Last Of Us- Ch. 6
Christina and I talked for a while and when we finally finished, we'd joined back with the group. "What is that up there?" Tori asks, pointing to the building in the middle of the woods, left as a blur. I only shake my head, unsure, and walk faster. As we near it, it becomes clearer that it's a house; someone lives here.
I near it, knocking on the door, I look behind me to see Four and Lauren in tail and I knock again. With no response, I shake the door handle to find it's unlocked; I twist and push the door, the moment I step foot inside a walker comes out from behind the door, gray and skinny. Surprisingly, I'm unprepared for this, with no weapons out and ready. The first thing that comes to mind and as a last resort I bring my foot, placing it sideways on what would be its gut, sending backwards to the floor. Before I can get my knife out to finish it, Four got to it, jamming his knife into the side of its skull and pulling out quickly.
Stupidly enough, he allows Lauren to come with us, supplying her with a knife; she must not be as helpless as I'd assumed. He signals for us to split up, and we do. I immediately find the kitchen for any food or water, and luckily I find some. Pulling the bag off of the opposite shoulder as my crossbow, and I unzip it. I find that it has steadily become empty, but I throw any canned goods that I find inside, we can always use it. As I stock my bag, I find that my mind slowly wanders back to the woman we'd seen. Or at least, what used to be a woman, as much as I don't like thinking about the people that the walkers used to be, I couldn't help it. I think about her life, what was she, did she have a job, kids, and family; was she happy?
Continuing my search, I find she must've had family, or at least relative by the looks of the Christmas cards magnetized to the fridge. Then I wonder if they know about her fate, that she's dead; I come to the conclusion that they don't know, and it's more than likely better that way, in comparison to the knowledge of my brothers supposed death. As I'm looking through the photos that lay atop the fridge, I see her old self, one who looked happy with a toddler and a fiancé or husband. She was young. The photo, in a trance of their happiness, captures me and before I know it, I'm being broken out by a scream. I quickly fold the evidence of the woman's life, and place it in my back pocket, cherishing it; she mustn't have been immune. I quickly get off the counter, running to the source of the scream to find Lauren on the ground, a walker over her, feasting on her flesh and blood. Well, there's my answer to the curiosity of the woman having a family, I tell myself.
"Hey!" I shout, pulling my crossbow around as the creature faces me. I fire, hitting it puncturing the cerebrum of its skull. I let the energy run through me, recovering my breath, I look up and find that Lauren is unconscious, she'll turn soon. Pulling the arrow out of the walkers' forehead and put it away before pulling out my knife. No matter how much I truly hate her, I feel awful doing this, and I feel as if I will always owe Four. I walk up to her body slowly, as if I will awaken her, and she'll kill me first, surprisingly allowing a tear to stream down my face, I tell myself it's for Four, not for Lauren. My vision blurry with tears, I slide the knife into the side of her skull as I've done many times before, pulling out quickly before wiping the excess blood onto my jeans as I hear his voice.
"What the hell did you do?" he mutters through gritted teeth, and I'm sure I pale at the sound of his voice. The tone of his voice sends shivers through my body as I evidently shudder. "Four…" I begin but no words come out. I turn, and see his eyes cloudy with what could be tears as he looks over her now pale body, but his eyes now turned black with fury.
"Four," I attempt to begin again, my voice groggy, "you have to believe me, I was going through things and I heard her scream, I came in here as fast I could" I can now speak, relaying the events, "the walker, he- he… Four, she was already gone, I-" I say, but ignoring my protests and excuses. His hands curl into tight fists, his knuckles turning white and before what I know what happened I'm against the wall. He punched me, and is now in my face just staring at me viciously, as if he could kill me too, as if this was my fault and for a moment I welcome it; I don't want to be in this world anymore. I remain holding my jaw, entranced by his glare, like a small child being scolded by their father and shrink down.
As he goes to yell at me again, Tori appears in the doorway, "Four!" she bursts, "you are not your father!" I watch his face, but he looks unfazed by her words, to buried inside of his own mind of rage. I, on the other hand, push past his arms, finally allowing the tears to flow again as I disbanded them before to withhold my show of fear. But I leave the house, collecting my weapons and bags on the way, without looking back to see if he had followed me. A part of me wishes he'd stay with her.
A/n- so, I'm really sorry for this embarrassingly short chapter that is a little over a thousand words. I just felt like it was a good place to end it and with all of the stuff that's been going on like fixing the old chapters and midterms for the end of the semester, I haven't had much spare time. But next chapter will be better I hope, but anyway, let me know what you think… and REVIEW! Thanks for reading!