The Last Of Us: Shaun's Story

This is a self insert story involving me and my best friend Quaid as we try to survive the parasite. It will involve Joel and Ellie, I won't give to much away just read the story!

Prologue

Freshers week, what a hell of a time. No parents, new friends, and a hell of a lot of booze, alcohol, sex and well... You can imagine. It'd been a rough few nights, surviving on souper noodles, vodka and an alcohol infused mix with a few elements I'm sure don't exist on the periodic table. I'd danced, I'd drank, I'd been with various different women, and it was time to sleep, little did I know about the events that would happen, and change the course of the rest of my life.

Chapter 1 – The Outbreak – June 14th 2013

My alarm went off at 8am, I'd only got back in at 4:30am that morning, and I'm pretty sure that I was still drunk from the night before. Induction for my course was at 9am so I thought I'd give myself some time to look like I'm among the living. I crawled out of bed and took a quick shower, threw on my dark slim fit jeans and a tight navy blue T-Shirt, and walked out of my room. The halls of the coppice were quiet, but what did I expect? It was 8am, everybody was probably still asleep from the night before or already on their way to induction, more than likely still in bed. I walked down the stairs, doing my best to not fall all the way down to the bottom, and walked outside. The cold morning breeze hit my face, and it felt good. It helped numb the pain from the night before, but I couldn't shake the feeling of something being wrong. Where the hell was everybody? I stood and looked around, and realized that I was right. Something was horribly wrong, where was everybody? Why were there no cars on the car park? The place was completely devoid of life. I walked back into my accommodation and opened the door to one of my flat mates rooms. It was empty, and it was trashed. I tried another room and it was the same story. Where the fuck was everybody?

I went into my room and turned on the TV, and what I saw next was something out of a horror movie.

"This is an emergency announcement. Please make your way to the nearest checkpoint. Bring no more than one bag of clothes. The nearest checkpoint in the West Midlands is located in Stafford, Staffordshire."

What was going on? Were we being invaded? I seriously contemplated the likelihood that Germany had invaded Poland again and started World War 3, then I realized I was being a moron. I looked at my phone, and I had seven missed calls from Quaid, which seemed quite excessive. I dialed his number and called him back and he answered almost straight away.

"Where the fuck have you been man? I've called you like a million times!" Quaid sounded both angry and scared.

"I've been hungover, I didn't get back in until stupid 'O' clock. Anyway what the fuck's going on? I've looked at the TV, all I see is that we have to get to a checkpoint. Are we being invaded? It better not be World War 3 I'm to hungover for this shit."

"Dude, it's not world war 3 there some kind of disease, a virus I don't know what exactly but it's turning people into zombies."

"Bullshit." I'm not falling for that, this Is the real world.

"So there's a emergency announcement on TV, and you think I'm going to waste time for a practical joke?"

"I don't know what's going on, but where are Mom and Dad? Are you with them?" In the midst of things I'd initially forgotten about them but I needed to know that they were okay.

"There's no easy way to say this, but mate everybody, your parents, mine, they're all dead man they're all dead!"

My heart sank, I felt like I was going to throw up. Dead? Why? They were gone? The thought just made me angry, but I had to get to the checkpoint.

"Quaid, just, where are you? At home? I'm coming to get you, I'll be there in half an hour, in the meantime just, stay there!"

"Be careful mate, stay away from everybody, I'm not joking about the zombies."

Quaid put the phone down. I needed a way to get to Quaid's house all the way from Perry Barr. In such a short amount of time I was going from starting my degree at University, to facing what could possibly be a third world war. I decided to use my motorbike to get back, and I just hoped that spending so much money on an Almax chain would pay off. I grabbed the keys from my desk and ran outside, not bothering to put on either my helmet or leathers. I ran across the car park to the motorbike area, my bike was still there, the chain had done it's job even at the end of days. I unlocked the padlock and threw the padlock and chain into the storage compartment, the Lexmoto Arrow wasn't exactly the fastest bike but I know that with a lot of revving, 70mph was possible. I started the bike and sped off.

The roads were completely packed with people in cars trying to get to the nearest checkpoint, the traffic was at a standstill on the motorway, but I took advantage of the motorbike and filtered through the gaps of the cars. I was focusing on looking straight away, doing a speed of about 30mph to make sure I didn't hit any of the cars, when somebody decided to open their driver side car door. I hit into the door and was thrown forward off my bike. I flew through the air like a crash test dummy. I hit the ground and rolled into the side of one of many cars. The skin on my hands and arms was cut, the pain was agonizing and I was bleeding out. My world was spinning, and I was unsure if it was due to the alcohol from the night before, or the fact I'd just hit the ground at the speed of sound. Probably both.

I grabbed started to sit up, when out of nowhere a man jumped on top of me. His face was covered in blood and his eyes were open wide. He lunged for my neck and tried to bite me and I instinctively raised by forearm to his neck to stop him from biting me. What the fuck was going on? Was Quaid being serious about the zombies? Or had this guy decided to just suddenly become a cannibal. In that split second I'd decided that I'd deal with that later, but right now I needed to get this psychopath off me, and in that second I raised a fist and threw a right hook as hard as I could into his temple. He stumbled off me, without hesitation I ran towards my motorbike and climbed on. I hoped it still worked, and luckily? It did. The fact that it had no indicator lights of mirrors left on it didn't bother me in the slightest, I needed to get back as fast as possible.

