Ch.1

She was running, but she didn't know how long she had been running. Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Time was irrelevant; it just seemed to pass without her really knowing. All she knew is that she had to run, and she couldn't stop. She had to run as fast and as far as her weak legs would carry her. She had to get away.

Her knife was tightly clutched in her hand. It was her lifeline, the only defense she had left. The blade bloody, just like her hands. It was the only thing keeping her safe from the walkers, the only reason she wasn't back in that room.

The low, guttural growls had grown silent, but still she kept running. It wasn't the walkers she was afraid of anymore; it was the people. Walkers were predictable. They only wanted one thing: your flesh. You could outrun walkers, hide from them, and easily kill them. But people were different. They had hidden agendas. You couldn't trust them. They were dark, more monstrous than the dead that roamed the earth.

She suddenly became aware of the fading daylight and the cramping of her legs. Every muscle in her body ached. She didn't want to, but she knew that she needed to stop; she needed to rest. So reluctantly she slowed her pace until she was walking.

She didn't know what to do. She was alone. There was nobody here to protect her or guide her through things. Daryl wasn't there to coach her through making a fire or finding a safe place to sleep. Maggie wasn't there to tell her that everything was going to be alright. It was just her, and all she wanted to do was curl into herself and cry. She wanted to cry for everything she'd been through, for everything that had been done to her, for everything and everyone she'd lost. But she didn't get to cry anymore. There was no time for crying; there was only time for surviving. She took a few deep breaths and collected herself, giving her a moment to organize her thoughts and priorities.

Fire. She needed to make a small fire. It would help keep her warm throughout the night and allow her to see any approaching danger. The only problem was that she didn't know how to make a fire without a mirror and glass. She had watched Daryl do it dozens of times, and so she tried to remember everything he did.

Beth walked around the area looking for anything dry that she could use for tinder. She found dry leaves and sticks, but there wasn't much else. She arranged the tinder into a nest. She took the largest stick she had and used her knife to carve a small notch in it. Next she took another stick and placed it in the notch, and holding the stick between her two palms, she began to roll it back and forth.

She was mimicking Daryl's every move, but her hands were shaking and she was already exhausted. Her eyes were searching for a spark, for the smoke that would tell her that she had been successful, but it never came. She couldn't start the fire, and suddenly the reality of her situation came crashing down on her.

Without a fire she couldn't cook any food she was able to catch, if she could even hunt anything with just a knife. She could already feel the temperature dropping, and it was only going to get colder. She could barely see anything around her as the sun continued to set. All she had was a knife to protect her, and she could only depend on herself.

Beth leaned back against a tree and pulled her knees to her chest, tightly holding her knife in her hand. She needed to stay awake. She couldn't fall asleep. Her heart was racing and her body was still running on adrenaline, but she could feel the rush fading, and as it faded her eyes started to droop until they were too heavy to keep open any longer and sleep won over.

She woke with a start, a scream strangled in her throat, but she wouldn't let it escape. She looked around her, taking in her surroundings. She was safe, she wasn't in that room, and despite her falling asleep, no walkers had stumbled upon her makeshift camp.

One look at the sky told her that she had slept through the night. The sun was just beginning to peak through the leaves over her head, but the sky was still dim. She knew that she couldn't stay here all day, but she desperately wanted to. The grumble of her stomach coaxed her into moving. She couldn't remember the last time she had had anything to eat, and her body was craving for food, for water; it was slowly running out of energy to keep her moving.

Beth slowly stood up, her legs aching from running for so long. She still didn't know how long she had been out here, but she knew that it had at least been one day. She knew that she wouldn't be able to kill anything with just her knife, and Daryl had never gotten around to showing her how to set snares, but there were edible plants out here.

She continued walking further into the woods. She wouldn't go back in the direction that she had come from. The only way she could move was forward, away from the horror story that she had left behind. She walked until her ears heard the faint sound of trickling of water. She followed the sound until she found the source; a small stream.

Beth fell to her knees, her throat on fire. She knew it was probably a bad idea to drink straight from the stream. Daryl's voice was in the back of her head telling her that she needed to boil the water first, but she couldn't get a fire started. She placed her hands in the stream, the water turning red from the blood on her hands. She quickly washed the blood away and then stood up, Daryl's voice winning her internal battle. She would walk a little further and try to find food. If she couldn't get a fire started she would come back to the stream and get a drink.

She didn't have to walk far to find what she was looking for. Grapes. The same kind that she had found with Daryl shortly after escaping the prison. She had grabbed them back then, saying that whenever they found who they were tracking they would need food, but in reality she had been trying focus her mind somewhere else than on Daryl's words about faith and her father. Now she was in desperate need for them, her stomach painful from its lack of food.

