Fight To Live

Chapter 1 (Season 1 Premier)

][=][ Ethan Barton's POV ][=][

"Shit! Run! We have to go faster!" Mom shouted from the end of the alleyway we had run in to escape the deadheads that were after us.

"Mom! There's nowhere to go! It's a dead end!" I shouted back as I grabbed a pipe off the ground since I had lost my knife because it got stuck in a deadhead's skull and I couldn't remove it because we had to run.

"Well, if we can't figure something out we're gonna meet a dead end very soon! Just... climb the fucking walls or something!" She exclaimed as she reached the end of the alleyway where I was standing and frantically looking around for an escape route.

I slid the pipe in my belt so I wouldn't lose it, then started to try and climb the wall of one of the buildings and get to a fire escape that was partially hanging off the wall. Mom followed me and we very carefully and quickly climbed until we reached the rickety metal staircase.

"Jeez... that was way too close," Mom said as she looked down and saw the swarm of deadheads that had entered the alley we had just climbed out of. "Let's get off this thing before it collapses and we're right back in the fray."

We slowly and carefully, so as not to make the fire escape snap the rest of the way off the wall, climbed the stairs to the next window and found it locked so we kept climbing until there was one we could slide open just enough to wedge something under it to pry it the rest of the way open, which I did after removing the pipe from my belt and getting it in place. We climbed into the ransacked apartment and closed the window behind us before sitting down to catch our breath.

"Mom, what are we gonna do?" I asked as I glanced over at her. "William is dead... Sophie and Tony are missing... we have nowhere to go. I thought you said Austin would be safe."

She looked back at me, pain clearly showing in her eyes.

"I said I thought Austin would be safe, not that I knew it would be safe," she replied as tears brimmed her eyes. "I know William is gone and the others are missing... I'm sorry Ethan, I really am. I thought this was the best chance we had, but I was wrong. I failed."

I knew that tears were ready to fall out of my eyes as well, but mainly because I felt bad for making her feel bad, she was the leader of our group, but we all decided to come here, it wasn't her fault that the others are missing or dead.

"You don't have to apologize Mom... it's not your fault," I said as I gave her a quick hug. "You didn't fail."

She hugged me back and we stayed that way for a short time, crying into each other's shoulders over our lost companions.

"Let's check the rest of this apartment, then we'll stay here for the night and leave in the morning," she said as she pulled away from the hug and wiped her eyes.

I nodded quietly and began checking the rooms for anything useful and to make sure there were no deadheads anywhere in the apartment. When I finished and found nothing useful and no deadheads I went back to the living room and saw Mom looking out the window we had climbed through.

"Mom? You ok?" I asked as I walked over to her.

"Yeah... I'm just thinking about the others... William is dead we know that, he sacrificed himself to save Sophie when we first got here, but we just got split up from Sophie and Tony, they're probably still in the city somewhere," she responded as she continued staring out the window.