Jayr POV - Earth, Geia, Highway Iate 85 - 2010

  After traveling for around 2 hours without any other stop or major issue, excluding a brief mandatory stop to refill the cargo truck's tank, we finally are very close to the city of Atnta so much that it already be seen in the distaogether with the extremely long, jam-packed line of i vehicles oher side of the highway that the people fleeing from the city left behind.

  As soon as the city of Atnta is in sight, I don't hesitate to stop the cargo tru the middle of the road more than a few kilometers away from the city.

  The reason for that is that after thinking for a long time, I decided that it is better to search for the location of the Atnta's survivor camp than rushing into the city to reuh Rick.

  What made me choose the Atnta's survivor camp over Rick is the fact that if everything goes as intehen Rick, at the moment, should be somewhere in that city full of walkers searg for Marle Dixon, Daryl Dixon's older brother.

  More importantly, a city that I know nothing about ign what I saw iV show, and without my ic Awareness, searg for him is like looking for a specifieedle in a huge haystack full of needles, a waste of time.

  In addition to that, I also remembered that iV show, the survivor camp was attacked by walkers the night Rid his group went searg for Merle and that attack caused quite a bit of victims, and those victims are people that be saved if I'm there to take care of the walkers ahem safe.

  Another point in favor of going directily to the Altanta's survivor camp is that if we arrive there early enough we will arrive just in time to enter Rid his group as they head out to rescue Merle and in that case, I give him some tips to make their seard rescue mission a bit easier, or at the very least make him take fewer detours.

  After all from what I remember of the TV show, Merle amputated his hand to escape, stopped the bleeding by burning his bloody stump on a stove, cauterized the wound, escaped the building on his legs, ahe city by stealing a vehicle before being saved by the governor which means that he fleed in Woodbury's dire which I remember reading that is located 93 kilometers south of Atnta.

  I even tell Rick the safer trick of cutting off a walker's arms and mouth to re innocuous and use a couple of them to mask one's smell and preseo safely traverse difficult parts, as long as they are quiet.

  Moreover, even if we are te, if everything goes as ied, Rid his group will still safely return back to the camp, after all, Rick, Glenn, and Daryl are some of the most resourceful people in this universe.

  Seeiop the cargo truck, Man turns his head and looks at me before he asks, "What's going on? Why did you stop?"

  I keep my eyes focused oy in the distand simply state, "I don't think it is a good idea to rush into the city without any information like this." before I g both Man and Duane ahe fusion on their faces making me ask, "You have seen how many walkers there were in a small town like King ty, right?"

  Seeing them nod, I then tinue, "Well, what do you think the state of a huge metropolis like Atnta would be like?"

  At this point, while Duailts his head in fusion, Man immediately uands what I mean and his face quickly loses all his color as he asks, "You mean that...?"

  I nod and gravely say, "From what I know before all this happehere were more than 400.000 people living in Atnta and from what I have seen in my travels, the walkers are much more numerous of the living. While I don't have the exact pertage of hoeople got turned into walkers, if I use what I saw and think of the worst case sario, then we expect to face at the very least over 300.000 walkers if we rush into the city and I'm not sure on how reliable is that news about the refugee settle is. I don't want to throw our lives away for a mere ce."

  Hearing that, Duane inhales a sharp breath while a shocked Man mutters, "300.000... my God..." before he looks at me and asks, "Then what are we going to do? If there are really more than 300.000 walkers in that city there is no way I'm going to walk into that death trap!"

  I calmly nod and say, "I agree with you. That's why we are going to gather some information about it. To do that, we are going to search for a survivor camp outside the city... do you guys know of a pce that people could use as a safe area nearby the city outskirts?"

  Duane shakes his head while Man thinks about it for a few seds before he says, "If I remember well, there is a nature park area nearby... The state of Geia allowed campers and hikers to use that area as a public recreational park for activities such as hiking, camping, fishing, and rock climbing. Before all this started, Jenny... Jenny and I wa Duahere to spend some time iure. From the photo I saw oer, it looks like a good pce to hide if the city truly isn't safe..."

  Hearing that I nod as what Man just described sounds a lot like the pce where Shane and the others built the survivor camp and that was shown iV show, so I look at him and ask, "Do you know where is it and how to reach it?"

