chapter one
there will come a day...

          Fire blared in front the boys eyes. The air filled with smoke as he laid on the ground coughing out the fumes in his lungs. Horror consumed his body as he saw the house he grew up in tear down. He couldn't bare to get up, not now, not when he saw his mother die only to come back to life, not when he saw his father turn into a cold heartless man in a matter of seconds.

          All he could think about in the moment was if he could have done something to prevent this from happening. But as hot tears streamed down his face, the sound of his dad's motorcycle began to rev.

          Turning around he saw his old man look back at him only to turn back around and flee. The boy furrowed his eyebrows confused as to what his father was doing, he finally decided to get up but with a struggle as he continued coughing. "Dad, where are you going?" His father didn't turn, "Come back!" He yelled weakly falling back to the ground. "Come back.." The boys eyes slowly fluttered, closing, not being able to be awake for much longer.

          Left alone on the hot, warm dirt. Apollo Smith died along with the love he carried...

          "Are you okay?" Phoenix asked noticing Apollo wasn't communicating with her.

          He looked over at her finally coming back into reality, "Yeah. Let's keep moving." He responded walking a bit further than her.

          At these moments, Phoenix knew to leave Apollo alone with his thoughts. If she didn't, then he would lose his patience very quickly.

          The two have been on the journey to find a safe place to stay but only them two, no one else. There wasn't anywhere safe to stay for that long without walkers managing to find the duo. Moving from place to place was especially tiring but common.

          Unfortunately, with them having no luck with anything, food was running short. "What's left?" Apollo asked the younger girl.

          Phoenix turned her bag over to her stomach to open it and see clearly. She started taking out a few of the items, "We have a can of beans and a twinkie." She shortly listed off.

          "You can have the twinkie if you want." He paused thinking, "But we have to get more food." Apollo observed his surroundings, they both found themselves by a cliff. He wanted to see if he could find a house from afar so he motioned to Phoenix to pass him her binoculars. Looking through them he saw a small town and looked for a trail that led them to that direction.

          Once he did, he began walking already knowing Phoenix was following. She may be young but she wasn't dumb and that is what Apollo appreciated because if he were to die, at least he knew Phoenix could take care of herself.

          While making their way to the town, they past two walkers. Apollo and Phoenix ducked by a bush. "Don't waste any bullets." Apollo whispered.

          Phoenix nodded taking out her knife from her sheath that was on her belt, Apollo did the same except his knife was in his boot for a faster grab. They quietly went over to the walkers to sneak up on them, and as fast as they saw them, they quickly slashed their knifes into their heads killing them and causing them to fall to the ground.

          The young girl took out the small notebook from her back pocket and a very small pencil that was probably an inch long and marked a tally. "Two more killed having us kill, eight hundred sixty-six ghoulies." Phoenix told him. She has marked the amount of walkers they killed together ever since they've been with each other. It was her only form of entertainment as there was nothing else that she could have possibly found interesting.

          "A hundred thirty-four until a thousand." Apollo encouraged their score.

          "That's not the goal though." She asserted him.

          Apollo only nodded knowing that her goal was over one thousand except, she never really gave him a number so he only figured it was over that.

          They walked for what felt like ages, night fell quickly meaning they needed to find a place to rest. They still weren't close to their destination so their best option was to sleep on the ground. Apollo told Phoenix to rest and watched as she placed down her sleeping bag.

          "Are you not gonna rest?" She asked him noticing he wasn't setting down his sleeping bag.

          "I will." Is all he said for Phoenix to already know that he wasn't going to. She knows that the reason he's always awake is to keep aware of their surroundings but, he needed sleep to have the energy to fight. And she so badly didn't want to see him struggle.

          Phoenix bit the inside of her cheek looking at him in worrisome, "You say that, but never do it." She called him out.

          Apollo relaxed his face to show the unsatisfied expression of her response. "If I go to sleep and a ghoulie finds us, we're dead."

          "If you don't go to sleep you're dead!" The young girl harshly said.

          "Good night, Phoenix." He ended the conversation so she could sleep. It didn't take long for her so do so anyway.

          Apollo sat on his book bag to keep watch. His eyes were slowly but surly fluttering to close. He was tired, no shit. Not sleeping for days straight left him deprived but, he couldn't let himself sleep. He had to take care of Phoenix, that was his job.

          But his craving for slumber didn't last long. His eyes fully shut and his body began to relax from the tense structure that he built for himself. Soon, the boy was in deep sleep so when he fell to his side, the only person to wake up from the sound was Phoenix.

          As she turned over, seeing the boy finally go to sleep made her feel relief. She laughed a bit finding it funny that he didn't feel the force of him hitting the ground enough to wake him. She got up grabbing his sleeping bag and placing it under his head almost like a pillow to support him.

          It was now her time to stay awake. Make sure Apollo would be safe. She put her things away but made sure to take out the twinkie that she had so there was something in her system to keep her awake.

