DEAD BY DAYLIGHT The Walking Dead

- prolouge -

The Walking Dead ————— Season 7
Vivian Ford ————— April 2013

THE SUN SET HOURS AGO, rendering the surrounding forest to nothing but a void of darkness.
Completely silent beside for the usual sounds of frogs and crickets, until the sound of a man crying echoed through the air, thick fearful sobs bouncing off the trees. He was begging for his life, fingers intertwined as he brought himself to his knees to beg for mercy from the young redhead in front of him. She held a nasty look of anger across her soft features, a dark look of hatred swimming in her green irises. Blood dried against her pale skin and hid the light freckles across her nose, cheeks and forehead. A handprint evident in the blood like someone grabbed her face but didn't care enough to clean the blood off. Her clothes were soaked in blood from the chest down, the dark crimson liquid staining her shirt and jeans.

"Please." The man begged with a quivering lip, his voice raspy from screaming as he stared up at the nameless redhead who held his fate in the palm of her hand. She was yet to say anything, even when she chased him down and rendered him weaponless, only adding to her frightening demeanour. She was just a child. How could a child be so cruel? So terrifying that she had a grown man at her feet begging for his life,

"It starts with you." The redhead whispered, her calm tone sending a chill down the man's spine as he cried when he watched her pull a machete out of a holster against her back. "Than every other saviour in whatever Goddamn hellhole you guys call home, then, Negan dies."

"Please!" The man screamed as she tightened her grip against the handle of one of her machetes "I'll do anything."

The redhead seemed to pause at his desperate plea, her arm slacking against her torso as she crouched down to be eye level with the sobbing man. He had tears streaming down his dirt covered skin, the scar of a "W" engraved in his skin. The redheads jaw tightened and a familiar pit grew in her stomach—of course—of course he'd been apart of them, too. "What happened to Teddy?" She questioned, reaching out with her empty hand and clutching her fingers around the man's blonde curls, pulling back his head to force him to meet her eye. A heavy exhale left his lips while his body shook fearfully, his eyes scaling the thick scar that ran down the right side of her face.  "I don't know who you're talking about." He whispered.

"Bullshit!" The redhead whispered, using her grasp of the man's hair to smack the side of his head against the tree he knelt beside, earning a cry of pain. "What did Negan do to him!"

The man laughed nervously as blood trickled down the side of his face, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid looking the redhead in her eye. "Oh the kid, the kid, yeah I know the kid." He assured, nodding his head fearfully while stammering over his words. "He's—he's Simons ward, keeps a close eye on him and his mother."

The redhead smiled, releasing her grip on his blonde locks of hair before standing up. The man grinned, flashing his grimy teeth with a grateful smile. "Thank you." He cried as he pulled himself to his feet, the redhead remaining quiet as he turned on his heel to run away. In reality the man was allowed four steps until the redhead swung her arm back and sent her machete flying through the chill air. It landed in the skull of the man, who was dead before he could even react. The weight of his lifeless body sent a thud against the ground and seemed to shift the way the air blew, the redhead pulling her ginger locks from her face as she approached the man's corpse. His face was down against the dirt and the impact had shattered his nose, blood pooling from his nostrils along with the gaping wound on the back of his head. The redhead grabbed her machete with two hands, placing her foot against his shoulder and applying pressure while she got her weapon out from his skill. She wiped the blood from her blade with his jeans, pushing the weapon back into its holster before using her foot to kick the corpse so it laid on its back.

His eyes were still open with a look of happiness that he'd gotten to live, unaware of the reality that would come flying at him moments later. She crouched beside the body and stuck her hand into the pockets of his brown leather jacket, finding three items. A pack of cigarettes with only one left, a lighter, and lastly a map. The redhead raised her eyebrows at the sight of the map, discarding the cigarette and lighter beside the body and smoothing out the map against her thigh. It was a map of Virginia, red circles drawn out with a pen or a marker every few hundred miles out. She knew what those circles meant immediately, those were the locations of every single watch group sent out by the saviours to track down groups.

Shoving the map into the pocket of her jeans the redhead grabbed the sole cigarette out from the box and lit it with the janky lighter that took a few tries to start up. She grimaced at the smell of smoke, ignoring the memories that flooded through her mind as she stood up. The cigarette slipped between her fingers and landed on top the cold soil before walking off with one thought on her mind.

Vivian Ford swore she'd kill every fucking saviour she came across that night.

———
1k words
Written : July 26th 2023
Rewritten : August 10th 2024