First Impressions

Well my day's turning out especially crap.

The Hunters are twitchier than usual, their barrels going for shadows and blowing leaves. I first figured it was because I'd killed one of them that morning, but it seems that I wasn't the only people still in the city. The bastards were still picking off the stragglers of that group they got a few days ago. They've taken one of the "tourists" and stuck his upper half on the hood of their humvee. Sick fucks.

"We just need to find those people from the pickup"

That's another thing. Turns out that pickup was wrecked by the Hunters (I looted the wreckage myself), but whoever was inside was stronger that I gave them credit for. They're mowing through these guys.

Not too sure if it's a smart idea for me to follow the corpse trail, but hey, free stuff!

Judging from the way they're heading they're still trying to get out the city. I'm actually quite interested to see if they can pull it off. I haven't actually been in this part of Pittsburgh before, the place was always crawling with the Hunter bastards.

Their trail seems to lead into one of the hotels. It's not actually a bad idea. If the Hunters hadn't already gone through the place with a fine tooth comb. Which they have.

Although it surprises me how much they've overlooked. I've found no food of course, but there's some scrap, crafting materials, rags and duct tape (you can never go wrong with duct tape). I can make plenty with this.

You'd be surprised what you can turn into a small stabby implement. I carried a lot of knives and shivs, mostly because I've never learned to fire a gun. Not that I've ever needed one though. I can usually get by with a shiv and my 220lb bulk. Any fight I can't win with my hands can be ran from or avoided altogether. At least that was my policy.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh yes. My day, and how shite it got.

So I was perusing through the abandoned hotel, shanking the odd Hunter in my way, avoiding the corpses that the pickup people had left behind, when I heard an almighty crash, like really, really loud, as in a everything-with-a-pulse-and-working-ears-within-a-half-mile-radius-heard-it loud.

So naturally I go check it out. Crazy right?

Anyway, the culprit of the noise was an elevator. Fallen straight down to the basement. I kind of pitied the fool that made it fall. He was wither dead or injured clicker-bait (so yeah, pretty much dead).

So I go on my way, still looting, surviving, when I hear a noise. The sound of footsteps. I clung to the wall, trying my best to be silent. When I heard the footsteps running around the corner, I swung a fist. It was round about chest height, unfortunately for my victim, she was shorter than the average man, so my punch caught her in the head.

That's right, she. I hit a little girl.

Immediately feeling like a bastard, I tried to help her up, and apologize, I swear I did. But she pulled a switchblade on me, so I had to fling her into a wall. What? It was self-defense!

The girl got back to her feet (I swear she was made of steel) and started swinging her knife at me again, so this time I grabbed her, twisted the blade out of her grip, and tripped her onto the floor.

"Motherfucker" she spat at me.

"Please don't do that again" I warned her. I didn't want to hurt the kid, she obviously wasn't a Hunter, they didn't keep kids around, but she still tried to attack me, and there was no way in hell I would go down easy.

The girl crawled back up onto her feet, switchblade back in her hand, though she did admittedly look a little less confident about using it. I too just stood there, holding a shiv in what I believed to be a threatening pose, one of my most reliable ones actually, I had sharpened it from a toothbrush. Though it was bright pink, so that probably took a couple of points off my manliness card.

"You just gonna stand there?" the girl asked, jerking me back to reality. Bad habit of mine, getting lost in thought. There was a hard edge to the girl's voice, although she seemed a little confused too.

She was young, most definitely, about a head or two shorter than me. She had reddish brown hair tied into a little ponytail, clad in a red top and jeans. Her eyes were a pale green, and she had a little scar through her eyebrow.

"Look," I started "I really don't want to kill you..."

"Kill me?" the kid had repeated as if she couldn't believe the words "You come anywhere near me and I'll fuck you up!"

Had to give her credit, she had guts. But it was just bluster.

"Really?" I said "So what was all that?", gesturing towards the crack in the plastered wall made from her impact.

"You got lucky" she answered.

"And what's to stop me from getting lucky again?" I argued.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Both of us knew who would win in a straight fight, and neither of us really wanted to get hurt.

"So what?" she said "We just gonna stare at each other til someone drops dead?"

"That's not a bad idea" I smirked. I put my shiv back in my pocket "I'm Kenneth"

The kid waited a bit before speaking again. "Ellie"

The silence continued.

"So..." I coughed awkwardly, "Why's a kid like you on her own?"

"I'm not a kid" Ellie argued indignantly.

"Sure you're not" I snarked "What are you, like, twelve?"

"How old are you?" she asked right back at me.

"About sixteen" I answered.

"You're a kid too" Ellie pointed out.

"Hey, being sixteen makes me a legal adult, kid" I argued. It was true. Probably.

"Well I'm fourteen" Ellie stated.

"See, that makes you the kid" I noted. This earned me a quick glare.

"So you didn't answer my question" I continued, "Where are your parents?"

"Where are anybody's parents" she shrugged in reply.

Fair enough. "What about an uncle?" a shake of the head. "Aunt?" same reply. "Some other kind of guardian?"

"Joel!" she blurted out. Her head snapped down the hallway, "Shit!" she muttered, before running off.

"Woah!" She was fast, but I caught up with her "Slow down. Who's Joel?"

"This guy I was with" she explained "He was in the elevator. I need to find him!" She went to run again, but stopped to look at me "Why am I telling you all this?"

"I guess I just look trustworthy" I shrugged. There was more silence before I spoke up again "So, um, hows about I help you look for this Joel?"

"Why do you wanna help?" Ellie asked.

Good fucking question, said the angry little voice in the back of my head, but my reply was more like "It'd be safer if I helped you"

"Why do you care?"

"You're first person my age I've seen in a long time" I offered as an explanation.

She seemed to ponder this fact for a bit before saying "Fine" and walking off.

So yeah, now I was babysitting. Not something I would have put on my to-do list at all.