A Glimmer of Hope

***WARNING***
This story is very graphic and only for mature readers. It has a graphic sexual assault as well. You've been warned.

Athena was traveling around the country seeing her family after losing her husband in a car accident a year before the fall. She thought that they were perfect for one another and losing him shook her to her core. She was in Georgia when the world started to go to hell. After traveling alone for few months into the apocalypse, she stopped to sleep in the woods when she heard two engines stop late into the night. She went closer to the camp, snapping a twig. Then small whispers. A man with a southern twang (appropriate to the area) spoke in a hushed but urgent tone. Athena just caught the end of what he had been saying: "This isn't a democracy anymore!"

Shortly after making her presence known, she gets to know the members of the group she heard whispering little by little, though they are hard to let her in to the group at first. After finally being accepted, she catches the eye of Daryl Dixon, the rugged, silent protector of the group. She is extremely apprehensive to do so after losing her husband only a year ago. But as different as this new world is, as broken and sad, he would want her to find some sort of glimmer of hope.

**I do not own the rights to any of The Walking Dead characters. Only the ones I have created.**