Chapter 14: Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid
Ellie stood panting in the corner, feeling exhausted. She could tell that Joel felt similar.
He stood over near the blocked entrance, catching his breath for a few moments.
"That was close," she commented, and Joel nodded.
She started to pace, still feeling nervous. She kept glancing back at the blocked entrance, expecting the hunters to burst through any moment.
"Did we lose them?" she asked, and Joel nodded.
"Yeah, I think so," he answered, still slightly out of breath.
"But we're not in the clear?" she asked, staring at him. Her pacing stopped, and she listened to see if she could hear any more voices; she was relieved when it was still silent.
"Not while we're in this city," Joel answered, and walked over towards a boarded up window, glancing out.
"I don't see anyone," she commented, glancing around the café and seeing a poster.
She shook her head, trying to focus on the dilemma at hand.
"Come on," Joel stated, making her glance over to see him start to walk out of the café where the door would have been.
Ellie followed, glancing around the slightly flooded city.
Cars were filled with water, and the streets were abandoned again. The water now came up to her ankles.
She started to wander, seeing a bridge in the distance.
"How long until they find us?" she asked, referring to the hunters.
"Who knows?" Joel commented, and then continued, "They can either try and get the concrete removed from the entrance, or they could find another way to this part of the city. They most likely know it like the back of their hands by now."
Ellie nodded, stopping in front of an old temporary bus station, studying the side for advertisements.
Her eyes scanned what was on the side, and she glanced back at Joel.
"Look, here's another one," she said, waving him over, "these posters are everywhere."
Joel walked up to her and stared at the poster as well, a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
"I saw this movie before the outbreak," he stated, making her look at him in surprise.
"You did?" she asked, and then continued at his nod, "Did anyone get gutted in it?"
Joel laughed a bit, shaking his head.
"No, no one got gutted," he answered, "it was a dumb teen movie."
She tilted her head, feeling slightly confused. She stared at him for a moment, having the feeling that he wasn't telling her everything.
"Then who dragged you along to see it?" she asked, hoping he would give her an explanation of why he saw it.
Joel shook his head slightly, not giving her the answer she wanted.
"I don't remember," he stated, making her feel somewhat disappointed, "Let's just keep moving."
"Ok," she answered, glancing back one more time at the poster before following Joel.
Ellie climbed up onto a bus after Joel, and both of them glanced at the bridge in the distance.
"That's our way out," Joel stated, pointing at the bridge.
She glanced around in confusion, seeing all the water blocking their path.
"How are we going to get there though?" she asked, and Joel replied with a shake of his head.
She saw him look around before walking towards a broken window, jumping down into the building.
Ellie followed him, looking around in awe when she got inside.
"This is fancy," she commented, glancing around, "you ever stay in a place like this? Before… before it all went to hell, I mean."
Water sloshed around her ankles as she walked, taking in the view of the building. She wondered if Joel would actually answer her.
"No," he answered after a moment, "This is too rich for my blood."
Ellie wondered briefly what he meant, but shook it off, taking in the rest of the place.
"Must've been nice," she remarked, taking notice of the broken staircase.
Joel must have noticed the stairs as well; he glanced around and his gaze settled on a section of the stair higher up, where some of the railing had broken off.
"We need a way out of here," he said, and she followed him, glancing up at where they wanted to go.
"It's too high," she stated, and Joel continued to look around.
"A ladder," he commented, and Ellie followed his gaze, seeing what he meant.
Only problem is that it's high up as well, she thought, but then had an idea.
"If you can get me up there, I can get it down," she offered, motioning towards the ladder.
Joel nodded, still surveying the area.
"I'll need something to stand on so we can get you up there though," he answered, and then said, "Search the place for something we can use."
Ellie nodded, starting to walk around and look for anything they could use to give Joel a bit of a boost.
Majority of what she looked at was either too far up to reach, or it would break too easily.
She heard Joel walk to the other side of the room, and she saw a table laying half-submerged in the water and mud. She walked up to it, about to tell Joel that they could use it, when she saw millions of little bugs and who-knows-what-else glued to the table.
