Music was constantly playing inside of Liam's head. Ever since his iPod had died just three months into electricity becoming a thing of the past, he felt like he might go insane. Music was what kept him sane. Now, he was missing it during a time he needed it the most. Liam was a boy scout until he was too old to go back, so he had the basics of wilderness survival drilled into his memory. He didn't expect to last as long as he and his brother had, though. They weren't exactly unhealthy men, but surviving pretty much on your own during an apocalypse was harder than it looked in the movies. Liam was a marathon runner in the past, but sometimes they ran from zombies so long that the next day his legs would be on fire. He couldn't imagine what Isaac's body was going through, since the poor kid was a stoner who worked in retail before shit hit the fan. They knew they weren't the only survivors because they'd both gotten glimpses of their neighbors going in and out of houses and stores. Everyone around the neighborhood seemed to be thinking of each other, always only taking what they needed and nothing more. Isaac told Liam about an encounter with one of their Asian neighbors, who informed him that he was planning to take his family north to find refuge states.

It was then that the idea sparked that the brothers should make their way toward Tennessee to try to reunite with their parents and other brothers. Liam bitterly thought what use they could have made of a GPS or phone for directions in a time like this. However, the route wasn't completely unfamiliar because they'd had to travel to their current apartment somehow. Blind as to how long it would take them to reach Nashville, Liam and Isaac readied four backpacks full of two-liter sodas, plastic cups, canned foods, a tinderbox, some matches and lighters, bottled waters, stale breads and bags of chips, and prepared to leave for their "road trip," as they called it. The only weapons they had were Liam's revolver and pocket knife, and Isaac's shotgun. Their survival had mostly been ensured through evading the un-dead.

Upon their arrival in Nashville, the two came upon a weapons shop which was, as expected, already broken into and looted. Still, they entered with the intent to take whatever they could find. All of the guns and most of the knives had already been taken, leaving a few small pocket knives behind. Isaac scanned through the ammunition and managed to acquire a bit more for his shotgun and Liam's revolver. They settled with the thought that they were lucky to receive that, and left it alone. They pursued further, making their way to their childhood home. Devastation seeped in once they found it abandoned, not a single soul in sight. From across the street, the blinds in the window of one house were pulled down, and a pair of eyes peered at them suspiciously. Within the second, the same set of eyes disappeared. Liam looked at Isaac, who shrugged and shook his head.

Sighing, Liam sat the two backpacks, now almost empty, on the floor in front of their father's favorite reclining chair, which had a camouflage design underneath a folded, black blanket. He recalled how the door had been unlocked when they got there, and came to the conclusion that their parents and brothers must have fled. That was all he wanted to conclude. Dropping down onto the couch with another heavy sigh, Liam looked at Isaac and said, "What do we do now?"

"Awh, man...I dunno," his brother said dejectedly, kicking an invisible rock in front of his foot. "What can we do?"

Liam stared at the floor in front of him and shook his head, obviously exhausted both physically and mentally. "This whole thing's just unreal," he muttered. "We should have never moved. We shouldn't have."

He shook his head again and placed his hands in his lap, longing to be able to turn the T.V. on and drown himself in cartoons. His hands itched to tap away at his phone, blabbering to his friends on social media. Living without technology was honestly killing him, and there were many moments when he wished it had never existed in the first place.

Diana woke up to very dim, blurry light and faint voices from behind walls. Wait... voices? That wasn't right. She sat straight up and bit her lip, a little nervous but also excited; it had been a while since she'd had any human company. But the house had been empty when she'd gotten here, and she didn't like to entertain the thought that whoever was talking knew of Diana's presence here. She pushed a tangled clump of hair out of her face and looked down at the newspaper she'd put over her head while she slept in this warm cozy bed that didn't belong to her.

She glanced miserably over the paper. One of its articles was authored by her; it was the last one ever issued. She really should have thrown it out at this point, but for some reason it felt... important. Like it was a burden that she was somehow meant to carry. The headline still made Diana shudder as hard as it had when she'd typed the thing up: Infected Individuals Close to Outnumbering Healthy Population.

Her mind zoomed back to whoever was talking. They weren't very chatty, luckily, but now that she knew they were there she didn't want to ignore them. A faint warning issued in her head: They could be dangerous. She paid it almost no mind and made her way down the stairs, pushing more stray hair out of her eyes and munching halfheartedly on a piece of dense, gritty bread that she had been forced to bake herself. It wouldn't be the best first impression, but a full arsenal of makeup wasn't exactly her top priority so hopefully her just-woke-up face would be forgiven... or ignored.

There were two young men in the living room, one of whom was sitting on a couch. She stayed quiet for several moments... trying to plan her greeting. No doubt it would be something femme fatale like, "May I help you?" or "Boys, I'm afraid this house is occupied. Shame." Instead, her mouth betrayed her. Lack of human interaction, she supposed, had done a toll on her ability to talk coherently.

"Um...hi?"

As soon as she said it, she knew it was that she'd just woken up. Should have waited a few minutes.

