The Search for Sophia.

We continued on until the sun started setting.

I was extremely confused.

How the hell had she gotten so far in such little time? Although she was older in this life, she was still quite skinny, almost frail, there was no way in my mind that she could sprint for so long through these woods.

I shook my head inwardly before trodding on through the woods.

"We should probably head back." Daryl said when I started out again.

"I have a flash light I'll be fine." I said while I pulled my flashlight from my belt. "You go back and inform everyone of the situation, I'll try my best to find her."

Daryl looked at me with clear apprehension in his eyes before nodding and turning around.

As he did so I decided to finally try and copy a trait, Daryl's Tracker trait.

I proceeded to copy it and what followed was a slight pain as years of tracking and hunting animals in the forests played through my mind as if they were my own memories.

The scenes were quick and were complete before Daryl was out of my sight.

I looked down at the trail with renewed vigour as I soldiered on through the gradually darkening evening.

I pulled out some snacks from my inventory as I walked along, watching my map with vigilance as I moved.

Surely she would have to stop soon and when she did, I would quickly catch up to her.

I was quite hopeful that she hadn't encountered any more Walkers as she hadn't really deviated from her path and it hadn't diverged with any others either (besides the woodchuck muncher of course).

I carried on through the night, following the trail of the lost girl. It wasn't until nearly three hours after Daryl left that she changed course again.

I sighed before rubbing my head at the growing headache this young lady was causing.

She was heading in the northwestward direction, which was good as that was the direction back towards camp.

I tracked through the forest for another two hours before I finally found traces of humans on my map.

I was delighted, there was one green dot in what seemed to be a clearing ahead of me, not even a hundred metres away.

The tracks lead in that direction so I sped up my pace and entered the clearing.

The sight I was met with was that of a worn down old house, three floors high with the paint peeling from its yellowing walls.

I approached with caution before drawing my sidearm from my holster and entering the house from the back side.

I had already scanned the house and I picked up a blue dot alongside the green one, which Z informed me meant that there was an animal in the house as well.

I moved with caution as I listened for any sound that could indicate where Sophia or the animal were hiding.

It was then that I picked up some movement from upstairs.

It wasn't much, just a slight sound of something flapping, maybe a bedsheet or a curtain.

The atmosphere turned cold as I ascended the old wooden staircase.

Luckily I had Glenn's Stealth skill so I didn't make much noise.

I approached the room at the end of the landing, which was the only one with a functioning door.

The other two rooms' doors were on the ground, ripped from the frame by weathering.

I cleared the first two rooms quickly before approaching the last one.

When I reached it I placed my ear to the door and listened for sound from the other side.

I could hear something! That same flapping sound, as well as the muffled sobbing of a girl.

My eyes lit up as I went for the door handle only to be blocked by what appeared to be a wardrobe or dresser as I opened the door.

"Ahh! Stop!" The girl yelled from inside the room as the flapping sounds got louder and more violent, they were even accompanied by a low hooting noise as well.

"Sophia? It's me Leon." I said in confusion as I listened to the hooting and flapping.

The sobbing stopped for a moment before Sophia's voice sounded out "Leon? Really?"

I gave my affirmation before slowly moving the dresser out of my way.

As I saw the scene on the other side of the door a large smile appeared on my face.

"Leon!" Sophia yelled out as she dropped the candlestick she was holding onto the ground and ran at me with open arms.

I was genuinely happy to see her safe so I reciprocated the young lady's hug as I glanced around the room and spotted who was making the commotion in here earlier.

/Species: Female Barn Owl (Tyto Alba)

Status: Healthy (Alert)

Skills: Danger Sense(lvl2), Motherly Instinct(lvl2)

Traits: Survivor, Alive, Natural Predator, Mother, Mutated/

It was a barn owl who was perched on the curtain pole with its wings outstretched in an attempt to show hostility.

I was frankly quite shocked seeing its skills as I hadn't seen another animal with skills at this point and this owl had two of them.

That meant that she had the same amount of skills as Rick who was arguably the main character, and she was a wild animal.

I inspected the barn owl as she did me, her large auburn eyes unblinking.

The Danger Sense ability must have quietened down for the beast as I continued to not show aggression towards it.

I continued to hug the sobbing Sophia as the sunlight slowly crept through the vacant hole where there should be a window.

At this point she seemed to pass out in my arms. If I was being frank, I was pretty exhausted as well so I placed Sophia in a makeshift bed in the corner before moving the scattered furniture to block the door.

I then sat down next to the crying Sophia, gun in hand and closed my eyes to rest.

###

*Creeeeaak* *Screeeea*

A sudden noise woke me up causing me to aim my gun at the door of the room.

I felt like I had slept for a long while, refreshed, so the sound outside the room instantly pit me on alert.

I untangled myself from Sophia, who was fast asleep beside me, and slowly approached the door of the room.

I looked at my map to see a single green dot on the other side of the door.