"That's nasty," she stated, plugging her nose at the smell and walking towards another part of the room.
"Ellie, you find anything?" Joel's voice came from the other side of the room.
"No!" she shouted back, continuing to look around.
I'll tell him about the table of death if it's our last option, she decided, looking over when she heard a screeching sound.
Joel was moving a bed through the water, and Ellie wondered how in the world it could have gotten down here.
Must've been the water, she thought, following Joel over towards where the ladder was.
Joel positioned the bed against the wall, making sure that it would stay. He climbed up onto the bed and then motioned for her to follow.
"Come here, I'll give you a boost," Joel stated, and she put her foot in his cupped hands.
She pushed on his shoulder for a moment, trying to get further up.
"Easy," Joel stated, as he pushed her up, making sure that she grabbed the edge.
Ellie pulled herself up, struggling a bit with getting her legs over the side. She got up and turned around, giving Joel a reassuring smile before starting to crawl towards the ladder.
The splash below her signaled that Joel had gotten off of the bed, and she saw him where she was supposed to drop the ladder.
She started to push the ladder off the edge, making sure that it didn't crash to the ground.
"Here you go!" she shouted, lowering the ladder towards the ground, "one ladder, coming down."
Ellie let go as Joel picked the ladder up, walking it towards the edge of broken railing.
She jumped down after him, steadying herself when she heard the splash she made. Before she could follow Joel, she heard a giant echo that didn't come from them.
She looked ahead to where Joel was now climbing up the ladder.
"Maybe it was just him putting the ladder down," she whispered, hoping she was right.
She walked over towards him, and saw that no one attacked when he got up to the railing. She saw him looked around once he got up.
"You can come on up, Ellie," he told her a moment later.
She nodded, starting to climb up the ladder.
Ellie realized the ladder would shift from time to time since there was nothing keeping it in place, making her somewhat nervous.
She let out a breath when she got to the top.
She started to follow him at a distance as he walked up the steps, a groan coming from the missing part in the stairs.
"Watch your step," he warned, and she nodded, following slowly behind him.
On the way up, she noticed bullet holes in the wall.
That can't be good, she thought, knowing Joel had seen them as well.
Ellie glanced at the next stairway, seeing that it was blocked off. She was going to ask Joel where they would go now, but saw him glance at her and motion at a broken window.
She nodded and followed him through.
A flock of birds in the distance caught her attention, and she was startled when she heard voices.
She quickly followed Joel over towards an outside heater and crouched down behind it, glancing in another window and seeing more hunters moving inside.
"Should we go around them?" she whispered, peeking out from behind the heater.
"No," Joel answered, shaking his head.
He motioned for her to follow him as he snuck over to another group of windows.
Joel picked up a bottle and threw it through another window; the crashing sound making the hunters go to investigate.
Joel quickly came back towards the other window, and she followed him through it, crouching down against a table filled with drawers.
"What was that?" one of the hunters asked.
Ellie saw the silhouettes of the men walk into another room.
"I don't know," another hunter remarked, "Probably rats."
She followed Joel into the hallway and into another room. He motioned towards a closet, and she hid inside.
She peeked out and saw Joel sneaking up on a man in the room next door. He grabbed the man from behind and pulled out his pistol, pointing it at the man's head.
Ellie shivered a bit, remembering her similar situation back at the safe house.
"Not a word," Joel whispered to the man, and led him back into the room where she was hiding.
She saw Joel put the man in a chokehold, and the man struggled for a few moments, becoming still as Joel laid him down.
Ellie couldn't tell if he was unconscious, or dead, but either way it reminded her of the guard back in Boston.
Joel climbed out another window, and she followed him outside, climbing into another part of the hotel through a window opposite the last one. She noticed a hole in the roof, and Joel climbed up through it a moment later.
She briefly wondered if she should stay in the room below, but changed her mind and quickly followed him when she heard voices talking out in the hallways.
Joel led her into a bathroom, and saw let out a breath.
"That was close," she remarked, and Joel nodded, crawling through an opening in the wall and into another bathroom.
