( 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑭𝑶𝑼𝑹 !.˚₊ ❖ )
❝ what lies ahead ❞

"NATALIA, STOP!" 

Archie's sharp hiss was followed by him snatching onto her arm, stopping the frantic woman's hand from grasping the cold metal of the pistol in her bag. Her raven eyes narrowed, glaring daggers while her lips formed a growl, "Why?" 

Her gaze darted back up, towards the gathering of ruthless survivors and their hands on their weapons, weapons she was sure they would stab into her and Archie's skulls. They wouldn't die, not like this. Their lives would not be so easily ripped from their scarred and bloody grasp as though they were pigs for slaughter. Natalia would fight, even in a losing battle. 

"Nat, look," the boy pleaded, the pair slowly rising to an upright stance as his blood-stained fingers were still locked around her arm. He reached out a delicate finger, pointing towards the beaten RV an old man was perched on, looking through the binoculars in his hands. 

Natalia trailed her gaze through the group, Archie's breath hot on her ear as he whispered, "They have kids with them, Nat."

Sure enough, there they were. A young boy shielded by a woman with a waterfall of dark brown hair, and a little girl by his side, she too guarded by her mother. Natalia squinted trying to make out their features, the blinding sun still beating down on the pair and blinding them. But through the harsh light, she could make out the fear in the children's eyes. 

She released her grip of the bag, leaving it at her feet as the man approached them in a quick trot, a sheriff's hat casting shadows on his angular face. His hand was still on his belt, resting atop the silver revolver that looked like hell itself to the girl. Nat tried to swallow the lump in her throat, her chest on fire from fear. The more she tried to gulp down her terror, the bigger it grew. 

Her mind raced through realities, possibilities of her and Archie being shot dead, left atop the hot pavement to rot and decay before the things came. They would be picked apart by the living dead, organs devoured while their knawed bones became dust. 

Her companion's voice tore her from imagining their lifeless bodies, yet her veins still pounded with fear as her eyes snapped to him at his words, "Let me do the talking." 

Archie put his hands in the air, raising the pair's "white flag" with a hesitant gesture of surrender. He took a couple of steps towards the approaching man, who stopped in his tracks a few paces away from the boy. His fingers still danced on the loaded gun, and his eyes were narrowed to slits like a cat. 

"Hey, man," Archie began, trying to force his tone steady and calm in the fit of chaos, but Natalia could hear how his tongue shook, how his voice quivered and his right ring finger twitched, making the sun glisten on the ring he always wore ─ he was petrified. 

"Look, we don't want any trouble, we are just passing - "

"Are there more in your group?" the sheriff cut in, his voice twanged by a southern accent and his question more of a demand. 

The jittery boy managed to meet his opposer's stare, eyes hardening yet remaining the soft hazel they always would be. His bottom cracked lip stopped its quiver, and he tried to stand taller against the man who towered over him by at least five inches. 

He choked out a reply. "Nope, just the two of us. We haven't even seen anyone else in weeks." 

"What's with the blood all over your clothes?" 

As the words escaped the man's mouth, Natalia came forward, boots thundering against the asphalt below them and their low heels nearly ripping off due to the fraying strings. Her arms were folded across her chest, over the burnt orange tank top that revealed the bright scratches inflicted by the think brush on her shoulders. Her eyes were narrowed, and her composure challenged that of the man before hers. Even at her small height, just a couple inches above five feet, she managed to make herself into a giant. 

"What the hell is this, an interrogation?" she snapped. Her words were growls and her nose scrunched up just a tad bit. "And if you must know, it's from the Muertos, he fought off a group on his own just before dawn." 

The so-called sheriff ran over his gaze atop the unlikely pair, first glancing at the adolescent boy, taking in his under eyes, how there were black circles that he shouldn't have gotten for at least thirty more years. His skin shouldn't have the creased wrinkles of stress, he shouldn't look frail and weakened, he should look young and bright, but he was just dull like the world around them. 