She hastily started to pick them off of their vines, popping a few in her mouth as she went. She didn't have a bag to put them in, and if she put them in her pockets they would only get smashed. She ate as many as she could, which wasn't many. She had been starving, but as soon as she started eating the fruit, her hunger had been replaced with a heavy sinking feeling in her stomach.

After she decided that she couldn't eat anymore she began to walk again. By now the sun was high in the sky, and she guessed that it was noon. She noticed that the trees around her were starting to thin, and she could make out something in the distance.

Coming out of the woods she saw railroad tracks. She looked them up and down and noticed a sign. She cautiously moved closer to read it. "Sanctuary for all, community for all." There was also a map with an area circled in the middle of it. Terminus. But that wasn't what had caught her attention. Scrawled in red walker blood was another message. "Glenn, go to Terminus. –Maggie, Sasha, Bob."

"Got her chained up nice and good. She ain't going nowhere."

She heard her captor's voices from behind the closed door as she struggled against the rope on her wrists. She was in a room, but it was almost pitch black. The light the man had turned on when he had walked in was now off. Not that the light would have helped any; her eyes were blindfolded, making it impossible to see.

She was desperately pulling against the rope, but it was tied to something. She couldn't move far from where she was. Her head hurt; every inch of her hurt. She had been here for a while, probably two or three days, but she couldn't be sure know how long, and she didn't know what the man wanted from her. She was waiting; waiting for Daryl. She wasn't going to give up her hope. She stopped struggling when she heard more of the conversation taking place in a room just a few feet from where she was.

"So, you think the two of 'em were playin' house there?" a gruff voice asked. She didn't recognize it, but she had a feeling she would grow accustomed to it.

"Maybe. That man was probably just pickin' a spot to get some tail for the night," another man responded.

"Think he made it?"

Beth heard a man's low chuckle and a glass slam onto a hard surface. "Nah. You see all those biters?"

Biters? Is that what they called walkers? Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard something that immediately caught her attention.

"We know he made it out of the house. He was chasin' after the car."

"She must be good then if he was that determined."

All of the men laughed at that, and Beth should have felt sick to her stomach at what they were implying, but she wasn't. Her mind was elsewhere. Daryl had made it out. He had chased after the car they had put her in; he had been chasing after her. He was looking for her. She knew that he wouldn't be able to catch up to a car, but he could track. He could track the car to wherever she was. She just had to wait. She had to hold on a little while longer. Daryl was coming for her. He would find her. She knew it.

Beth leaned back against the wall and continued listening to their conversation. They were still laughing, but the laughter was dying out. They were talking about Daryl still.

"They were probably headin' to Terminus."

"Well, if that's where he's going he might as well be dead," a man scoffed.

Terminus? They hadn't heard of it. She had no idea what they were talking about. They hadn't been going there. They had been trying to find someplace to stay.

"Probably saw the signs on the tracks. 'Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all,'" the man said mockingly. "That's just a bunch a bullshit."

"Those people there are a bunch of psychopathic lunatics. Offerin' sanctuary and then chompin' down on the people that go there."

"Gotta eat somehow," a man laughed.

"Yeah, well, that's not exactly my idea of a five star meal."

She looked at the sign again, her mind finally clearing from the memory of those men and their conversation. Maggie had made it out of the prison, and so had Sasha and Bob. She knew that she was nowhere near the prison, so they had traveled far, which meant that they had been able to survive; they had enough supplies to keep them going, and they had a destination.

She prayed to a god that she no longer believed in that they hadn't gone there, but if they had she knew that they would never make it out. They were as good as dead. She knew they were dead. And even if they were alive, she would never want to meet up with her family from the prison ever again. They wouldn't accept her anymore, and she knew it. She had changed. She wasn't the girl they had known, and she would never be that person again. So instead of following the tracks and making her way to Terminus with the hopes of reuniting with her sister, she crossed the tracks and disappeared back into the woods, hoping that nobody would ever find her.

Author's Note: So here is the first chapter of my newest story, "Changed." The title is just a working title...it may change if I find I'm not happy with it.

Anyway, this story is a bit different than my other two, "A Fighting Chance" and "Ruined." "Changed" will have flashbacks. You may be asking why? Well, I don't want you to know exactly what has happened to Beth or exactly how she has escaped; I want it to remain a sort of mystery. As the story goes on, there will be more flashbacks, and more will be revealed about her abduction, captivity, and escape. All flashbacks will in in italics.

Please let me know what you think. Do you like it? Should I continue writing it?

Thanks!