The air around them was filled with tension. Isaac moved carefully and slowly to sit himself in the chair across from Liam, who continued to do nothing more than stare at the floor. They sat in silence for only a brief minute, and then Liam's ears seemed to ring as he heard a very faint sound of footsteps and floor creaking. Instantly, his senses sharpened and he looked up and around with caution. He strained his ears to hear, and definitely could hear someone walking across the second-story floor. He gave Isaac a questioning look, and his brother nodded in confirmation that he, too, heard the noise.

Liam reached for his revolver while Isaac got up to retrieve his shotgun from beside the front door. Within the minute that Liam had readied his weapon and Isaac had gotten his, a young woman stepped from behind the wall that seemed to shield the staircase. Liam pointed his revolver at her, finger off the trigger, and saw Isaac do the same. She didn't seem to be a threat, and her voice was groggy and almost shy.

"Hi," Liam barked. "What the hell are you doing in our house?"

It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience to have a shotgun and a revolver pointed straight at her, but somehow, Diana managed not to wet her pants. She put her hands in the air, unsure if it would placate the two men, and swallowed back a lump that had formed in her throat. Their house? No one had been in here for days before she decided to take up residence! Annoyed as she was, she couldn't find enough breath to retort to Liam. His tone of voice was short and angry, and there were still a couple of guns that would do more than the job in case either of them decided to paint the walls red.

Finally words tumbled out as Diana eyed the revolver and then the shotgun. "Ran out of supplies, and someone broke my window back home. I had to wander, I don't have much to defend myself with... and this looked like the most in-tact place there was. Can you please lower those? I'm close enough to cardiac arrest that you don't have to waste ammo on me." She wasn't quite sure if cardiac arrest was looming, but it sure felt like something was wrong.

"Can I just go back up and get my stuff? I was going to be on my way soon anyway." That was a complete lie. It didn't show.

Again, Liam's ears rang as he listened to the woman's quiet yet somehow firm voice that threw words out like a machine gun. Liam knew what it was like to be so afraid in the presence of another person that you stumbled and fell over your own tongue, so he mercifully lowered his revolver and motioned for his brother to do the same. The woman stood there with her hands raised almost half-heartedly. The thought had crossed his mind before he'd lowered his weapon that maybe this woman had either ran his family out and/or killed them, but as he studied her more and listened to her voice, he completely ruled out that possibility.

"Look," he sighed, though still holding tight to his weapon. "You're in my family's house. Me and my brother have been in North Carolina for the past year or so, but the last month we made the trip over here on foot to try to find them." He paused, unsure of where he was going with this. "How- How long have you been here? Have you seen them?"

There was something close to desperation in his tone and expression. Isaac looked back at him with a questioning look, as if asking him why he was showing such weakness to a stranger. Liam didn't think this woman was a threat, and he sure didn't care if she thought he was weak or not, because he could prove her otherwise. Though he'd realized he'd sort of rambled because he'd gotten eager to share his story and try to find his family, he didn't think that would alter his chances of getting information from her.

Oh. Shit. What incredible luck that Diana lacked. The one safe-looking house for miles that doesn't look occupied, and it was occupied. At least there weren't guns pointed to her face anymore, for now. But she didn't know how long that stroke of luck would last. She kept her eyes on Liam since he seemed much kinder and more understanding than the other dude, who didn't seem to talk much at all. In fact she didn't think she'd heard him speak yet since the start of this... encounter. Cautiously she slowly lowered her hands to her sides and took a deep breath.

"I've only been here since yesterday," she started, her tone apologetic. "But I'd had my eyes on the place for..." she counted on her fingers. "Three? I think three days, and no one went in or out so I assumed it was empty." She hated the sheepishness in her voice, but it was better than her I'm a journalist and don't care about your personal boundaries attitude, so she kept the fear-tinged tone at least for the moment. "Seen lots of people... What does your family look like? How many people are in it? Dress sharply?" More questions threatened to tumble out, and she stopped them.

She backed toward the staircase like she'd just seen a grizzly bear eating a person. "Listen, I'm sorry I'm in your house, and I'm sorry I can't help either of you, so I'll just scoot now, alright?" She laughed nervously and cast a look at Liam that asked silently You're not going to murder me and have my liver to keep the meat on your bones, right? One foot went up one step. The other followed. At least she felt a little taller now.

Logically, Liam should have let the woman go, gather her things, and get the hell out of their house. Somehow, he felt like that was both a great and terrible idea. He considered the pros and cons of each circumstance. If he let her stay with them, if she even willingly stayed, that would be another life to worry about and another mouth to feed (not that they didn't have the resources to feed her...at the moment.) He also reasoned that it had been a while since he and Isaac had been in the presence of another woman who didn't wish to devour their brains, and it was obvious to him that women seemed to be cleaner and more reasoning in some circumstances. At this thought, he looked the woman up and down, taking note of her bushy hair and the layer of dirt that seemed to coat her skin.