He then moved his eyes to the girl, how her hair was matted in sweat, a cold and hard expression on her face and her already dark eyes were blackened like charcoal, pupils bleeding into her irises and the whites bloodshot. Her cheeks were scattered in light scars only visible up close, her hand clutched in a fist at her side. It was clear they both had been to hell and back. 

A long and harrowing minute passed before the man spoke again, clearing his throat slightly and his words just a tad bit softer this time. "What are your names?"

The pair met eyes, Archie's questioning look asking premission to open his mouth. Natalia's eyelids shifted down, covering half of her pupils as she nodded just the slightest bit, so tiny, in fact, if her companion had so much as blinked he would've missed it. 

"I'm Archie," the boy replied at last.  "And this here is Natalia." 

The young woman's gaze stayed hard and cross, glancing towards her backpack spilled on the ground for just a flicker of a second  ─ the revolver was just a yard away from her grasp. The only thing stopping her from pouncing on the gun and putting her finger on the cold trigger was the children less than a hundred feet away. They had seen their world go up in flames at such a young age, the last thing they needed was to also see a body bleed out under the sweltering sun. 

"Rick Grimes." 

His words surprised the pair, both their gazes flashing back up towards him in a second. The man named Rick continued to look between the two, glancing down at the girl's hand tightly grasped on the leather holster her knife was sheathed in. Truth was, she hadn't noticed her fingers' vice grip on the rusted blade, it was so natural to her, to always be prepared for the worst. 

"What are you, a cop or something?" Natalia questioned, moving her hand from the weapon resting in her belt to her hips, arching a dark eyebrow littered by minuscule scars. 

Rick met the woman's gaze, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly as his jaw clenched tightly. "I was," he replied, meeting her stance by placing his own battered hands on the top of his belt. "What are you two doing coming through here? Heading anywhere in particular?" 

 Archie wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, and Nat couldn't tell if the sweat was caused by the heat or his rising nerves. 

"Our camp got overrun by the Muertos," she answered for the boy, shooting him the smallest of comforting smiles. "I heard of a pileup during the first evacuation, that pileup your...people are scavenging through the exact." 

The pileup of cars had become more of a graveyard than a traffic mishap. Inside the vehicles were the skeletons of past drivers, the bones of children piled up in the backseats. It made Natalia's skin erupt in chills, her muscles crawling in ice. Her chest tightened at the thought of so many lost lives, too young to be devoured by the dead. 

"Truth is," she spoke up again before Rick could bite back a reply, taking a step forward to be in front of Archie who couldn't force his tongue to move, his fears taking over his mouth and sealing his lips. "You got children with you, and we sure as hell aren't looking for a fight. All we want to get some supplies, so I don't see why we can just share this pileup here and then be on our separate ways." 

Rick glanced over them one more time, his jaw clenched so tightly Natalia thought it might implode from its socket. Her hope was minuscule, more so than the top of a thumbtack. It could be held between two fingers, and she was certain he would decline her suggestion, sending the two on their way through the wasteland once more. His next words shocked her more than the end of the world. 

"Okay, deal." 

The tattered woman could feel the smile crawling atop her companion's lips, and her own mouth twitched up just the smallest bits in the corners. Archie thanked the man with a gentle grin, offering his hand forward in a civil shake as Natalia moved away from the pair. She crouched down by the weathered and split backpack, muddied hands moving to collect the scattered remains. Yet when she bent down, her knees screamed in pain, the joints turning to flames and a hiss escaped her lips, cracked and covered in dry blood. 

Her teeth stabbed her tongue while she bit back the agony, rushing her things into the bag before zipping it closed hastily. The strain of her knees didn't end as she stood, and instead, the pain in her shoulder was added to the mixture. Her whole body ached, but she still felt an odd rush of relief and...slight happiness through her. 

Nat and Archie found their places beside each other once more, just as the man, or Rick, as he had identified himself, retreated back to his own group with hands perched atop his hips once more. The once police officer was met by another, a comrade perhaps who had a snarl on his face and narrowed glint to his eyes. 