          She thought about how the world turned into shit and how fast it was for people to flip a switch in their head to become so cruel. She thought about the boy in front of her and how she doesn't really know anything about him. He showed that he cared for her and maybe even trusted her but, never did he once tell her, about him.

Maybe she won't ever truly know him.

          Apollo had finally woken up. He jolted up as he realized he had slept. It was morning and looking around his surroundings, he didn't see Phoenix. Her bag was on the ground but, she was no where to be found. The boy stood up scared that she got taken away or attacked by walkers.

          "Shit, shit, shit." He cursed under his breath in full panic. He looked over to the bushes, behind multiple trees but she still wasn't around. "Phoenix!" He yelled, "Phoenix, where are you!?"

          'Jesus christ, why did I fall asleep. This is all my fault. She's probably dead and it's all because of me.' He thought to himself still looking around.

          The sound of tree branches snapping caught his attention making him take out his gun ready to shoot.

          The persons silhouette became visible from afar. Apollo aimed his gun, pulling the safety waiting for them to come closer so he wouldn't miss.

          As their face was able to be seen clearly, he let out a sigh of relief aiming his gun to the ground.

          "You trying to kill me?" Phoenix walked up to him.

          "I thought you were dead. Where were you?" He asked bitterly.

          "Hunting for food." She replied holding up a fish she caught. "I figured we'd need to eat before walking a thousand more miles." She exaggerated heading over to a pile of sticks, "Are you going to help me?"

It didn't take them long to eat and right after, they continued their long journey.

          "Are we almost there?" Phoenix asked, "I'm bored out of my mind." She sighed.

          They had been quiet the whole time, per usual but, Apollo knew a kid's attention span could only last so long. "Give or take thirty minutes." He said.

           She nodded thanking the universe that they were almost there. "If we ever come across someone, what then?" She asked curiously.

          "What do you mean?" He was unclear as to what she was implying.

          "I mean this whole time we've been avoiding people, the only thing remotely to people we've come close to are the dead. Are we really gonna spend our whole lives moving around and hoping that where we stay we won't come across any ghoulies?" Phoenix finally told him what she's been wanting an answer to for a while. She didn't get a response out of him so she further added, "What if someone offers to help us? Let us stay with them, what would you do?"

          Apollo let out a sigh as he listened, he was trying to think logically. "The thing is, we can't trust anybody, only each other. We don't really know anyone's intentions, what they would do. It's best if we find our own place, have that fenced up to keep the ghoulies away that way we won't have to worry about them."

          "And what if people come to us for help?"

          "Exactly, what if, which I doubt they will so that's nothing to concern us." He quickly shut off anymore questions just by that response alone.

          He didn't want to seem harsh only bring facts to light. His plan was to always get away from strangers, never let anyone in, two was enough.

          It fell silent again making the walk seem longer than it was intended. But, they finally made it.

As they entered the small town, they noticed that there wasn't many walkers. There were five at most, it was odd.

"Maybe they all scattered away?" Phoenix voiced seeing that Apollo was also confused.

"Let's hope, c'mon." He led the way taking her to one of the houses there. They quietly made their way to the steps of the house in front of the door, Apollo was on one side grabbing ahold of his gun ready to use it while Phoenix was on the other doing the same.

He turned the door knob ever so slightly to be extra cautious. When the door opened, it looked like no one was in there. They proceeded to go in still being ready to shoot.

A harsh stench came from everywhere around the house. You'd think getting use to the apocalypse you could get use to the smell of the living dead but that was something the two never got use to.

          Apollo stepped foot into the living room and that's when he saw a dead couple sitting on the couch clearly starving. "It looks like no one's been around." Phoenix walked over to him seeing what he saw. "That's sad."

"Unfortunate." Apollo went for his knife instead of his gun, he went over to the couple reaching at them and plunging his knife into their heads one at a time. Phoenix only watched. The Smith boy then went to the kitchen searching for food. As he looked into the cabinets, he was lucky enough to find some. "Just our luck." He showed Phoenix the boxes of cereal and the canned foods.

She happily skipped over to him to reach for the cereal, "No way!" She grinned, "I haven't had these in so long. I would say this was pretty successful." She opened the box of Lucky Charms plopping a handful in her mouth. "It's a bit stale." She murmured.

"Well, it has been a long time." Apollo told her. He looked for a can opener and a spoon to eat. He thought about something for a second, "We should stay here for a while."

"How longs a while?" The younger girl asked.

"We'll wait and see." He shrugged making Phoenix nod not questioning his reasoning.

And as planned, they stayed at this house their first night hoping nothing would happen when they woke up...

isabel speaks !!

finally published the first chapter! hope this gave you a look into apollo and phoenix's relationship

i'm so happy that i finished this and very excited to keep rewriting this!! thank you all for waiting so long😭