I lowered my guard slightly before calling out to the person on the other side.

"Daryl that you?" I asked, my gun still pointed at the door.

"Leon?" The redneck hunter threw back causing me to holster my weapon and start to move the furniture on front of the bedroom door.

The loud noise finally caused Sophia to stir in her slumber and frantically look for me.

"I'm right here Sophia, don't worry." I said when I noticed her erratic movement, which caused her to calm down and stand up.

Once the furniture was moved out of the way, Daryl made his way into the room.

His eyes lit up when he noticed Sophia standing behind me with an owl perched upon her shoulder.

"You found her?" Daryl asked as he eyed the owl with surprise and suspicion.

"Yeah I did." I replied "Turns out this barn owl was protecting her in here."

Daryl had another look at the owl after hearing of this revelation, not for long though, he then nodded his head and we decided to head back to camp.

On our way through the forest Daryl explained what the group had been doing that day in search of Sophia.

It turns out they had found the church already, cleared it out and stayed for a while.

Then they decided to split up to cover more ground, much to the behest of Daryl, this ended with him following what was left of my tracks after a night of rain, which ultimately led him to the house where we spent the night.

I followed along with his story, playing the events out in my head as they happened in the show, and I couldn't help but feel like I had missed something.

I pushed it to the back of my mind as we continued to walk the trail quietly, making our way back to camp.

###

"Just the thought of her out here... by herself. It's the not knowing that's killing me." Carol said as the group trudged through the woods in search of her daughter.

A few sympathetic looks were shot her way as they walked on but it did nothing to console her.

They continued their way through the woods when they were interrupted by a loud noise.

*BANG*

###

Dale leaned over the car in front of him, stripping it down for anything useful.

T-Dog approached him from behind looking very worse for wear, sweat dripping off of him by the bucket.

"How are you feeling?" Dale asked him as he continued to unscrew the last few bolts from the cars engine.

T-Dog just gave the old man a strange look before stumbling away from him.

Dale, noticing this, stops what he is doing and walks up to the clearly dehydrated man.

"T-Dog? I asked you how you were feeling just now, please don't blow that question off." He said as he picked up his rifle from off the ground and confronted T-Dog.

"It really hurts... Something awful." He said as he gestured to his badly bandaged arm.

Dale hung his rifle on his shoulder before taking the black man's injured arm in his hands and slowly peeling back the bloody gauze to reveal a blackening wound.

"ARGH! Don't touch it!" T-Dog yelled in pain as he pulled the arm away from Dale's grasp and nursed it close to his body.

"Listen, your veins are very discoloured. You've got one hell of an infection there." Dale said with apparent panic in his tone. "You could die from blood poisoning!"

"Haha... Hahaha... Wouldn't that be the way? Oh man, the world's gone to hell; the dead risen up to eat the living, and Theodore Douglas gets done in by... a cut on his arm! Hahaha." T-Dog was clearly in delirium, laughing at the fact he would die was surely not how a person should react to such news.

"We've got to get you some antibiotics. I've been saying since yesterday... We've been ransacking these cars the whole time I can't believe we haven't found some Ampicillin or something!" Dale responded as he looked around at the surrounding cars.

"It does seem like there should be something... We just got to look harder." T-Dog followed up, still clutching his arm.

"Right, we just haven't been thorough enough." Dale said with a nod of his head. "So let look some more."

Dale and T-Dog then proceeded to loot the surrounding cars for all they were worth, though their search was coming up empty for a long while.

T-Dog managed to find som ibuprofen and a packet of cigarettes, but as he put one of the in his mouth a loud noise rang out, causing him to hit his head on the ceiling of the car.

*BANG*

###

Rick, Shane and Carl were walking in the woods.

They were each armed with a weapon, Shane's shotgun, Rick's python and Carl's machete.

They had found a cache of cold weapons the day prior and Rick and Lori had let Carl keep one.

He was almost a man afterall, he should learn to defend himself in a messed up world as this one.

They were truging through the undergrowth, looking for Sophia.

That had split off from the group to search in a different direction, they had been going forward for nearly two hours.

It was at this point that the three of them came to a halt.

Shane and Rick readied their weapons as they heard something moving through the brush.

Suddenly a dear revealed itself from between the nearby trees, causing Shane to lift his rifle.

Rick stopped him however as his 15 year old son showed his childish nature, approaching the deer step by step with a wide smile on his face.

Rick and Shane also smiled at the young man's still innocent ways, letting him approach the deer they apparently didn't want for lunch.

The Stag furrowed through the twigs and moss on the ground in search for something to eat.

The animal had it's head in the dirt and thus didn't notice the young man's approach, sadly it didn't notice something else as well.

Carl stepped on a branch which caused the young buck to lift it's head in his direction, sadly this would be the last action it ever did.

As the young man and the young deer watched each other in wonder something terrible happened.

*BANG*

A gunshot rang out that caused the buck and the body to fall to the ground.