The reader is a incredibly smart and tough teenager hold up alone in part of a hospital/laboratory trying to find a cure for the zombie plague. Because she's alone she needs to go out scavenging for food, fuel for power and supplies to find the cure. While out she encounters the group we know and love but she assumes they're hostile and runs away. The group follows her back to the hospital, after she explains her situation they doubt she'll succeed, until she turns a fresh infected human again.
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You throw a bag over your shoulder and open the door to the underground bunker you’ve been hold up in since the beginning. However long ago that was, you honestly don’t even know. The streets are abandoned as always. There wasn’t many people out here to begin with--your dad made sure of that when he moved in here about twenty years ago--so there are never any loose bitters out. Now and then you’ll get the occasional one, but usually you round them up and use them for research. You’ve cracked it. What your dad tried so hard to do, but hadn’t lived long enough to succeed. You did it.
A sound coming from the house you’re about to go in startles you and sends you stumbling back to grab your gun before doing anything else. You’ve been doing this for a while now. Kills have become a thing of survival that you try not to think about or worry over. Survival isn’t what it used to be.
You step forward a little bit so you can hear them. Right now they’re arguing and not really being quiet. There are many different voices. You hear about five different ones, but you’re not sure if there aren’t more who are just staying quiet. Quietly, you walk towards the door, wanting to hear what they’re talking about and if they’re good or bad people. Although, you’ve seen enough to have your doubts that anybody is truly good.
“We can’t stay here, there is not protection!”
“Well where else can we stay? We need to rest and it’s best to do it here!”
You step forward without even realizing, wanting to be able to hear them clearer when you step on a loose board. You gasp, making even more noise. They all stop. Maybe they’ll ignore it? Someone gets up and begins to walk to the door. Before they can come out and shoot you, you run as fast as you can. The door opens, but no bullets go flying. However, you know that someone is following you. Using tactics that your dad showed you doesn’t hope. You zig-zag and throw stuff that you can behind you, even dropping the bag at one point. It’s no use.
The bunker is just within sight when someone tackles you to the ground.
“Get off of me!” you scream. “Get off!” They cover your mouth with their dirt stained hand and you stop screaming. Luckily, there aren’t any bitters around that could come. At least, none that you know of. More and more of the group arrives and the man still has you pinned down. His hair is long and down to his shoulders and looks like it hasn’t been cut even before the apocalypse. His vest hangs off of him and it looks like he hasn’t eaten in quite a bit.
When all of the group is here he gets off of you and forcibly yanks you up. You don’t try to run--there isn’t anywhere to since they’re right outside your hideout.
“Who are you?” the guy demands. His voice is deep and rough.
“Y/n,” you say. “I have the cure.” That’s the first thing you can think to say that will get them to listen to you. They all give you looks of doubt and disbelief. Although, in some of their eyes, you can see hope in their eyes. You want to fuel that hope even more. “I can show you if you let me go back to my bunker. I’ll let you guys see. I’ll show you I’m not lying.” They’re all skeptical, but two men exchange a look that almost says “What harm can she do?” so they let you lead them into the bunker.
Your dad always knew something like this would happen. He was a paranoid scientist. He created this bunker when you were just a kid. You’d always thought he was just being overly cautious creating this, but now you’re grateful that he did. You’d be dead without it.
He had most of the cure finished before he...before he passed away. You were able to perfect it though. You try it out on walkers that you find and, the last time you tried, you’d been able to change them back. They’d been alive, but a few hours later they died from wounds. They were all decayed, so there was no way they could survive. At least, that’s what you hope and they didn’t die because of the antidote you created.
“Well,” the one who seems to be the leader says, “show us.” You rack your brain for how to show them that you’re telling the truth. You’ve got a walker held up, but if the same thing happens as before then they won’t believe you. Suddenly, an idea comes to mind.
“Okay, just wait here for a moment, okay?” Nobody says anything, but he quickly nods. You walks confidently back to the back where they walker is being kept. There is only one way--someone who is freshly bitten. The walker doesn’t hesitate to bite you right on the shoulder like you’d anticipated. It hurts just as much as you’d thought it would, maybe even more, but you are getting skin ripped off of you, so....
“What’s going on?” the leader says, barging down the hall to where you’re standing with blood dripping down your shoulder. He takes the colt python out of his holster and aims it at you.
“Don’t shoot!” you yell. “I won’t be turned for much longer. Watch.” You take a syringe out of my pocket and shove it into your thigh right into a vein. You’ve never been a fan of needles even though your dad dealt with them a lot around you, so it makes you queasy at first. “Now we wait.”
You let them stay the night and let them choose where to stay. It’s a small place, built for two people, but they manage to find spots. You agree to stay in the contained area just incase it doesn’t work and you turn in the middle of the night. It was a reasonable request.
It’s hard to fall asleep. Even though you're confident in your work there is always that little voice in the back of your head that says you’re wrong and that this isn’t going to end well. The fact that in the middle of the night, after you’d finally fallen asleep, you get a horrible fever. It scares you horribly, but a few hours later the fever breaks and you feel much better.
In the morning you get up before the rest, not having slept much, and show them. The leader helped you bandage the wound yesterday. It’s enough to convince some of them, but others are still doubtful.A few days later and you’re still not turned, they’re convinced.
“So, you wanna help me save the world?