The companion series to The Walking Dead will tell an important part of the story that hasn’t been told during the original show.

Bleeding Cool managed to get their hands on a copy of The Walking Dead spinoff’s pilot script (the episode is titled “Fear The Walking Dead”), and it reveals that the show will begin around — or possibly before — the time that the apocalypse begins.

In the original series, Rick wakes up from his coma in the hospital after the apocalypse is already well underway. The hospital he’s in, as you may recall, is a wreck thanks to zombies and scared humans causing havoc.

The spinoff, according to the leaked script, will look at how the humans are reacting to this mysterious outbreak. For example, a CDC virologist says at one point in the script, “I want to dispel a rumor that these people are deceased… they are not. The dead do not walk among us,” he/she says.

Clearly they don’t have things figured out yet.

By starting the spinoff before The Walking Dead begins, viewers will have a compelling reason to tune into the series — for at least a few episodes. Imagine the commercials: “What happened BEFORE Rick’s story began?”

The show has long been rumored to start before the apocalypse, but this appears to be our most reliable evidence yet.

What’s been officially announced about the spinoff so far? The yet-to-be-titled show is set in Los Angeles and stars Kim Dickens and Cliff Curtis as two employees at a Los Angeles school.

The validity of the leaked script was confirmed when a lawyer for Rainbow Media (connected to AMC) requested that the excerpts be pulled from Bleeding Cool’s website. Even though it’s legitimate, it’s important to remember that the script may’ve undergone several revisions before being finalized, so this may not be exactly what appears in the pilot that airs.