From Sea to Shining Sea Ch.7 - Comatose
~~~Ellie~~~
"Through here." Rylan whispered, pulling open a vent that led into an old abandoned school where Ellie had tracked the hunters.
The Inside of the vent reeked of piss and rotten flesh. Ellie scrawled through the right confines of the metal tube, careful not to touch anything that littered the sides.
"Oh fuck." Ellie exclaimed as she stared through the grate at the other end of the vent.
Inside were piles of bodies stripped of their belongings.
"Let's hope none of those are Cameron." Rylan said as Ellie opened the grate and stood in the room.
"He's alive, I know he is." Ellie told him optimistically.
Rylan let out a long sigh. Ellie could tell that Rylan didn't share the same optimism. They snuck quietly down a long hallway, carefully avoiding any hunter that happened to wander towards them.
"Shit the kids out!" Ellie heard someone yell from the end of the hallway. Ellie and Rylan shrunk into the shadows as all the hunters they passed went sprinting to the end of the hallway.
"Might as well follow them." Rylan said with a shrug.
Ellie nodded in agreement and followed Rylan down the hallway and turned left into a cafeteria. The room was littered with trash and scraps of rotten food.
"Something seems wrong." Rylan said, stopping in the middle of the cafeteria.
"What? I don't hear anything."
"Exactly. No gunshots." Rylan told her.
"Well that means he isn't dead, right?" Ellie asked.
"We'll see." Rylan answered as he moved to the other end of the cafeteria.
Ellie followed him through the swinging double doors into another, long, narrower hallway. She could hear some muffled screams and terrified cries down around the corner.
"Shit!" Rylan said, taking off at a run down the hallway, Ellie close behind.
As they neared where the hallway turned, Ellie could hear crying and a harsh gurgling noise coming from around the corner. From around the corner, a man crawled out, his throat ripped open, spilling his sticky blood on the tiles.
"Help me!" He gurgled before slumping down lifeless.
"How did the infected get in?" Ellie whispered to Rylan.
"Sh! They could still be here!" Rylan hushed her while pressing himself against the wall.
The sobbing continued, accompanied by a sickening crack and a wet squelching noise as a body got ripped apart. Rylan peeked around the corner, grimacing, but something was wrong. The confused look on his face told Ellie everything.
"You've got to fucking see this." Rylan whispered to her.
Ellie leaned forward past Rylan to look around the wall. The adjacent hallway was littered with several bodies, each with either throats torn open or chests ripped apart. Ellie scanned the area until she spotted Rylan's anomaly. Kneeling in the middle of the room was Cameron. Twitching a sobbing hysterically. Ellie watched him then collapse to the ground, seizing.
"Cameron!?" Ellie called out to him.
Cameron's head turned slowly towards her as he stopped twitching. His face and hands were coated in blood, a terrified look in his eye.
"Get out of here!" He yelled.
Ellie stood motionless in the hallway, a strange mixture of emotions filling her. She stared deep into Cameron's pained, misty eyes and watched as they glazed over and he began twitching and seizing again.
"Make it stop!" He screamed in pain, clutching at his head.
Ellie ran to his side, attempting to soothe and calm him in the throes of his pain. Cameron eventually began to calm down again and Ellie pressed herself into him.
"We should get him out of here." Rylan suggested. "I'll carry him, let's go."
~~~Me~~~
Pain. All I could feel was pain. My body ached and burned as I had seizure after seizure. I was unable to eat as most food made me sick. I lay whimpering on a mattress, Ellie curled up beside me the entire time.
In the times I was conscious and able to think clearly, all I did was hold Ellie, her hair splayed out across my chest as I tried to maintain control over my mind. Ellie somehow helped me through the worst of whatever was happening to me, it felt as if my pain and suffering were dulled when she was there.
After three days of being bedridden, I was able to stand. My fever lifted soon after and the seizures were now uncommon, but my mind would be forever damaged. I struggled internally with different dark desires threatening to take me over.
But I was alive.
"You ready?" Rylan asked me as I shouldered my backpack.
"Ready as I'll ever be." I replied, smiling at Ellie as she gripped my arm tightly.
"Good. Northward it is." He said as we stepped through the door.
I took a deep breath, savoring the salty smell of the sea mixed with the sweet smells of the evergreen forests.
"North?" Ellie asked confused.
"I've got a place I want to show you two, I know you'll like it." Rylan answered as he hopped onto his horse.
"Sounds fine to me." I said. "Long as we are out before Winter ends."
"We will, trust me."
A/N In the game, they never described how people turn and this is my adaption of what happens when somewhen turns and what happened to Cameron. Cameron suffered some symptoms of being infected, but he is able to naturally suppress them except for when he comes in contact with some triggers. (uninfected blood, extreme threat etc.) Anyway, leave a review and I'll see you all in chapter 8!