Then again, how clean can you be without running water? a voice inside of his head asked. Movement in the corner of his eye caused him to turn and look at his brother, who was silently placing his shotgun once again beside the front door. Isaac looked over at him and raised his eyebrows. "What?" he asked, almost with an attitude that made Liam look at him with an incredulous expression.

Liam looked back to the young woman, who was now standing on the first step of the staircase. He sighed and made an impulsive decision, "If you need to stay, then we won't be hostile. We...We could use your help."

Diana's muscles loosened visibly when Liam said that she could stay. Sure, her instincts had only a minute before been screaming at her to get out of this place, but now that it was clear she wasn't moments from losing the majority of her brain to a shotgun blast, logic was creeping back into her. It wasn't safe out there; anywhere and at any moment she could be ambushed by a walking corpse or jumped and robbed by people desperate for supplies or used to repopulate the Earth or cut open and fed to someone's starving children... The bottom line was that the world outside this house was a mess. The young men before her seemed fairly rational (whether they were psychopaths was a hurdle she decided she'd jump later) and hadn't slaughtered or try to enslave her yet. With any luck, that was a good sign that they wouldn't.

One foot returned to the main floor while the other stayed, unsure, on the step. With a quick look-over at Liam and Isaac, Diana decided that they were probably trustworthy. Or at least there was a reasonably good chance that one of the two would be. Judging from the mess the world was in and their merciful attitudes (she was willing to forget the gun part) these seemed to her like pretty good odds.

"Thank you," she told Liam. "I swear I won't make any noise and I'll pull my weight, and all that." She nodded gratefully at him and then at Isaac. Then, finally losing her nerve, she hurried up the stairs.

"What's your-" Liam was cut off before he could finish his question, as the woman practically shot up the staircase. He looked over at his brother with a confused look, and Isaac looked just as befuddled as he. "What...Was it something I said?" Liam asked rhetorically, pulling a snicker out of his brother. He grinned, a bit excited at adding another person to their team. Though, he figured it would have been more beneficial if they'd found a male staying here and recruited him, because he felt like maybe this woman wasn't as physically able as another man would be.

"So," Isaac sneered. "After all the people who have came to us for help, you choose her."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Liam scoffed, turning his head to look at his brother. He made his way back over to the couch where he was previously sitting and plopped down on it. Meanwhile, Isaac moved to stand in front of him, arms crossed.

"I'm just saying, you obviously probably have a thing for her."

"What?!" Liam grimaced, "I have never met her before in my life. We are in the middle of a disastrous apocalypse. Our family is missing! The last thing I'm going to worry about is getting laid!"

"Whatever," Isaac pursed his lips, arms still heavily crossed. With this, he went over to the door next to the staircase, which used to be the entrance to his room, and entered, slamming the door shut behind him.

Liam sat, staring at that door, wondering what in the hell just happened. Why was Isaac suddenly jealous? Liam knew that he couldn't have been attracted to the woman they'd just met, because that wasn't his thing. So, what in the world was happening?

Diana closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned back on it, taking a deep breath. She heard a different door slam and flinched. Shit, she thought, suddenly feeling very tiny. I've caused strife or something. Maybe I should pack up and go while I can. Men. She wondered briefly with prickly neck-hairs if either of them had been "into" her, but looking at a shard of mirror she'd taken with her at all the grit and bloodstains she'd collected, she decided that this was the farthest possible thing from the truth she could get.

Summoning her courage, she opened the door a crack and peeked out down the stairs. She caught an angry sounding "The last thing I'm going to worry about is getting laid!", wrinkled her nose and closed the door again, wondering what the hell was going on. Were they talking about her? The thought that the words "getting laid" were in their vocabulary right now, minutes after she'd revealed her presence, disturbed Diana.

Another, stronger surge of courage went through her, and she swung the door open fully. If she was going to be allowed to stay here for any length of time, she'd probably have to prove herself, and she guessed that it would have to start with asserting that she wasn't some whore. She went down the stairs, holding her head high. Don't panic. Do not panic. Diana, you idiot, don't panic. Halfway down the stairs she stopped, took a moment to collect herself, and looked Liam straight in the eyes.

"So, what was this I heard about getting laid?" she asked coolly. "Because, just to be clear here, if you're talking about me, I'm not available."

As the woman came down the stairs and spoke those completely idiotic and unnecessary words, Liam stared right back at her, expression darkened to that of rage. This complete stranger occupies their house, and they have the mercy to let her stay here and use their resources, and then she has the nerve to come and speak to Liam with a tone and accusation like that? Oh yeah, Liam was pissed. Not only was he pissed at Isaac and this woman, he was pissed at every single thing in the world.

"The fuck did you say?!" he shouted at her. "If you're too fucking deaf and dumb to understand what I just said to my brother, I was telling him that the last thing I'm going to worry about is banging some chick or starting a relationship." He pointed a furious and accusing finger at the woman, face turning red with anger. The finger sunk into the position with the rest of assuming a fist, which he pressed against his mouth to keep from throwing it at the woman.

"You know what?" he said. "Fuck you. Get your stuff and get the hell out of our house."