Caged Bird *prequel to Angel Wings and Unchained*

Her New Life

"You made the right choice Kendall." I reassure myself for the millionth time. I drive all the way out of town, out of the state. I stop a couple times to suck gas out of cars and put it in mine. Eventually the car gives out. Dead battery and there's not a damn thing in sight for me to fix it with. I ditch the vehicle grabbing what I can and find myself walking
And walking
And walking.

I swear to God if a handsome man in a car drives by I'm not stopping. I'm just going to keep on fucking walking. You only make that mistake once.

I come to a clearing in the woods and see something up ahead. A cabin. I creep up on it carefully in case there's someone living in it... or not living. I knock on the window and sure enough a single biter comes growling and scratches on the window. I try to get it to come to the door and sure enough I can hear it grunting as I open the door quickly. So quickly it falls to the ground as I jump back. I quickly shoot it with my crossbow right between the eyes as it drops dead. I yank the bow out and drag it's body a little bit away.

I then walk into the cabin and drop my stuff to the ground. My arms pulse of exhaustion from holding all of my things for so long. I walk around and realize it's just a small cabin. No bedrooms just a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and a bed. It has a closet as well which I inspect carefully making sure nothing is in it.

"Well this will have to do" I say as I start cleaning up and unpacking my stuff. I check out the area and see a stream just a little bit aways. There's fish and frogs as well as deer in the area. This might not be half bad. According to my map I think I'm somewhere in Georgia. But I'm not quite sure because I made lots of wrong turns along the way. I just know I'm far enough to where Negan is never going to find me. And that's exactly the way I want it.

•

A couple weeks pass and I'm starting to really enjoy things out here. I've been able to hunt deer and get plenty of fresh water from the stream. At first it was lonely, just me and my thoughts, but the wide open air has really helped and there's not too many of the dead this way. I've also been starting to forget, starting to forget what happened with... well you know who.

I watch carefully as I shoot my arrow right through a squirrel as it drops dead from the tree.

"Sorry buddy." I say pulling it up. But I'm not too sorry because it'll be a nice dinner and I know it died instantly. Plus it probably would've had a worse fate somewhere down the line. I tie it to my belt as I hear something. Hoping it's a deer I quietly maneuver myself through the woods. But then I realize it's no deer. It's a person, and not a biter, a live person. He looks like he could be out hunting as well, or maybe he's just passing through. I decide to remain quiet. I tuck myself behind a rock but accidentally step on the loudest twig to ever exist in the process. The man turns around a little too quickly and slips down the side of the hill. He lets out a groan as I peek quickly. The noise attracted a biter that must've been in the area.

"Don't get involved Kendall, run away Kendall," I tell myself quietly remembering the last time I got involved with a person.

But I can't find it in myself to leave him. I emerge from behind my safety zone and shoot the biter, it falls onto the mysterious man. I wait a moment, neither of them move. I tip-toe over to them and rip the carcass off of him. His head bleeds profusely, he must have hit it off something. He stares up at me, his eyes are blue, similar to the ocean. He has dark brown hair and is very built. He looks as if he wants to say something.

"Are you okay? Who are you?" I ask half expecting an answer. He becomes unconscious. I turn to leave him, but again something inside me refuses. I sigh and check for a pulse. He is alive, I then check for bites. Once I make sure he hasn't been infected I grab his crossbow off of him. It is larger and much heavier than mine. I remove a pistol and a knife from his back pockets slipping it into mine. Grabbing his wrists, I begin to drag the man carefully back to my cabin. It must be quite a sight that a five foot three tall girl is dragging a six foot man through the woods, but I don't think about it too much.