Next of Us: Chapter 12
Ellie is drifting off to sleep by the recently made fire. Joel is sitting close by, watching Ellie open and close her eyes in a struggle to stay awake. He sees her eyes close and hears her breathing steady and limps over, wrapping a larger jacket around her for a makeshift blanket.
"It should have been me..." Ellie mumbles in her sleep.
Joel sighs when he hears this, "Goodnight baby girl..." He whispers in her ear, while kissing the top of her head. Joel smiles and sits back down by his backpack and weapons, still keeping an eye on his Ellie.
Joel is going in and out of sleep by the fire, determined to stay awake to keep watch over Ellie, when he hears nearby leaves crunching and heavy footsteps. Joel sits up right, snapping back to reality and flailing his hand to his side, looking to find a weapon. His hand feels the rubber grip of one of his knives and he brings it up to a defensive position.
"Take it easy big guy..." Says a familiar voice that Joel is still too tired to match with a name. He sees a figure sit down next to Ellie and remembers the boy as Hunter.
"What the hell did you do to her?" Joel spits out, looking at Ellie again to make sure she is still sleeping.
"I fucked up thats what happened...I'm not perfect Joel, no one is." Hunter blurts out after a few moments of silence. "I got mad...that I lost Lola, said it should have been her. I know i messed up big time and I feel like shit, and she will probably never forgive me. But I am really sorry...and I just...i don't know."
Joel sees Ellie open her eyes and smile then pretend to go to sleep again.
"You shouldn't be apologizing to me..." Joel tells Hunter, looking at Ellie.
"Yea..right, I'll do it first thing in the morning." Hunter says through a yawn.
Only Hunter would never get to apologize, because you can't apologize to someone when they're not there..
Joel sprang back to consciousness, to the sound of screams and zombies. Joel tried to make out what was happening, squinting his eyes at the adjustments of light. He saw Hunter stabbing and shooting zombies, doing his best to defend Ellie, who was still just waking up. For the first time Hunter looked to be nervous, with everyone just waking up and zombies closing in. Joel tried to stand up, pain shooting up his leg. He fell hard onto his side and reached for his bow after spitting out the blood from the impact. Joel fiddled around, looking for any arrows to help Hunter. After deciding the arrows were gone, Joel desperately picked up a knife throwing it a zombies chest, feeling proud when he heard the thud of impact. Hunter backed up, trying to reload his pistol and stab at the same time. As Hunter was doing this, Ellie began to help as well, placing shivs in zombies skulls and lining up her gun for headshots. One by one the zombies slowly stopped appearing and soon, everything seemed to be safe. Ellie sat down next Joel asking if he was okay. Hunter sat down next to Ellie, breathing heavily and sighing.
"Ellie can we talk?" Hunter questions her through pauses.
"Thought I should be dead." Ellie says, getting up and running away, tears beginning to form and roll down her face. Hunter gets up and begins to follow her, telling her to wait, but he knows inside that its too late. It has always been too late.
"It shouldn't have been you, Ellie." Hunter whispers to himself, "Oh no, it should have been me."
