KISS OF LIFE — INTRODUCTION

KISS OF LIFE, book one
The End Days Duology

I want things to hurt —
cigarette smoke to burn my lungs,
glass shards to cut my skin,
pavement to rasp against my knees.

I do not want beautiful;
I want a goddamn tragedy.

— Meggie C. Royer

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SYNOPSIS!

      AT NINETEEN YEARS OLD, NATHANIEL DIXON SHOULD HAVE BEEN worrying about scrounging enough money together to pay his bills, or working overtime at the mechanics shop he was employed at in order to build a good rep with his boss. He shouldn't have to be fighting off the undead with his two older brothers, constantly wondering whether he would live to see the next sunrise and if his dying moments really would be spent with Merle's ugly ass cussing him out.

Nate had a plan for himself. He was going to achieve what his older brothers could not — he was going to get the hell out of Georgia and make a new life for himself somewhere where the name Dixon didn't earn him sharp scowls and suspicious glares the moment he stepped outside his apartment.

Ever since he moved out of his asshole father's house at sixteen and got a job at a local mechanics to pay his rent, Nate had been on a mission, and only the end of the world could stop him.

Unfortunately for Nate, that is exactly what happened.

He had thought it was a sick joke at first when his boss told him the news that some hospital in the city had been overrun by the walking dead. What kind of 28 Days Later bullshit was that? But when Daryl Dixon showed up on his doorstep a week later, armed with a rifle and an uncharacteristic look of fear on his face, Nate had known it was serious. With him, Daryl brought news of their father's death and a plea to Nate to come with him to safety.

Fleeing their hometown and hightailing it into the countryside, Nate, Daryl, and, unfortunately, Merle, soon came across a camp of fellow apocalypse survivors by a quarry outside Atlanta city. It seemed a safe enough place to stay for now, and Nate was thankful for the reprieve it provided him from Merle's incessant shit-talking.

But Merle and Daryl are not as complacent in the camp as Nate is. They are lone wolves, operating by a code of survival of the fittest. And with the dead now risen to walk the earth, it is only a matter of time before something truly terrible happens.

Nate just hopes his brothers don't drag him down with them.

・❥・

      ELIZA MORGAN NEVER EXPECTED SHE WOULD BE TASKED with raising her three-year-old brother, Jake, at the bright young age of nineteen. She also never expected that her trip home to Atlanta before she started the first term of her medical degree would coincide with a fucking apocalypse.

She thought her biggest concern would be finding time to see all her old friends amidst babysitting Jake so their parents could take a few extra shifts at the hospital they worked at. Then suddenly she was stuck with finding a way to get her and Jake to safety at their uncle's house in the countryside, after their parents were killed by the undead.

She hadn't seen her Aunt Annette and Uncle Hershel at all in the five years before the outbreak. But Eliza knew that her parents wouldn't want her to let such a petty thing as a sibling argument five Christmases ago stop her from getting Jake to safety. They had always reiterated, even after her dad stopped speaking to her aunt, that if ever something happened to them, Eliza and Jake were to go to their Uncle Hershel.

And so when the walking dead come a-knocking, that's just what Eliza did.

Life at the farm is not untouched by the death and destruction that has wrought the rest of the world, however, and Eliza is soon forced to mourn her Aunt Annette and cousin Shawn alongside her parents. Her only goal now is to take care of Jake. As long as she keeps him safe, Eliza knows she has something to live for.

But it does nothing to ease the guilt that has been gnawing at her since they first ran away from Atlanta. See, Eliza has a terrible secret: she killed a man in cold blood on her journey out of the city.

And when a police sheriff and his wounded son come running up onto the farm in a panic one day, Eliza senses that it is only a matter of time before her secret gets out— before she has to explain the how and why of the murder she committed.

Eliza has no idea what reaction to expect when it does.

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STARRING!

NATHANIEL 'NATE' DIXON
played by Drew Starkey

— NINETEEN. SCORPIO. STRAIGHT. ESTP.
❝My dad thought his spunk was all dried up and then boom, he was landed with me. Always use protection, my friend, always.❞

ELIZA 'LIZ' MORGAN
Played by Kristine Froseth

— NINETEEN. CANCER. BISEXUAL. ISFJ.
❝You rode in like a goddamn cowgirl to bring Lori to her son and you expected Glenn not to immediately fall in love with you? ❞

ADDITIONAL CAST!

WALKER SCOBELL / JAKE MORGAN
SANDRA OH / LINDA JEONG
MARGRET QUALLEY / ALYSSA COWEN
DYLAN SPRAYBERRY / EVAN COWEN
ISABELLA SERMON / ROSIE COWEN
MALIA BAKER / AMELIA GROVES
OTHER CHARCTERS / DESCRIBED
THE WALKING DEAD CAST / THEIR RESPECTIVE ROLES

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DISCLAIMERS!

— I only own Nate, Eliza, Jake and my original plotlines for them. As well as any other OCs that might crop up here and there, and any changes I plan on making to canon.  Everything else belongs to AMC, the TWD writers, and all that jazz. The story of Will Dixon's death, Nate and Daryl's father, I have taken from the game The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, so credits for that go to the creators.

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

— This fanfiction will predominantly follow The Walking Dead tv show, but if you are a long time reader of mine, you will know I loathe to write OCs who do not have an impact on events occurring around them, so expect certain plots to be slightly AU because Nate and Eliza aren't here for no reason and they are going to stir shit up. Though hopefully in an enjoyable way!

— I also might include some things from the comics, though I'm not one hundred percent certain. Either way, there will be changes to some characters' fates, so if you think your fav is safe because they survived on the show, think again (and vice versa). Although, these changes will become more prevalent in the later seasons, since that's when a lot of stuff happens that I think is dumb lol.

— Norman Reedus was 41 when he played Daryl in season one of the show, but Daryl's age has never been specified. He's assumed to be in his late thirties, early forties at the beginning of the series, so I'm gonna have him be 37 at the start of this fic as it fits with him being seventeen years older than his brother Nate (my OC, who is 19 turning 20).

WARNINGS!

— Trigger Warnings for this fic include: sexual assault, rape, graphic violence, mentions of racism, sexism, death, cannibalism, suicide and suicidal thoughts, self-harm, depictions of depression and anorexia, references to trauma and PTSD, abuse (including child abuse), neglect, references to miscarriages and fertility issues, mentions of drug use, torture, and alcohol abuse. As well as anything else triggering that is included in The Walking Dead. If any of this could be triggering to you, please do not read this book.

— Content Warnings include: strong language (this is The Walking Dead after all), smoking, and scenes of a sexual nature, including mild smut later in the story.

— I want to put an extra warning here for references/flashbacks to the Dixon brothers' father and the abuse they endured at his hands.

That all being said, thank you for clicking on this story. I've had this idea in my brain for over two years (I found my old notes for it the other day from 2021!), and I'm super excited to finally publish it! I hope you all enjoy and come to love Nate & Eliza as much as I do <3