After about half an hour I arrived at Quaid's house, I tried to climb off the bike but I'd been losing blood, and the pain was excruciating, and I just fell onto the ground. I was so light headed but I needed to focus if I was going to get to the checkpoint with Quaid. I climbed back onto my feet, the small rocks on the ground dug into the open flesh on my palms. I slowly walked up to the house, keeping on the look out for any potential attackers. Quaid was already on the front garden, waiting for me.

"For a moment I thought you weren't going to show up!" I ran towards Quaid and we hugged each other, it was good to see somebody that wasn't trying to kill me, and at least my best friend was still alive.

"What happened man? How did they all die?" I started tearing up, up until now I was so focused on getting back to Quaid I hadn't had time to think of anything else.

"Something happened, to Paul I mean. He just... Attacked everybody, your parents come out to try and stop him but... He chased them back inside the house and killed them." Quaid had tears down his face, and so had I. I couldn't believe that they were all dead. All of them.

"We just... Need to focus right now. Get out of here, get to that checkpoint. Whatever's going on, whether they're zombies or it's an invasion, or whatever, we need to get of here. We'll take the Honda Jazz. Any suggestions?"

"You go get the keys, and I'll grab us some supplies, I'll get some food some clothes, whatever I can get."

With that I went next door and I was horrified. I just realized I was going to see the bodies of my parents. Damnitt! What the fuck was going on? I walked into my house and it was the picture of a bomb site. The sofa's had claw marks through the leather, with the majority of the vases and plants on the floor. I navigated through the assault course which used to be my home, and went into the kitchen. I saw blood marks which lead into the main living room. This was it, this is where I would see my dead parents. I followed the blood marks around the corner, and into my living room, and there they were. A pulpy mess on the ground, barely identifiable as humans. I fell to my knees, and I burst into tears. Tears streamed down my face, when I came to the realization... Where was Paul's body? As soon as I had figured this out I heard a scream that broke the sound barrier. Paul ran towards me, screaming into the air like a mad man high off crystal meth. He grabbed onto me and screamed inches from my face.

"Paul! It's me! Shaun! Come on! Remember? We dug into the garden! Flew in you plane!" I was hoping that Paul had some part of his humanity left, that this was all some sort of sick practical joke. But this is the real world. Paul's teeth were getting closer and closer to my neck, he was easily 50lbs heavier than me and I had no chance to outmatch his strength, despite being a bodybuilder. I remembered some of my basic knowledge of KFM and put my foot behind his left leg and pushed my weight onto him. His body fell onto the floor and I was dragged onto him, I lay into him as hard as I could punching as fast as possible into his skull to no avail. I was thrown backwards against the kitchen counter. He climbed back up and tried to tackle me but I moved away at the last second, he went head first into the kitchen counter. I ran over to the top kitchen drawer and grabbed the first knife I came across. Paul ran back towards me and I stabbed him viciously in the chest and I didn't stop. This man was responsible for my parents death he was the reason they were dead. HIM! I kept stabbing him time and time again.

"Shaun! Stop! Stop!"

Quaid grabbed me and threw me across the room.

"It's fine, Shaun it's fine he's dead! Shit I'm sorry I fucking forgot. I'll get the keys and your clothes, I'm sorry I forgot about them." There was genuine sorrow in his voice, this was to much for both of us.

"It's fine. I'm sorry about your Mom and Paul. Let's go."

I'd asked Quaid to drive to Stafford, my palms were ruined from the motorbike accident earlier and I needed to rest. We took the quiet back roads on the way to avoid as much traffic as possible, the world was in chaos. People running and screaming, children in the streets, it was horrible to see the world falling apart. Twenty four hours ago I was dancing in a club, twenty four hours later me and my best friend are facing the fucking apocalypse. I'm nineteen, he's eighteen. We're just kids we're not ready for this, how can anybody be ready for this?

"We're here dude. Get the stuff out of the boot." Quaid sounded tired. We'd been through so much in the past few hours it was already taking it's toll on our bodies.

I got out the car and picked up the suitcase, it was full of our clothes and as much food that would last that we could fit in there. The checkpoint was full barriers and soldiers checking everybody. We had to strip down naked for the army to inspect us, I was taken to one side when they saw how cut up I was but once they were satisfied I wasn't bitten, me and Quaid were escorted to one of the many chinook helicopters.

"So. Where are we being taken to?" I questioned one of the soldiers.

"Quarantine zone." He answered back in a monotonous tone.

"Where? Country side? The coast?" Quaid questioned further.

"No exactly. Choppers taking us to the airport in London. We're being evacuated."

"Where?" Where was safe in a world that seemed to be falling apart?

"This group? Boston. America. Survivors are being taken to the safest parts in the US. Apparently the parasite hasn't hit the yanks yet."