  Man again falls silent before he nods and says, "I think I do." before he looks at his son and ents, "This is good. It is a lot better to be safe than sorry, in fact, even if we do not find ahere, we still use the pce ourselves as a temporany camp as we gather information about the city's situation."

  After that, I start the engine and start to drive the cargo truck following both Man's dire and the few useful road signs.

  Rick POV - Earth, Geia, Atnta's Survivor Camp - 2010

  After the best sleep I ever had in a long time, I wake up and quickly look around ahat I'm in an unfamiliar tent before my mind catches up with everything that happened yesterday and I quckly look around searg for the figures of my wife and my son but I realize that both Lori and Carl aren't ient.

  Then I notie clothes lying on the bed in front of me, a white T-shirt, jeans, and fortable gym shoes, and seeing them I get up from the bed and start to dress up as I think about what happened yesterday, 'For sure that was a very eventful day...'

  After I separated from Doctor Jayr, Man, and Duane, I drove the police car with Atnta as my destination but on the way there, the car ran out of fuel, so I abahe car on the highway and headed out on foot.

  While walking toward Atnta, I found a farmhouse and approached it, ohere I peeked inside and made the grisly discovery that a couple had itted suicide with a shotgun, 'I still clearly remember their deg bodies picked off by is.'

  After that, I tried to locate the keys to the pick-up truck parked in their driveway, but instead, I found a horse on their property.

  Without any choice, I saddled up and rode the rest of the way to Atnta with the bag of guns slung ay shoulder.

  When I arrived in Atnta, I discovered that there was no safe zone like Man and Duane described.

  The ey was abandoned with the streets littered with dead bodies and abandoned military vehicles, in addition, several of those walkers took notiy presend proceeded to follow me.

  While expl the city I suddenly caught the refle of a helicopter passing by through a skyscraper and without aation, I speeded up the horse to try and follow it but ended up running inte herd of those walkers.

  At this point, I feel my heart beating very fast as I remember that dreadful se and the events that followed quickly after as I tried to escape but found myself surrouhen I toppled off the horse and crawled away as the walkers started to devour the horse alive until I scrambled underh an abaank.

  But that was just the start as several walkers noticed me and began to reach out at me from underh the tank making me shoot several of them in desperation, but I found myself quickly outnumbered by the walkers.

  With no other option, I almost shot myself in the head but stopped when I noticed an open hatderh the tank and quickly climbed into it to escape the walkers.

  I mao hide iank, but soon I realized that I was not alohere prarently dead soldier ihe tank.

  As I rested ihe tank, I took the gun from the apparent dead soldier, but the soldier suddenly woke up making me realize that he was a walker.

  In a paate, I quickly shot the already dead soldier in the head but was then disoriented by the loud gunshot reverberating ihe tank.

  As I tried to recollect myself, I noticed my bag of guns oreet so I opened a hat the top of the tank, but was quickly noticed by several walkers, who began climbing on top attempting to get inside making me shut the hatch.

  At that point, I realized that I was pletely surrounded by walkers, and unsure of what to do , I decided to attempt suicide again by pg my gun to my forehead.

  But before I could do it, I was interrupted by a young man's voice that broke over the CB radio iank.

  With a newfound hope, I asked the young mahe radio what was the situation outside and what I should do to survive.

  The young man informed me that I was surrounded by walkers and advised me to make a run for it while they were distracted and busy eating the horse

  I also asked if he could see the bag of guns, but he told me that it wasn't an option.

  After that, I collected a grenade from the dead soldier and a shovel from the floor of the tank popped through the top hatch, dispatched a walker with the shovel, jumped off of the tank, and ran down a nearby sidewalk toward an alleyway, the ohe voie about.

  During the escape, I fot about Doctor Jayr and Man's warning and in my paate I shooted as many walkers along the ossible empying the gun.

  As I turned around the er I was surprised by an Asian young man, who revealed himself to be the oalking to me earlier over the tank radio.

  We race up a dder to the roof, stopping to catch our breath on a ptform half and the young man introduced himself as Glenn as I thanked him for saving my life.

  After that, we walked down a staircase into an alley that was occupied by two walkers and Glenn tacted his group, prompting two people wearing riot gear and brandishing baseball bats to emerge from the building a down the walkers as we rushed into the building, followed by the people in riot gear.

  Ihe store, shortly after we rushed inside, a blonde woman, whose name I learned was Andrea, pointed a gun in my face, furious at my reckless behavior, especially the fact that I shot in the middle of the city.

