Plot: After a series of tragic loss Joel Miller travels far and wide surviving on his wits and experience. Always moving forward despite the unforgiving environment he encounters because a quest keeps him going in his journey.

Note: From the game The Last of Us and the live action TV series.

MUSIC: THE LAST OF US Ambient Music & Ambience 🎵 Post Apocalyptic Peace (The Last of Us OST | Soundtrack) by z3n Pnk

THE LAST JOURNEY

CHAPTER 3

"I guess no matter how hard you try ,you can't escape your past."

~Joel Miller

"Maya!" Joel points behind her looking alarmed.

Yelling at the top of his lungs, Carl raised a cudgel. The wooden club hit the metal grill of the mall's side door with a loud bang. Joel narrowly avoids it from hitting him on the head. With a shout, Maya grabs Carl by the arm and spun him away. The young man tumbles and slides on the tiles but Carl quickly got to his feet.

As Maya was on the lookout for him Joel did the same for Maya. He doesn't know what the men would do or act. He and Maya might get jumped and beaten, he doesn't know. Instead of aiding the young man the guards were just looking on like audiences at a show. Fuck. Joel frowns. One of the men motions him to stay put. The man's bearing is relaxed; he leans on one of the huge pillars, his hand casually draped on his long weapon.

Maya picks up the cudgel from the tiled flooring. "Stand down!" Crying in pain, the man went down after she hit him on the back and the leg. Joel froze, wide-eyed at the speed. One moment she's holding the short wooden weapon and in another second Maya has the tip of the razor sharp blade under the neck of the startled young man.

"I said stand down, Carl! Are you deaf or something? You act like you're infected." The frown on her face and her annoyed tone made Joel relax a little. "Will you pick him up?" Maya waves Carl's friend over as she backs away.

In a move that can only be done by years of dedicated practice Maya swung the curved blade down sharply as if she had to remove blood from it, swung it back to her left and turns the blade up. With her left hand around the mouth of the 'saya' or sheath the blade smoothly slides into its home. "Lets go."

"Maya…" Joel nods behind her. With a sigh of dismay Maya turns around and regards Carl who ignored the warnings and caution of the other guards; he even pushed away his partner. He rushes at Maya. Joel steps back giving Maya some swinging space for her weapon. That kid's dead. Joel shakes his head.

Maya steps forward, took a step sideways then her feet went high up, half her body is almost low to the floor, her right hand had to briefly touch the cold tiles to balance her kick. The way Maya kicks Carl in the chest feels like she's using the same technique that's part of the blade's discipline. Joel hadn't seen anyone do that ever.

Whatever it is she did it was powerful enough for the man went up and back down hard. It wasn't an easy move to do when on her left she's holding her sword to keep it to her side and she is loaded with other kinds of gear as well.

Maya strides to where Carl writhes on the floor. One of the boarded up stores broke his progress along the floor. "Why are you acting like that? You can get jailed for this!"

"He's a killer, miss Maya!"

"Yes, I know! He didn't hide it. Look around you, all of us are killers, Carl. Don't you remember? You. You killed an old man for water."

"He shot my friend." Carl wraps an arm around his chest, he took a lot of abuse there.

Maya rolls he eyes and slaps her leg in exasperation. "Oh, please! Your friend is fine. Jerry has moved on and so should you!"

"I don't believe Jerry said that."

"He did, Jerry asked him to help move houses tomorrow."

"What?!" Carl's partner helps his friend up, Carl leans on the boards. The other man looks terrified of Maya.

"That is a part of his penance."

"I don't want his penance!"

"It's not your decision to make." On her way back to Joel Maya tosses the cudgel to one of the older men, the bald man. The man saluted her with it. . "Besides you're not the one who offered the job, it's your friend, so take it up with him."

"I will! Miss Maya, I wanna challenge him."

She turns back at the boy. "What the hell, Carl?"

"A fight."

Her peal of laughter fills the hall then it was joined by the other men; belly laughing and shaking their heads. "Look at you. I did that to you. You'll need an ice pack on your ribs." She nods to the young man's middle. "What do you think he'll do to you?"

The young man looks at Maya as if she was insane. "I'm not joking, ma'am!"

"Yeah, I know you're not joking." Maya paused to take a breath and wipe her eyes with her sleeve. She turns to Joel and relayed the challenge.

"What? I don't wanna fight you kid."

"You're a coward."

Joel was surprised the kid spoke in English. One of the guards nods at Joel in approval when he shook his head and whispered something like 'whatever'.

"So you want to fight with someone who killed, let's see…. seven cannibals. He crossed the Pacific Ocean in possibly horrific conditions, who beat up five men and shot your friend so… do you still want to challenge him?" Maya had to duck her head just to catch the kid's eyes.