She followed, and then detected a foul stench.
She saw Joel walk over towards the drawers, and she then caught sight of two long-dead people in a bathtub filled with weird colored water.
"Creepy," she said, shuddering a bit.
Joel came over to see what she was looking at.
"Guess they took the easy way out, huh?" she asked, and he shook his head.
"It isn't easy," Joel said, staring at her, "A lot of people thought this was better than letting the Infected do it for them. Trust me, it isn't easy."
Joel sighed as he started to walk out of the room, making her curious.
Is it possible that he tried to get rid of himself in the beginning? She wondered, taking one last glance at the dead people before following him out of the room; somewhat glad to leave part of the memory behind.
"Take a look around, see if you can find anything useful," Joel stated as he walked over to pick up a pipe beside a bed.
Ellie stared through into one of the rooms, not seeing much in it.
She heard Joel walk out into the hallway and followed him, both of them hiding when she heard coughing down at the other end of the hall.
"Search these rooms," she heard a man order harshly, followed by more coughing from another man.
He sounds sick, she thought as she saw Joel sneak up to hide behind a counter in the hallway, almost like he could be infected.
She stayed back around the corner, hoping to not cause Joel any trouble.
Ellie saw a man start to walk towards Joel, and Joel leapt out from behind his cover, hitting the man in the face with a brick multiple times.
"He's got a gun!" one of the men shouted, everyone in the room then taking cover.
She heard another gunshot, and this time a thud confirmed that one of the men were down.
She heard more frantic shouting, and peeked out to see Joel nearly get hit with a bullet.
He needs help; she decided and started to sneak towards Joel.
Joel would have given her an angry look, but instead he fired the pistol at someone as soon as she got to where he was, making her cover her ears at the painful noise. She glared at him, hiding against the wall now as Joel ran into the room.
Ellie glanced around the corner, seeing two men hiding along the window outside and shooting at Joel. A third man came out of nowhere and grabbed Joel, holding him so that his buddies could shoot him.
Her eyes widened, and she snuck along the inside of the room, trying to find a way to help Joel. The men were pointing their guns at Joel, and she didn't see any projectiles anywhere.
She bit her lip to keep herself from swearing, knowing that would draw attention to her. She glanced over at Joel and saw that he was able to get the man off of him, holding the man in front of him as a shield.
They wouldn't shoot their friend, Ellie thought but then her eyes widened when she saw she was wrong.
Joel threw the body aside and ran into the next room. She tried to follow him, but the men saw her and started shooting bullets, making it impossible to get into the next room.
She didn't dare to peek her head out from behind cover even an inch and she got nervous when the gunshots stopped. She pulled out her switchblade as she heard footsteps coming closer to her; her heart hammering in her chest.
She saw a shadow coming towards her, and whipped out from behind her cover, stabbing her switchblade into someone's arm.
A look of surprise hit her when she saw that she had stabbed Joel's arm, and he dragged her silently outside. She bit her lip, feeling horrible.
"Sorry," she whispered, watching as Joel wrapped his now-bleeding arm.
Joel shook his head, a slightly annoyed look on his face.
"There are still more of them," he whispered, "stay here, unless you're in danger of being spotted."
Ellie bit her lip, wanting to help but nodded anyway, figuring this was payment for stabbing him in the arm.
"What if you need help?" she asked, and knew that he heard the worry in her voice.
"Stay here," he ordered again, and she peeked through the window as he snuck back into the hallway.
He didn't even answer my question, she thought, fuming.
Ellie heard the sounds of more gunshots, and peeked through the window, ducking back down when a bullet nearly hit her.
She heard the sound of an empty gun, and hoped it wasn't Joel again.
"I know that sound," a hunter shouted, making her eyes widen when she realized that Joel was out of bullets.
Again, she thought, wrestling with what Joel had told her to do, and what she felt she needed to do.
Her mind made up, she started to sneak towards the hallway as quickly as she could. She saw Joel hiding behind a counter in the hallway, and one hunter in the room, talking to him.
She took her switchblade out, but thought better of it when she saw a brick lying on the ground.
