direction she had been headed.

It seems as if this outbreak truly was bringing a whole new set of experiences.