The girl watched as his mouth moved with venom, pointing sharply towards her and Archie with a scowl. But she didn't let this put a halt to her steps. The pair of beaten boots continued to march overtop the blistering asphalt, a worrisome Archie trailing just behind.

As they approached the pileup, the pair grew to be in earshot of the raging man. His hair was dark, pitch black, and while he was shorter than Rick he was not quite as lean. Natalia could make out just the last of his growls, hearing him just as he spat out "don't say I didn't warn you."

With that, he glared daggers towards the young woman, and her hands slipped to grasp atop the rusted blade, but she thought better of it. The less threatening, the better. Those were his people he was protecting, and the two companions were mere strangers worth less than dirt. 

The young woman turned her eyes from the vicious stare of the man, instead looking towards the cars but she still felt the gazes of many burning into the back of her head. She couldn't help her eyes from wandering over to the others, and she knew Archie was doing the same. The way they wouldn't turn their backs to the pair, how they looked at them like they were the dead itself. Her stomach grew a gaping pit in it, and her heart exploded in her chest. 

Natalia swallowed down the pit in her throat, but it left her mouth dry and on fire. The only thing that brought her back was a cold hand atop her bare shoulder, the feeling of a ring chilling her skin. She knew who it was without turning, yet she still snapped her head over to the right with her cracked lips rolled into her mouth. 

"Let's hurry up," Nat demanded, her voice recomposed and sharp. 

Archie simply nodded branching off from his companion and scurrying towards a cluster of cars. Her lips curled up just a bit as the worn boy made a break for the first sports car he saw; some things never do change. 

Natalia moved towards a tattered green mini-van just in earshot of the weary group. The paint of the car was chipped, the windows covered in muck and grime. She sighed at the horrid state, popping the trunk with her bruised hand only to have an array of junk splinter onto the asphalt below. 

"Shit," the bone-weary woman hissed beneath her breath, jaw clenched as she began to crouch on flaming knees to collect the things

Her back cried out with a crack, knees on scorching fire and feeling as though the muscle was tearing from the bone. She made herself crouch, forcing the joints to bend no matter how much they persisted. 

She sifted through the junk, mostly consisting of drained bottles and dinged-up cans of soup. She picked up a certain can, one that felt heavier than the rest and was labeled as garlic tomato. Dents littered to sides and top of it, but nonetheless, it was full, heavy, and would act as a good meal for her and her companion. 

 A small smile was allowed to grace her lips while she muttered out, "Bingo." 

Natalia slung her pack off of her shoulders, dropping it atop the ground with a gentle thud. And just as she stuffed the can of soup within, her ears perked up at the conversation of the others around her, drawing in the weary voices with stiffened curiosity. 

"If you can't find a radiator hose in here, there is a whole bunch of stuff we can find," a man with a particularly strong Georgia accent proclaimed, tossing junk aside from the trunk of a car just as the girl had moments before.  

Choosing the ignore their talk of siphoning gas from cars and scavenging supplies, Natalia returned to searching through the tattered van, finding just small clothes belonging to that of children. Her hands grew shaky around a pink shirt, and her eyes slammed shut. An innocent girl once wore this shirt, a child that was stricken from the world all too quickly. 

She stayed frozen, that is until a quivering voice drew her attention, as another pang went through her chest. The words shook her to the core. 

"This is a graveyard." 

( 𝑨𝑼𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑹❜𝑺 𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑬 !.˚₊ ❖ )

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So like..i'm back, somewhat. I don't want to be very active on Wattpad, it literally used to run my life. BUT, i re-read some of my previous chapters to this story and was inspired to at least finish up this chapter i have written. I will be continuing it in time, so expect random updates! I love you guys so much and thank you for any support. This book has been inactive for SO long so please just leave a comment so I know you are here! 

GLXNNRHEES / FAITH 2022