Just Hold On - Daryl Dixon (TWD)

2.

*Lucia's POV*

Time skip - 1 year

Before the end of the world, I hated running. This fueled that hatred even more because now I was running for my life.

John had been getting sick recently but he didn't want me to go out unless I had to. We had been getting more and more of those things up here recently and we had run out of food months ago. He's been going hunting or we would make trips into town together, but always together. I knew when I woke up to John coughing up a lung for half of the night last night that I would be getting up early to sneak out to try to find some medication today.

I just didn't expect to be running for my life. And from another person; the first of which I had come across in the last year.

Gunshots flew around me as I continued to run as fast as I could.

"Get the fuck back here, you little bitch! Tha's ma food! Ya can't steal from me!" The guy yelled from behind me. I continued running, only catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye.

The guy was taller. Wore a white wife beater tank top and some cargo pants. He had short graying hair and a voice that sounded like he smoked half a pack of cigarettes a day. What caught my eye the most was his makeshift shank arm. It looked like he had lost his hand and made a knife prosthetic with it.

"MERLE! Leave it!" I heard another voice yell out to the guy.

I didn't even bother glancing behind me as I kept running. I would have to make sure they weren't following me before I could start heading back to the cabin where I know I will be met with a very angry John.

I had left this morning at around 6am when I knew that John had fallen asleep again. I left a note on the counter saying where I was going and that I should be back around noon. It was about 11 now and I still had quite a ways to go before I made it back.

When I got into town earlier, the first stop I had made was the pharmacy. I grabbed everything I could ending in -cillin or -sin, hoping that I had at least something that could help John.

I should have left it at that. I should have turned around and started heading home, but I knew we were running low on food again and with John so sick, I knew hunting was out of the question. I still wasn't allowed my gun even after a year of trying to prove to John that I was fully capable and would only use it in the case of an emergency. So that only left me with one other option. I decided to make a stop at the small grocery store in town. We had been there before. It was cleared out of the geeks, and although most of the shelves were empty, we hid some stuff in one of the bathrooms because no one checks in those anymore and we didn't have the space or strength to carry a lot back to the cabin. The car had died 3 months in so everything was on foot now.

When I got to the store, I thought everything would go smoothly. I went to the canned goods aisle and grabbed a couple cans of soups and beans. We only grab from the stash hidden in the staff bathroom if we had to. If others had found the store and everything else was gone, it was unlikely that they would check a staff bathroom at the back of the warehouse. So we hoped leaving it there would be smart.

As I finished zipping up my backpack, I heard footsteps headed towards me. I ran down the aisle in the opposite direction that I had heard the steps coming from, but as I got to the end, another body stepped in front of my own. A living one. I didn't have time to think about it as the man attempted to grab me. I had an advantage though. This man didn't know I'd be here so I pushed on his chest as hard as I could and bolted to the door. That's when the gunshots sounded off. I could feel the bullets whiz past my small body as I ran outside the store. I kept running until I knew that the Merle guy had given up on his chase and they were no longer following me.