When her hand went to pull the brick back quickly, pain ran through the bottom of her wrist, making her suck in her breath sharply.
Her eyes widened when she saw her wrist heavily bleeding because of a large shard of broken glass being embedded into it.
Must have been from the window, she thought as she went to switch the brick to her other hand, and fire sprang from the motion, making her swear.
"Is someone else there?" the hunter shouted, making her freeze.
She could tell that the hunter's voice had contained some fear, and she knew that he was the last one.
Ellie pressed her injured wrist against her, peeking her head out but quickly leaning against the wall when a gunshot rang out and a bullet embedded itself in the desk behind her.
She had caught a glimpse of where the man had been and, hoping she was right, chucked the brick in the direction she thought he was in.
The man swore a moment later, and she heard Joel break his cover; the sound of a body hitting the wall a moment later.
Ellie took the time the distraction brought and gripped the shard of glass embedded into her wrist, yanking it out a moment later.
The pain it brought made a pained noise leave her mouth, and she started breathing heavy as she pressed her wrist against her pants again.
"Ellie," Joel's voice came from the other room, sounding somewhat angry but worried, "Did anything hit you?"
The question surprised her; she had thought that he would have started scolding her right from the start.
"No," she answered and realized that her voice was full of pain; Joel's sigh a moment later let her know she was right.
Nothing hit me except a giant shard of glass, she thought, trying to ignore the fire in her wrist.
She leaned against the wall as Joel walked into the room, hiding her wrist so that he couldn't see it. She saw that the place where she stabbed him with the switchblade had stained the bandage he had put on red.
"You ok?" he asked, and she nodded looking away from him.
She heard him sigh and saw him bend down; her gaze then traveled to the bloody piece of glass lying a few feet away from them.
Please don't notice, she thought, realizing that staring at what she didn't want him to see wasn't really helping.
"We need to keep moving," Joel stated, making her gaze wander towards him, "I don't think we'll encounter anyone else."
Ellie nodded, standing up and starting to follow Joel through the hotel. They walked up another flight of stairs, and she noticed the roof of an elevator was jammed.
She followed Joel towards it, and she realized there was an emergency exit leading up into the ceiling.
Ellie started to walk towards it, but stopped when Joel held out his pistol towards her.
"What?" she asked, feeling confused.
"You might want to take this," Joel explained, "I said that we might not encounter anyone else, but you should at least have something better to protect yourself with than your switchblade."
"But what about you?" she wondered, not wanting to take away his weapon.
"I found these back there," Joel said, showing her a revolver and shotgun.
She nodded, realizing that the hunters must have had them.
"Thanks," she said, starting to walk towards the hole in the ceiling again.
Joel stopped her, a somewhat curious expression on his face.
"What?" she asked, feeling somewhat irritated this time.
"You look like you want to shoot someone," Joel answered, making her realize she had been glaring at the floor because of the pain her wrist was bringing her.
"Sorry," she muttered, glancing at the pistol.
Joel gave her an amused look that made her confused.
"You looked like you were just about ready to shoot me too," he stated, making her give him an apologetic smile.
"I wouldn't shoot you," she replied and then continued, "Then I would be stuck alone out here."
They both laughed a bit, and when they did climb through the hole, Ellie felt a lot better. She placed the pistol in an easy-access place in her backpack.
Joel climbed up the hole first, and she followed soon after, seeing him having to press himself against the wall.
When Ellie pulled herself up into the hole, she stood up, the door to the hole then closing with a loud sound behind them. She gave Joel another apologetic look when he glanced at her.
"We should be able to make it through there," Joel stated, pointing towards the opening across from the elevator.
Ellie nodded, pressing herself against the wall as Joel jumped down onto the elevator. The elevator made a sound, but didn't move. He motioned for her to follow.
She jumped down onto the elevator next; the elevator then started to move under her added weight.
When the shifting of the elevator stopped, Joel looked back at her with a disbelieving glance.
"Sorry," she apologized, and Joel shook his head, directing his gaze back towards the opening.
