Humanity
By BeautifulDusk
The smell of gunpowder lingers heavily in the dusty air.
Her emerald eyes are blank as she surveys the broken bodies that lay scattered all over the abandoned house. Empty bullet shells litter the ground, testament to the bloodshed that had just taken place. A man in his early twenties groans feebly near the front door, clutching a gunshot wound in his abdomen as a pool of dark blood spreads underneath him. The noise alerts her, his small pain filled whimper condemning him to his hopeless fate. She walks purposly across the room to the dying man, switchblade in hand. She crouches down and ignores his desperate pleads for mercy as she slices his throat efficiently- a move she's done so many times it has become a natural reflex. She coldly wipes the blood off of her weapon on his torn jacket as he gurgles before going still for the last time. She moves cautiously through the house, footsteps light as she strains her hearing and deduces she is finally alone.
She knows it wont be for long though.
As she walks past a bedroom she notices a guitar tucked into the corner. A rare small smile tugs at the corner of her lips as she picks it up and sits on the edge of the bed. As she moves the guitar onto her lap, she attempts to blow the dust of twenty six years off before beginning to tune the instrument.
The adrenaline from the fight is still coursing through her veins, making it difficult to strum. She holds her bloodied and bruised trembling hand out in front of her, amazed that even after all of these years of fighting her hands still shake after taking anothers life. She clenches her fist in an attempt to ignore the pangs of guilt to no avail. She flexes her stiff fingers before she experimentally strums the guitar. She makes one more last adjustment and takes a deep breath before she begins to play.
"I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
I fear no evil because I'm blind to it all.
My mind and my gun they comfort me,
Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come,"
The words and memories flow from her, reminding her of happier times that cause an ache in her tight chest. She's so caught up she doesn't notice the blood trail down her cheek like a forgotten tear.
"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell on this earth forevermore.
I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul,"
She can sense him approaching, but she isn't concerned. She doesn't need to lift her head up to confirm who it is.
"But I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong,"
She tries not to react at his image as he leans against the door frame, fighting to control her emotions as she nears the end of the song that they wrote together so many moons ago.
"But I can't fight on the path of the right because I'm... Wrong."
The air is heavy as she finishes. She doesn't look up, she's uncomfortably familiar with his presence appearing when her heart feels at its heaviest. Some days she even looks forward to it- a welcomed escape from her fucked up reality.
"What are you doin' kiddo?"
His voice sounds exactly like she remembers and it kills her every time he speaks. The thick southern drawl, the slow even pace. It's the one voice that once brought her feelings of safety and secuirty. She knows truth, that he's not there with her and that she's alone, but every time she sees him like this her heart jumps into her throat and a part of her hopes that everything that happened with the Fireflies isn't her reality. That maybe, just maybe, the Fireflies didn't kill him and this is all some sort of morbid dream. She stares down at the broken heap of a man that lays on the carpet in front of her, a clear reminder that this was her world now. This is her cause. Her purpose.
This is her revenge.
Their revenge.
"You really gonna go through with this?"
His words ring clear and true, as if knowing he's asking a rhetorical question and of course she is. His words are filled with wary resignation that is so damn typical of him. She slowly moves the guitar and gently places it on the bed, mentally gathering herself as she turns to him. Her eyes are hardened from the relentless suffering she has endured. They echo the moment she witnessed the death of so many that she cherished. They are the very same eyes that watched Joel be viciously beheaded. The vision that flashes in her mind stirs the anger that holds the nineteen year old tightly in its grasp- she knows she cannot stop until she avenges them all.
But deep down, she's doing it for Joel.
"I'm gonna find and I'm gonna kill every last one of them."
"I know Ellie," his words linger softly in her head before diminishing completely. Joel melts into the shadows as she picks up the guitar and beings to play another bittersweet melody, bringing her the closest she'll ever feel to comfort.
And once again, she is all alone.
30 miles away a man stops and inspects a broken branch. He runs his thumb over the break, the sap eagerly sticking to his skin. It was the first sign of the girl he had seen in hours, he fears that with each passing day he is losing her trail.
But he won't stop until he finds her.