  At first, I was fused by that quick succession of events, at least until a Hispani named Morales informed me that my gunshots had attracted the horde of walkers to the doors of the store.

  At that point, I noticed the huge horde of walkers gathered at the doors and windows of the store, furiously pounding at the gss in an attempt to gairy.

  After that, the group questioned me about what I was doing roaming around the streets of Atnta aimlessly and I tried to expin that I was trying to fg down the helicopter I saw.

  In respohe group said that they didn't hear a helicopter, and an Afri Ameri woman named Jacqui suggested that it was just a halluation.

  At the same time, an Afri Ameri man -Dog tried to make radio tact with another unknown group but failed to get a signal, and suddenly, we heard gunshots from the roof, and we all rushed to the roof to iigate.

  On the rooftop, we found a caucasi man named Merle firing at walkers ireet with a scoped rifle.

  Morales and T-Dog chastised Merle for wasting bullets and attrag more walkers but Merle scoffed at them and proceeded to racially insult Morales and T-Dog, before pung T-Dog to the floor.

  At that point, Merle then decred himself the new leader of the group and stated that if there were any objes in a mog manner.

  Seeing that, I used my experience as Sheriff to analyze a to the situation, and without aation, I rushed toward Merle and hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle and then handcuffed him to a pipe on the roof before I searched Merle's body for ons, but instead, I found a bag s, which I tossed over the side of the roof muerle's anger.

  After dealing with that situation, Morales informed me that there is no safe zone in Atnta, but they are part of a rger group taking shelter oskirts of the city.

  Learning of that my first tought was to warn Man and Jayr but without the walkie-talkie that I left in the bag, I was uo do it, so I focused oing out of this situation.

  As the group was disccussing about what to do to get out but with the streets uo pass due to the walkers no one was able to e up with anything, at least until Jacqui suggested that we travel underground to escape, as the building has access to the sewers.

  Hearing that, the group traveled downstairs, but T-Dog stayed behind to keep waterle.

  We reached the basement and Glenn, Andrea, Morales, Jacqui, and I stood at the top of a dder that led into the sewer where I and Andrea volunteered to stay iore while Morales, Glenn, and Jacqui went into the sewer to find a possible exit.

  After that, I and Andrea went back to the store where Andrea spotted a mermaid neckd said her sister would love it as it would be her birthday soon.

  Hearing that, I enced her to take it, stating that shoplifting rules no longer apply in this world beflenn, Morales, and Jacqui returned and stated that the sewers were uo travel through.

  Disced we ventured back up to the roof and I started to look around taking advantage of the height of the building to scout the surrounding area and spotted a cube van at a nearby stru site a few blocks away and informed the group we started to pn how to proceed.

  When discussing pns to bypass the walkers oreets, Aated that the walkers smell dead while we don't, giving me ahat could work especially when I remembered what Doctor Jayr said about them, that they have an enhanced sense of smell and hearing but are basically blind.

  Without wasting any time, I took one of the bodies of the walkers Morales and T-Dog dispatched earlier in the alley, and after bringing it in front of the group I repeated what Doctor Jayr said that the walkers lost all humanity and were simply moving corpses.

  After the group shared a solemn moment of refle, I began to hack the dead body to pieces with a fire axe I found in the building after that, Glenn and I then smeared the guts onto ourselves, disgusting everyone and I was about to the point of puking but it was something we had to do to survive.

  Before leaving, I made sure to toss to T-Dog the key to Merle's handcuffs and then I went outside with Glenn.

  Oside, I and Glenn crawled uhe bus blog the alley, and shortly after we started to shuffle into the streets, mixing in to the crowd of walkers unnoticed by them.

  The whole experience was very stressful, especially when the walker got a little too close.

  Despite that, we kept making our way through the crowd of walkers but suddenly, rain began to fall rather heavily, and started to wash the guts smell off our bodies.

  Because of that a nearby walker detected us as humans, and started to growls at me, and in respoo that, I didn't hesitate to dispatch it with the axe in my hands.

  Shortly after that, all walkers nearby started to e after us f us to fight the walkers while tinuing to run to the stru site where the cube van was as the group on the rooftop likely watched over us.

  We were able to make it over the feninjured and I started to shoot at the walkers from behind the fence while Glenn located the keys.

  Just as he found the keys, the crowd of walkers knocked down the fend charged at us, but we speeded away in the van just in time.