"You find me something to climb on, ok?" Joel said as he started to boost her up towards the opening.
Ellie felt herself slip, and had to push with her foot on Joel's shoulder to regain her balance. His noise of discomfort made her feel bad.
She grabbed at the edge of the opening, being able to push herself half-way up. She was trying to get up all of the way, and was going to ask Joel for help, when she felt his weight disappear from underneath of her.
She heard Joel shout something, and her glance downward let her see the elevator give way and fall, Joel going along with it.
Her eyes widened as she felt herself slipping again, and it took all her strength to pull herself up. She lay panting at the edge of the drop, glancing down to find any sign of Joel.
"Joel!" she yelled, hearing her voice echo.
She could see water pooling down below, and she wondered briefly if he was stuck under the elevator.
He could drown, she thought with worry, Joel don't leave me here!
"Joel!" she shouted again when she heard sputtering and gasping from below.
"Ellie!" His voice came echoing up the elevator shaft, and she could hear pain radiating through it, "Are you ok?"
She glanced down and saw his silhouette in the water below; he seemed to be holding his arm.
"No," she yelled truthfully, feeling like she was going to cry out of relief and worry, "You scared me half to death!"
She saw him glance around, and she looked back at the way out, and then down towards him, seeing debris making a half-path between her and Joel.
"I'll come down-" she started to say, but he interrupted her.
"No!" Joel yelled, "Stay up there! I'll make my way to you!"
Ellie felt worry stab her, and the pain in her wrist was making it worse.
"Don't do anything stupid!" she yelled as she saw him start to swim towards the downed elevator.
"I'll try!" Came the answer, making her worry all the more.
She watched as Joel's form receded into the downed elevator cables, staring down at where he had been for what seemed like ages.
"He'll be fine," she said, trying to reassure herself, "He can find a way up."
But maybe I should find an alternate route in case he gets stuck, she thought, starting to stand up.
Her vision swam and she gripped her head, kneeling down on the ground again. She opened her eyes and saw a puddle of blood that had formed beneath her, as well as blood smeared along the edge of the elevator shaft.
That's why I must have been slipping, she thought, feeling somewhat exhausted and dizzy; a realization then falling on her.
"I should have told him," she whispered as she stared down at her wrist, but then shook her head, "But some things are better left unsaid. He has enough to worry about than adding me to that list."
She crawled over towards the wall and used it to stabilize herself when she stood up.
Ellie used her hand as a guide and stabilizer, walking slowly along the wall.
I have to find Joel another route, she thought, gripping her head for a short amount of time before continuing.
She heard a voice up head and started smiling.
"Joel?" she questioned, but fear ran through her when she realized there was more than one voice.
She quickly hid behind some of the debris littering the room, and she could peek through the gaps to see three hunters talking.
"I heard that someone got through the hotel," one of the hunters stated, making the other two look at him like he was crazy.
"You serious?" another asked, and the first one nodded his head.
"Yeah. Heard a man and a girl got through the other groups. Last I heard, they might have been headed this way," he answered, making Ellie bite her lip in concern.
"Well, I'm glad we weren't there for the massacre then," the third hunter stated, and the two others agreed with him.
"We should keep a lookout just in case they come this way though," the second hunter stated, glancing over towards where she was hiding.
She ducked down, hoping they hadn't seen her.
Her vision swam again as she silently pulled out the pistol Joel had given her; blood now smeared on it as she started to load the gun with the bullets she had found.
Joel, please hurry, Ellie pleaded, leaning against the debris as her vision started to darken.
I know, two long chapters in one day might seem like a lot (which it is to write), but I have a deadline and wanted to get this one out. Anyways, this chapter is based off of the fifteen minute demo in the hotel on the Last of Us website (they have it on YouTube as well I think, and possibly on the Last of Us Facebook page as well). If you have watched the demo, then you will notice this chapter has some differences though (like Ellie didn't stab Joel with the switchblade in the video). Anyways, next chapter will start out in Joel's POV. Please tell me what you thought of this chapter and any ideas you would like to see in a review!
-AnimeWolfGirl9