signal | the walking dead

2 • I lost a friend

| I lost my mind |

4 hours.

It took Bea 4 hours to find her way back to the oak wood cabin that stood alone in the woods. It was a humble home, filled with joy. Not far from the place was a stunning lake, bustling with nature. It brought new life to the area where the Atkins made their move a year ago. But there was no longer the fresh and radiant air to the place. Now it was dismal, eerily quiet.

It felt dead.

So did Bea. She felt exhausted from having to keep alert. In fact, any small sound had her head turning in the direction it came from, you would have thought she'd have had whiplash by now. Still, not a single hair was loose from the braids in which she wore her brown mane. And despite the chaos of her mind, where fear was controlling nearly all of her actions, she took confident strides to get where she needed to. Head held high, arms falling at her sides, moving in rhythm as each leg strutted forward. Bea certainly was the type of person, type of girl who oozed confidence and charm.

But now all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and forget that anything in the past 24 hours had happened.

She wanted to forget the blood shed in the airport, but she couldn't because if she took enough time she could point out every single droplet that stained her converse (and if she really took the time she could tell you which patches were more recent than others). She wanted to forget about how her phone had lost signal, preventing her from contacting her loved ones, but she couldn't because the battery life had drained from the vital device. She wanted to forget begging for help from other people who were just like her, but she couldn't because of the ache in her legs being a constant reminder that human beings can be selfish.

And finally, she wanted to forget the goodbyes she had let fall past her lips so easily, etched into the universe with an underlying joke that they'd all see each other again soon, but she couldn't, because right in front of her, on the floor of the cabin, on a shaggy rug, lay the dead bodies of Sara and Pete Atkins.

She had been ever so quiet in her movements when approaching the home. Nearly tiptoeing her way up to the front door, but she had no reason to try and maintain the peace when it had been left open to the horrors that had occurred.

"No, no, no..." she mumbled in shock, not quite sure that what she was seeing was real, for she could have never of predicted the image that was in front of her. If you told her a week ago that she'd be staring down at the bodies of people she once knew and loved, chunks taken out of them with teeth marks, a pool of blood on the floor, she would have simply called you crazy.

But the sight was one that would become all too familiar in her future, and so it wasn't all too crazy no more.

"Sara!" the girl screamed as she sank to her knees, exhaustion creeping in with the weight of grief piled on top. The girl who she shared everything with, who always had a brightness to her eyes, was now frozen in fear, lifeless, as she gazed into the ceiling. Her t-shirt had been torn right through the middle, guts gauged out as she had been feasted on wrecklessly by mindless creatures. There was scratches littering her arms showing who had clearly won. Showing what had won.

Bea helplessly let out another sob, her hand shakily covering her mouth as she dared to look over at Pete. He must of tried his very best to protect his daughter, Bea didn't doubt that for a second, as his body lay closer towards the door, and he had his arm reached out towards his own blood and flesh. He had several bite marks embedded into his shoulders and across the base of his neck.

He tried, he tried so hard to protect his family and he died thinking he had done so. A good man, taken too soon.

Feeling a sudden lurch in her stomach, Bea rushed out of the back of the house to throw up what was left in her stomach, only to see more bodies outside.