Unbreakable threads

Chapter one: The last words.

Alyssa was seventeen, a high school dropout with more scars than she'd ever admit to. Raised alone by her mother, Alice, she'd grown up with a rough sense of independence, a girl who didn't need anyone but herself—or so she told herself. Friends were few, and the ones she'd had drifted away over the years, leaving her a solitary figure in the halls she'd eventually abandoned.
Most days, she found comfort in her room, its walls lined with posters of bands no one else seemed to know.
Music became her escape, each beat and lyric drowning out the ache of what she tried not to feel. It was there, in her quiet sanctuary, that she'd hidden her pain behind dark humor and sarcastic smiles, keeping the world at arm's length.

Alyssa had grown up in the shadows of unanswered questions, the biggest one being her father. Her mother, Alice, had given birth to her at just seventeen and raised her alone, building a world where her father's existence was a locked door, never to be opened. Alice had always brushed off Alyssa's questions about him, her responses vague and evasive, leaving Alyssa with an ache she could never quite soothe.
It hurt more than she'd let on; each deflection felt like another rejection, a silent message that her father's absence was a wound best left undisturbed.
She hated that her mother kept that part of her life sealed away, as if Alyssa had no right to know where she'd come from. In the quiet moments alone in her room, she'd imagine what he might have been like, wondering if she'd inherited his stubbornness or his sense of humor. But the more her mother dodged her questions, the more Alyssa learned to bury her curiosity beneath layers of sarcasm and indifference, even as it gnawed at her heart.

The morning it all began, Alyssa and her mother, Alice, were at the grocery store, the usual ritual of a Saturday morning. Alyssa idly scanned the shelves, barely paying attention, when a sudden, thunderous crash split the air. A truck had smashed through the side of the store, metal and glass exploding across the aisles. Panic erupted as people screamed, thinking it was a terrible accident.

But then, Alyssa saw something that turned her blood to ice. The driver, twisted and lifeless, began to move. He clawed his way out of the shattered windshield, his eyes blank and unseeing, yet filled with a terrible, insatiable hunger. His body lurched forward, broken but moving, and he reached for a nearby woman, pulling her close and sinking his teeth into her neck. Blood sprayed as her screams filled the air, cutting through the chaotic shouts around them.

"Alyssa!" Alice's voice snapped her out of her shock. Her mother's hand grabbed her arm, pulling her with a fierce urgency as they ran, stumbling past people scrambling to escape the horror inside the store. They burst into the parking lot, the world outside equally nightmarish. More of the dead shuffled into view, drifting out of parked cars, blood smeared across their faces, their mouths open in silent, hungry moans.

Alice and Alyssa rushed to their car, hands shaking as they fumbled with the keys, finally scrambling inside and locking the doors. Alice gripped the wheel tightly, her face pale and strained, and as she started the engine, she swerved around people in the lot, dodging the dead and the living alike. Alyssa clutched her seat, her heart pounding, watching the streets unfold into chaos as they drove home, the world she knew disintegrating around them.

On their street, everything was quiet—too quiet. Alice parked in the driveway, her hands still trembling as she turned off the car. Alyssa's own hands felt numb as she unbuckled her seatbelt, stepping out onto the familiar ground, which now felt foreign and wrong. She looked over at her mother, a strange, gnawing feeling settling in. And that's when she saw it. The tear in her mother's sleeve. Her mother had been bitten. Alyssa's heart twisted, her breath catching as she stared.

" mom!" She whispered her voice trembling. Alice followed her daughter's gaze, where she saw the bite mark on her arm. Alyssa without thinking pushed her mother towards the front door of the house, shoving her through.

The air hung heavy with the scent of decay and burning wood as Alyssa dragged her mother across the creaking floorboards of their small house. The sun, dimmed by the haze of smoke from distant fires, cast deep shadows that danced erratically on the walls. Alyssa's heart pounded in her chest, each beat a desperate plea against the inevitability she refused to accept.

"Hold on, Mom," she whispered, her voice quivering as she laid her mother on the old, tattered couch. A crimson stain spread across her mother's arm , vivid and unforgiving. The bite mark was jagged, black veins already beginning to spider out from the wound. Alyssa's hands, once steady despite all she'd been through, now trembled as she tried to press a rag to the wound, futile though it was.

Her mother's eyes, usually so fierce and bright, were dulled with pain. She reached up, her touch weak but still gentle as her fingers brushed against Alyssa's cheek. "Alyssa, listen to me."

"No, don't talk. Save your strength," Alyssa said, her blue eyes blazing with defiance. She blinked back the sting of tears, forcing a grin that was all teeth and no mirth. "I thought we agreed not to do the whole dramatic deathbed confession thing."

A weary laugh bubbled up from her mother's chest but quickly devolved into a cough, deep and rattling. "Always with the jokes," she whispered, her smile fading as her eyes grew serious. "But you need to hear this. Before it's too late."

Alyssa's throat tightened. All the nights she'd spent pretending everything was fine, burying the ache of not knowing who her father was, swirled in her mind like a storm. "Mom, please. We have time. I'll find something, anything—"

"No, Alyssa." Her mother's voice was firmer now, cutting through the desperate hope like a blade. "You need to know the truth. Your father's name is Rick Grimes."

Alyssa stared, the world around her seeming to warp and shift. The name rang in her ears like a bell. Rick Grimes. The sheriff, the man she'd seen on TV a week before the world tore itself apart, lying in a hospital bed after being shot. The name that had been nothing more than a ghost, a question she'd learned not to ask.

"Rick Grimes," Alyssa repeated, the words bitter on her tongue. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Her mother's eyes softened, regret shadowing their depths. "I wanted to protect you, keep you safe from disappointment. He never knew about you. It was a mistake, keeping it from him. But now... now you need to find him."

Alyssa felt as though the ground had been ripped out from under her. The world outside was a nightmare, and now the only thread of hope was finding a man she didn't know, a man who might already be dead. She clenched her jaw, the pain in her chest numbing the fear. "How do you know he's alive?"

"I don't," her mother said, her breath coming in short gasps. "But if there's a chance, any chance at all, you need to take it. Go to the hospital. Find him... tell him..."

Her voice trailed off, her eyes slipping shut. Alyssa shook her, panic clawing at her insides. "No! No, stay with me, Mom. Stay!"

But the light had already left her mother's eyes, leaving only silence and the distant, haunting groans of the dead. For a moment, Alyssa sat frozen, the world blurring around her as grief wrapped cold fingers around her heart. Alyssa couldn't let her mother turn into one of those things. But she couldn't do it. She looked over Alice's lifeless body. Alyssa knew it wouldn't be long. It wouldn't be long until her mother rose.. this time not as herself.. but more like the undead crawling the streets outside.

" mom. Mom please... Please come back" Alyssa sobbed, burying her face into her mother's now cold stomach. Alyssa gripped her tightly sobbing. But something inside her told her to rise. To stand. Get up. Get going. Do what her mother had asked.

she stood, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The dark humor that usually came so easily failed her now, leaving only raw determination. Alyssa drew her knife from her waistband and gently made sure her mother wouldn't turn. She looked down at her mother one last time before grabbing her backpack.

Rick Grimes. Sheriff. Maybe dead, maybe not. He was out there, and she would find him. And if he was alive, he would know who she was, even if it took tearing through hell to tell him.

With one final glance back at the home that now felt empty, Alyssa stepped out into the ash-laden air.