People say that you don't know what you have until you've lost it. When you don't have much to lose, it doesn't seem as bad. However, this instance of losing was entirely different. The apocalypse had arrived, and no one was prepared for this sudden change.

Months had passed since the outbreak had first spread. I remember clearly that first day of the apocalypse. My husband had been picking me up from work when it first happened. I used to work as a piano and singing teacher at the local Georgian music studio. I loved it, it gave me a way to escape from reality. So many times I would wish for a way out, but I never expected this.

I was in my office, Jon was yelling at me to hurry up while I finished up with some documents I had been preparing for my new piano student. Then a scream came from the other room which made me immediately look up from my work.

I quickly ran out of the room past Jon, to the secretary's office where my assistant usually was, and that's when I saw it...A creature...almost human like but not...It's vile fingers were ripping apart my assistant, tearing the skin from her body and shoving it's into its vile mouth. She screamed for me to help, but was quickly cut off as the dead creature ripped out her throat.

My hand went to my mouth in shock, and my stomach felt like it was going to explode from vomit. It looked back at me with its dead greyish green eyes, looking at me with the hungriest look I had ever seen. It moaned as it slowly got up and reached out towards me with its volatile and bloody hands.

Jon quickly shut the door, locking the creature in there, hearing the banging on the door as it tried to get out to us. Jon grabbed my hand and we raced to the car, putting the keys into the ignition and driving away as fast as he could.

.

We were able to get to our house without running into many of those creatures, but the city was overrun. I had not seen many people get out in time, especially from my work. Jon and I had gotten out just in time when a horde of those things entered the studio. Screams from my co-workers could be heard, blood curdling screams from dead men and women. It was too late for them.

We grabbed a bunch of supplies and weapons, Jon had been a police man, so he had plenty. I myself had my old blades my parents had given me back in Italy. They were meant as decorative, but they were quite sharp.

How I missed Italy….my parents…the sounds of the roaring waves of the ocean hitting the beach….the soft sun gazing down upon my skin, warming my whole body.

That had been simpler times, times before everything had gone down. I do not speak of when the apocalypse had begun; I speak of when I had married my husband.

When I first met Jon back in Italy it had been love at first sight. He had been so sweet….so kind...so….understanding. He treated me like a queen, and was what I thought at the time the finest gentleman out there. Little did I know that it was all an act. He visited me every summer for about 3 years. We had been in love, or so I had thought. My parents had always been suspicious, especially my father, but they were happy for me, happy that I had found someone to love.

After we got married we had decided to move back to his home town in Atlanta, for I craved to travel somewhere different, much to the dislike from my parents, I went and didn't even look back. That was a mistake.

When we got back to Atlanta, Jon changed. He was no longer the gentleman I once knew. Now he showed his true self, his cruel, rude, and cold nature. He struck me whenever I defied him, almost to death a couple of times...threatened me...beat me...harassed me...put me down...and I had nothing I could do about it. I couldn't tell my parents because every single letter I wrote I had to run it past him before it was sent...and phone calls as well...I had nowhere to turn to...and I felt hopeless...I had tried to kill him once, tried to stab him in his sleep and slit his throat. But luck wasn't on my side, he had woken and overpowered me, throwing me across the room and beating me, hitting me until I was unconscious.

Now I was in camp with a bunch of other survivors that we had stumbled upon. One of them happened to be Jon's friend, Shane Walsh, whom he was glad to see. I had hoped that having his friend there would take his mind off of me. It did, somewhat, but he still beat me, and it seemed that I wasn't the only one to have an abusive husband.

A woman named Carol also did, we could relate to each other's pain and often sat silently in the company of each other along with a very nice Asian boy named Glen. He was a sweet boy and tried to be positive even in bad situations.

Then there was Lori, she was quite a sweet woman, I had known her already from meeting her a few times since her husband was Jon's boss. She was always so kind to me, always and never judged me.

The Dixon brothers were quite interesting. They were alike yet….so very different. Merle was a complete and utter ass hole. He stared at all of the women like they were all pieces of meat. He's whistled at me more than once, but I just ignore it. Daryl, the younger brother seemed different though. He had that bad boy vibe and tried to act all manly but I could see through it. When you have a husband who is abusive you tend to start noticing how people are. He didn't treat the women like how his brother did, and somewhat disproved it at some points, which would get his brother to laugh at him.

As time passed I had started to get a bit of a...bond with Daryl. At first he wasn't very happy about having me around, and would try to push me away at every point but he got used to it I guess. It all started when I decided to go hunting with him. He hadn't been exactly happy that I was going with him but he allowed me to tag along anyway. Not like I gave him much of a choice, I was going to go no matter what.

I seemed to impress him with my hunting ability, and he even taught me a bit. From then on we sort of became hunting partners since his brother was too damned lazy to do anything. He didn't seem to mind my presence after a while.

For the first few months our hunting trips had been in silence, he would give me the occasional glance or signal, but beyond that nothing. I didn't want to push him to do anything he didn't want to; for fear that he wouldn't want me around.

After months of hunting together however, we actually talked quite a bit during our hunting trips, and I always looked forward to them. It was just another chance for me to get away from Jon.

"Hey Italia, you comin or what?" Daryl said

"Coming!" I smiled and ran after him

It had been a long time since I had been able to smile genuinely….