The young man took some time to answer. "No." he couldn't look at her in the eye after the other guards began laughing at him again. A few of the men were having their own conversation, ignoring Carl. A couple of them were copying and practicing Maya's moves. It further sagged the strapping young man's ego.

"He came all the way here to escape the hell from his own country. Joel, how long did you travel to get here?"

Joel sighs with a frown, thinking. "Can't be sure but it probably took me two years, about that long."

"Do you remember how it was before we took you and the others in? Can you survive the things he went through?"

"No miss."

"No one is clean in this community, Carl. What happened to the world changed all of us. It turned us into killers." Maya shifted her stance. "But I will not kill a man just because of a misunderstanding. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. There are consequences for your actions. I'm placing you under arrest for insubordination and failure to comply at a direct order from a superior officer. You are also under arrest for the attempted assault and battery on a guest. You will be incarcerated for five days. Cuff him." The bald man steps forward with the binds. When the young man had been secured two other men escorted them up the prison cells at the cinema area.

Joel slowly approaches Maya. The woman looks at the spot where Carl was standing before. "I'm sorry I underestimated you."

"You're not the first and not gonna be the last person who'd do that." She sounded sad, frustrated and tired when she sighed.

"Mom!" Patty hurriedly goes down the stairs followed by Lee. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Carl." Maya nods up to the stairs.

"That goddamned kid…" Lee took off his baseball hat again in irritation. "Ah!" the man's tight gray curls hardly got ruffled by his fingers.

"This is getting out of hand." Maya told her ex-husband.

"I thought he was infected." Joel got an amused smirk from Patty when Joel shows them his mask. "I thought I needed it. I've had enough of those fuckers."

"I didn't want you to see that." Maya said worriedly to her daughter.

"You mean, she didn't know?" Joel asks Maya.

"She knows but she hasn't…"

"…seen the violence."

"Yes." She nods.

"What do we do with that boy?" Lee's jaw looks tense.

"He needs serious therapy but where do we find a therapist?" Joel nods in agreement at what Maya said.

"Maybe I can ask some people but we mustn't hope." Patty shrugs.

"My daughter is Lee's secretary; she takes care of village business and people's concerns." Joel smiles at how Maya beams proudly at her daughter. "Tell me when you find one. We're off to the garden. Anything you wanna say to the monsters?"

"Nah, I saw them before I came here. Ask for some corn." Patty hurried after her father up the stairs.

"Sounds nice. Bye."

"Monsters?" He looks around.

"You'll meet them. I'll protect you." Joel shakes his head knowing he's the butt of a joke or something. Joel follows her to the door held open by one of the guards.

"Ma'am." The guard nods. "Please forgive Carl. He's just been having some bad days."

"Bad days? Really?" Maya shakes her head. "What the hell do you want me to do? Hold his hand?"

"Can you lessen his jail time?"

"It's up to him." Maya stops the other guard. "I can hand out his sentence but it's up to the council. Ask for a petition. It's out of my hands, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am. Go on in. It's clear."

-[+]-[+]-

"What's this place?"

"The garden."

Two children came running out of a fenced in garden with big smiles on their faces. The boy looked like seven and the girl around five. Laughing, they crash into her giving Maya a big embrace. The children got lots of kisses and hugs by Maya after she wiped them down and gave them some water from the satchel on her side. From over the fence Joel could see it's a busy place; children from various ages were working at vegetable plots. Some till the soil; that seems to be what the older kids do. Smaller and younger kids water the plants and tend to the weeding. The boy went back inside and went to a plot protected by green nets after a few minutes he came out carrying something in his shirt.

"Carry this for me?" Joel opened the basket and Maya put the vegetables in it. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I haven't seen this much food in a long time."

"I see. You won't have to worry about that. We have vegetable gardens that the kids tend to and we have animals. Have you eaten?"

"Yeah."

"What did you eat?"

"Someone gave me some tea and bread with white cheese."

"For breakfast? This morning?"

"Yeah. Biggest meal I've eaten in days."

"You're lucky. I haven't had breakfast yet." The kids came back with two ears of corn.

"Nice kids." Joel gave the kids a wave. "Hi." The boy looks at him but the young girl giggles from Maya's side.

"This is Teddy and this is Matty. The monsters." The children giggled when Maya tickles them in their necks.

"I didn't know you have other kids." Joel was confused when Maya laughs.

"They're not my kids."

"Oh. And these kids...?"

"They're my daughter's adopted children."

-[+]-[+]-

A/N:

Saya - The saya is the name of the scabbard used for Japanese sabers, swords and daggers such as katana, wakizashi, ïaito or tantō.