Young Tatum Hill POV
"My feet hurt Tristan, can we stop for a second?" I asked my older brother who was walking a little ways in front of me. He stopped moving and let out a hard sigh before turning around. "We gotta get out of Jacksonville before the sun sets Tatum, its not safe here anymore" he was right, the world isn't a safe place anymore.
The apocalypse started two years ago, I was 10 at the time. My parents died at the beginning, how could anyone survive a swarm of walkers.
"I can't walk anymore Tris. Im getting blisters" I looked down at my run down shoes then back up at my older brother, he could tell that I was in pain, I don't know if he saw the small patches of dried blood on my socks or just the pure agony I was in, but he quickly put me on his back to carry me to wherever we were going.
It was a long walk, the sun was beaming down on our skin, I could feel the sunburn forming on my neck, but who worries about skin cancer and sunscreen when there's monsters around trying to eat off your skin anyways right? I saw the sign 'leaving Jacksonville' a few miles back, so now we officially left. We've been pretty lucky to not have seen any walkers on this trip so far.
"The sun is going to start setting in a hour, we should find somewhere safe to stop" I whispered into my brothers ear. I have been told my whole life that I was 'gifted' and 'extremely mature for my age' and I always thought that was a bad thing from the constant bullying I received from my classmates when school was still a thing, but I guess in this world it makes me strong.
"Yeah your right, walkers get more active at night, we should set up camp soon" my brother whispered back to me, I felt bad that he was carrying me and all of our stuff so I hopped off his back, he could use a break, I could tell from the sweat drops on his forehead.
Tristan said we're headed to Atlanta, it's a four day walk to get their, but we have an aunt who lives there, we're thinking it's worth a shot to try it out. Were following the main highway out of Jacksonville, its pretty much a straight shot to Atlanta.
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We've been walking for the past hour and I was right, the sun was setting quickly and we were out in the open. "Shit Tatum, we gotta go right now" Tristan whispered to me before grabbing my hand and started to run towards the woods, when I looked back I could see the few walkers that had been slowly making their way towards us before Tristan noticed.
"You gotta keep up Tatum" Tristan whisper yelled at me as he harshly pulled on my arm, I could feel my legs about to give way, but I pushed through the pain and kept running until we were finally out of sight. So we kept walking, this time in the woods, trying are hardest not to step on to many sticks.
It was awhile until we found a safe place to set up camp for the night, Tristan always made sure to set up a perimeter so we know when walkers are near by. It was cold outside, which made it cold inside our tent. I only had on a pair of hand me down knee length shorts and a long sleeve shirt that belonged to my brother. "The is scary Tristan" I whispered. "I know, but it's safe, get some rest, we're leaving early tomorrow." he told me before pulling off his bag and taking a small blanket out of it.
