The End

I know what you're thinking. Why start a story with The End and not Ounce Upon a Time? Well, the answer is because stories that start with Ounce Upon a Time are fairy tales. And fairy tales aren't real. Not anymore. Not in a world like this. Everything I knew before is gone. It's a memory that only hurts to think about. 

Every day the sun sets, but every night the moon shines again. I sit on the side of a dark road. I hear the moans in the distance. The dead, wandering in the dark. I'm thinking about life, what it is now. I want to give up. I've lost everything, there's nothing to live for. I pull out my gun getting ready to end it all. Then.........a scream.

I jump up. I don't hesitate. I run. The screams are getting louder then I see them. A girl and a man. The dead surround them. I run over to help. Walkers fall. Everything turns red. Then it's over. We all stand catching our breath. Then the man breaks the silence. "My names Glen, this is Edan. Thank you." I nod. "Are you okay?", he asks. "yea I'm fine, do you have a group?" He looks at the girl. She looks away. "How many Walkers you killed?" I laugh, then realize he's serious. "As many as it took to keep breathing." "How many people have you killed?" I looked down. "Two." "Why?" I met his eyes, one killed my dad so I raised my gun and pulled the trigger." "The other?" "My mom, she was bit. I had to." He nodded. "We have a group.What's your name?" "Riley."

Then the girl finally speaks. She looks to be around my age 16 or so. "Why did you help us?" Glen looked at her. "There are still good people out there." She yelled at him, "Bull!" Then looked back at me. "Why?" I answered. "Because these things," I motioned around. "They ruined my life. Our life and it isn't over until they're all dead. And the only reason we're alive is because, we are The Walking Dead." She stared at me then shook her head. "No we're not dead.....yet." Then she walked away. Glen turned to me. "Don't listen to her, I know it's hard to believe, but the world isn't dead, and neither are we. Come on."

We walked to a car a little ways down the road. " All of our stuff's here." Edan was sitting in the car. "I'll keep watch." He said then walked away. I got in the car with Edan. " I'm sorry." She said. "Don't be, never be sorry. It makes you weak and in a world like this you can't be weak." She met my eyes. "So do you think this is the end?" Hi smiled, "No I think it's only the beginning." She looked confused. "Why?" "Because my mom used to tell me that you had to have hope, because if you don't have hope, what do you have? Nothing." "How can you have hope when there's shit around every corner?" " You don't look back, you look forward. You can't think of this as the end, you have to think of this as the beginning. I mean really, this can't be the end. We still have a whole story to write. When this is all over, people will read about this in their history books."She gave me a sad smile, "Yea if there's anyone left to write it." "There will be." "How do you know?" " I don't."

After a while I try to fall asleep and fail. It's funny because it was the first time I felt safe in a long time. I was just thinking. Do I really want this? I know I'm gonna loose them all eventually, do I want to go through that again? Then I think of my conversation with Edan. I told her I had hope, and I do. I'm going to trust Glen and try to forget what happened. This is my life and I'm not just gonna let everything go. I'm going to fight, and never give up. It's time to start over.

I woke up to the car door. I guess I finally fell to sleep. My eyes open and the first thing I see is light. Then I see Edan talking to Glen. I push open the door and hop out. "So what's the plan?" I ask. Glen looked at Edan and then she looked at me. "We go home." Home. That's a word I haven't heard in a really long time. It was nice to hear it again. A little while later we hit the road. We drive in silence. None of us really knows what to say. Then I see it.....

We pull up to a wall. "This is it," Glen said. I look around. There's a wall all the way around. I can't see anything inside. Then all of a sudden the wall slid open. We drove in. A man with a beard and a boy, with a sheriff had stood waiting. The boy looked to be around my age. We got out of the car. "This is Riley, she helped us." The man looked at me. "Did you ask her the questions?" Glen nodded. "She's one of us now." I looked down. I was still nervous, how long was this gonna last? All the hope in the world couldn't prepare you from what's out there.......behind the walls.

Glen walked off with the man his name was Rick. Then Edan nodded at Carl and then went in the other direction. I was left standing.........but I wasn't alone. "Come on I'll show you around, my names Carl. I nodded. He lead me down the street it was like I was in a dream. No death, no hiding. "Listen, I know this is hard to believe, but you're safe now." I looked at him, "This is just all so hard. I mean this is the first time I've been with people since......." I trailed off. "It's okay. We've all done things." He looked down. "Things we can't forget. It's the only way to survive now." I met his eyes. They were blue and serious. "I know."

He showed me houses and told me about his people. There's a man named Daryl, and a women named Machone. Carl also has a baby sister, her name is Judith. "Come on." He brought me to a house then told me to wait on the porch. When he came out he was holding a baby. "That's Judith?" "Yea, wanna hold her?" He handed her to me. All the doubts I had dissapeared. All that mattered was that I was here now. "She's so cute." "Yea, she's starting to look like my mom." Then Carl looked down. There was an unspoken understanding. He lost his mom, just like me. "It's never easy is it?" He shook his head. "No, it's not."

He told me I could stay with Edan. He left me at the house to get settled in. I looked around. All the pictures that used to be on the walls were gone. Left on the table for someone to add new ones. Maybe this would last. Maybe I'd be safe here. Maybe I could finally call a place home. All the people here seem nice. They all seem welcoming, but you can tell. You can tell that they've been through a lot. They've had to survive too. They know what they're doing. I smile. Not because I'm happy they've been through a lot, but because I think they're gonna make it......We're gonna make it, together. I plop down on the couch. It's been a long time. I think about my mom, my dad but after it's all over, all the tears spilled. I'm still smiling.