  As we were esg in the van, I lenn to radio the group to get ready for pick-up aiohat we would need a way to lure the walkers away from the department store, before I noticed a red Dodge Challenger sports car which immediately gave me an idea.

  Without aation, I smashed the driver's side window to gairy, causing the car's arm to bre loudly before I gave way flenn to ehe vehicle.

  Then with the walkers lured away by Glenn's car arm, I brought the van outside the loading bay at the batrance of the store allowing the group to pile in, catg their breath as I drove away from the city.

  At that point, I notice that they look around at one another and suddenly a guilt-ridden T-Dog admits to the others he dropped the key, leaving Merle trapped on the roof, still handcuffed to a pipe making a tense silence fall that got broken when Andrea asked where Glenn was.

  Right at that moment, Glenn drove the red Dodge Challenger with its bring arms and speeds out of Atnta while screaming in celebration.

  On the road, while I was driving toward their camp, Morales advised me to not dwell on Merle's abando, g that nobody will miss him, except for his brother, Daryl but not knowing the true dynamics of the group I could only listen in silence while fog on driving while following Glenn's red Dodge Challenger.

  After some time we finally arrived heir campsite and Glenn's red Dodge Challenger, which was still bring its arm that now echoes all around the area, bze ahead leaving us behind.

  I tio follow the trail until I arrived at their camp and as soon as I parked the cube van I also notice that the Dodge Challenger's alrm got shut down.

  At the same time, Andrea rushed out of van and tearfully reunited with a young woman with long blonde hair, which made me realize that she likely was the sister she talked about before.

  Morales does the same as he reunites with his wife, son and daughter, while T-Dog starts to talk with a cacausian and aall man.

  As everyoearfully reunite, I took a moment to look more closely at the area they chose as campsite and saw that it is a nature park area that sists of dense forests, mountain cliffs whiot only made it more difficult to find but also helped form a quarry, and a body of water in the form of a river.

  The kind of area where numerous animals such as squirrels, birds, deer, and fish inhabit, feeding off of the vegetation whi turn makes it a lot easier for people to survive by feeding off them.

  Once I was doh cheg the area and gathering my bearing, it was time to get out of the van a everybody and I'm not ashamed to say that I retty apprehensive about it, even more so for I tired I felt that seemed the lo day of my life.

  I slowly emerged from the van and after looking at all the people around for a few seds, I reized the figure of my best friend Shane.

  We traded a stunned gil I spot the figure of my son Carl as he ran toward me while calling me.

  At that point, I was breathless almost felt like all my energies left me while feeling an enormous relief seeing that both my son and my wife were safe, even more so when Carl ran into my arms and I held him very close to me afraid that all that was just a dream and he could disappear at any moment, then my wife Lori joins us as we all tearfully reunite.

  Later in the night, around a campfire, I narrated and described to everyohe disorientation I felt waking up alone in the hospital before Lori expihat she was told that I would be brought over to Atnta, but that obviously it never happened.

  Then Carl said that Shaold him that I died and I stated that Shane had every reason to believe I did before I once again gehank my brother Shane for looking after my family.

  While that was happening, I also noticed some disturbance happening nearby caused by a man who stoked his family's fire with a fresh log making Shaervene, instrug the man named Ed to take the log out so we won't be seen from a distanbsp;

  In response, Ed told him to mind his own business, but cede under Shane's forceful and and instruct his meek wife to pull the log from the fire and then Ed gred as Shane bid the wife whose name is Carol and their daughter Sophia good evening.

  At the same time, I heard Dale ask what they should tell Daryl about his brother making Andrea reason that Merle was out of trol, but Dale reason back that they 't tell that to Daryl.

  At that point, I volunteered to deliver the news, as it does T-Dog, still filled with guilt for dropping the key as he told the group that he stopped to the stairwell door before he ran for the van.

  After that, I went back to Lori and Carl's tent, said goodnight to my son and talked with Lori in the bed while holding her close to me.

  I told her that I knew she and Carl were alive because their photo albums were gone when I returo our house making Lori smile and pull one open.

  Then we reflected on our past mistakes and told her that I was grateful for the sed ce that we have been given and she too agree, before she gave me my wedding ring, which had been removed when I was in the hospital, and then I spend the night making love with Lori fetting about all the problem we had before I was shot and all these crazy things happened feeling tent and happy.

  Odyin