A/N: It takes place right after the trailer for Part II (20 year old Ellie). This is going to be a pretty dark fic, just fair warning! It will be multi-chapter. Thank you for reading!
Chapter One: Bones
Crows collected along the broken gutter of the dilapidated porch. It was a sorry house. Small. Something once dreamt up by a farmer maybe. Something for living in not dying but since when are things as they should be? The window in the second bedroom was crooked. Its frame had been split open at some point long ago. Whoever did so was probably long dead, along with the spiders that left their webs. The webs were wispy dust collectors that draped the corners of each room. This place was nowhere but she was here being a spider when all the others were gone. She was in the right place, the right kind of nowhere.
She had been shaking earlier from the adrenaline but now she was calm. It should terrify her. There was blood everywhere, even in the cracks in the wood beneath her scoffed shoes. She was also splattered in it. Speckles of red dried on her skin already. A small line of it traveled down her cheek like a tear, as if she were crying but she was calm. She was quiet. She held the guitar in her lap silently, having already sang to the dead.
One of the men she butchered was laying a few feet from her, his eyes frozen open, staring out into forever. For a moment, she thought he blinked. She watched him silently for a moment waiting for it to happen again but it never does. Of course it doesn't. Why would it? Her mind wasn't lost to her yet. She was fine. She was breathing.
The boards creek and she snaps from her thoughts, remembering the man that had been standing stoically in the doorway. How long had she been sitting here? Joel was patient at least. People didn't realize how patient he could be. She wasn't reveling in the blood and quiet. She was just existing in this nowhere house. She knew there was another body in the bathroom and another one in the living room. The one in the living room was hacked to pieces. It was the first one she saw, so naturally he got the brunt of her anger. The other two kills were more calculating. She had time to breathe in between. Her swings had become more measured.
She chanced a glance at Joel, the first time since the fleeting look they exchanged when he stopped in the doorway earlier.
He says the first words to crack the silence, "It's gonna be dark soon."
She could see the beginnings of the sun setting from the bedroom window. The light bounced off the fogged damaged glass and glistened in her eyes like it was something worth looking at. She stood with her guitar and packed it in its cloth sack before pushing the frayed strap over her shoulder.
She left the bedroom passing Joel in the doorway and walked down the ruined hallway; keeping her eyes ahead. Outside the crows cawed louder and louder. A distant church bell rang and she turned slowly in its direction. The echoing hollowed sound of it left her feeling exposed. She waited to hear it again and even the crows quieted.
She was alone out beneath the setting sun and the church bell never rang again.
Ellie remembered when her hands were small and could fit into crevices; fit in all the hidden places. She balls them up into fists until her knuckles were forced white and she releases them against her side. She could see Joel walking ahead of her as he often did, a silhouette. He aligned with the moon but it wasn't particularly bright this night. There weren't many stars either. They were hiding but from what? Something akin to dread filled her up. The quiet night was anything but a reprieve. She wished Joel was closer. Why was he walking so far ahead?
She lets out a breath, "Hey, what's the rush?" Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to her and she waited for it to carry itself across the growing divide. He stops then with a tired sigh, "I was givin' you time." Time to reflect. Time to analyze. Time to grieve. Time to scream. There were things she didn't want time for. Her thoughts were wicked things these days.
She grips the strap of her bag a bit too tightly, "I'm fine." He doesn't reply but the way he's looking at her she knows he can see right through her to the core. They walk side by side now in sync without even trying. They were reflections of each other; of days and people they've lost. He looks out ahead of them, ready to take on whatever dare crawl out from the decaying tomb of a town "You've been practicin'" She knows he could either mean the guitar or…
But of course he has a hint of a smile on his face. He was never proud of killing and she could pretend she didn't glean any pleasure from it either but she'd be lying (at least in this instance). Not these men. They didn't deserve her regret. "Any chance I get" She states and her mouth moves into a small smile of its own accord. She'd play the guitar right now if she could and let the clickers come out to dance. She'd strum and hum and sing until they took her into their arms.
She looks up ahead of them then and sees her but only for a moment before she disappears into the black. It was Riley. She could hardly see her in the dark but she knew it was her. It wasn't really her though, obviously. Her heart began to hammer in her chest and she turns to where Joel had been but he was gone.
She stops abruptly, "Joel?"
She turns around almost ready to go into panic mode. To her relief, Joel was grabbing something from a destroyed rusted car. It looked to be a handgun maybe. She lets out the breath she was holding and he catches back up with her.
When did it get so dark?
They camp in a diner that was covered in old bullet holes. Part of the roof was blown off by some kind of high powered artillery. It didn't much matter now. She laid down on her sleeping bag as Joel stood against the counter keeping watch out of the broken windows. She wanted to say she was sorry to the shadow of her dear friend, the only father she knew. That's not what they do though. They live in the silence and just know what the other is thinking. Instead she says, "Did you see this big fucking hole?"
She's laying on her back now looking up at the night sky through the roof. She can hear Joel shift and knows he's looking. He hums in response but says nothing else. She lays there on her back and stares beyond the hole out into the void with no stars. It could swallow her whole. She turns away abruptly and lays on her side facing Joel. He's back to staring out into the street. She felt like she was fading, disappearing. Soon she'd be nothing more than the imprint on this sleeping bag. She shut her eyes and listens. She hears laughter and a crackling fire. The pages of a book turning, the sound of footsteps in the rain, quiet yawns, the chopping of wood. There is distant singing too. It was Joel…he was singing, somewhere far away. She strains herself to hear it but it's faint. It's too much, too fast.
"Hey kiddo" She hears and then the snapping of twigs or maybe…bones.