As the three of them were walking down the stairs Jesse accidentally trips on a wire causing a small explosion.
"Jesse! Holy shit man!' Ellie watches as Jesse quickly recovers from the explosion.
"I'm okay." He assures, coughing a bit. He had a bit of dust on him.
"Well at least we know that this place has traps too. Thanks for being the test dummy." Dina could not get enough of giving Jesse a hard time.
Jesse decides to ignore her smart remark and continues to walk down the stone stairs carefully along with Dina and Ellie. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs they spotted a few clickers roaming about.
"Ellie get down!" Jesse whispers, tugging her arm. He and Dina were crouched behind a rectangular roadblock.
Ellie followed their lead and watch out the clickers would twitch a bit before moving on around. There was a particular clicker that was just standing in the middle of the cut off road way. Dina pulled out her knife just in case one of the clickers heads their way.
"We need to make it over to that bridge." Jesse was trying to think of the easiest route to go and how they were going to get there with the infected around.
Ellie scoops up a empty glass bottle and throws it over to another abandoned building next to them. Most of the clickers move towards the sound of the glass bottle but it was still that one that was in the middle that didn't move a muscle.
"Go, go, go" Ellie begins to sprint but she still made sure that she was hidden, Jesse and Dina did the same.
Ellie was a bit further away from Jesse and Dina and the clicker in the middle was quite close to Ellie. Dina took out her knife, sneak up to it and stabs it in the neck.
The clicker fell down on its back and the three begin to walk their way towards the bridge. Although they were close to the bridge it still was not a walk in the park. The streets were separated from the bridge so that means they would have to jump down to reach the bridge.
"Golly and I thought those clickers weren't enough" Jesse sighs. "Don't get your hair tangled in a bunch it's only a few jumps down." Dina begins to make her first jump down carefully.
Ellie was quite shocked at what Dina just said" A few jumps? Do you see how big of a jump we will have to make all three times to get down there?"
"This chick" Jesse sighs before jumping down with Dina he could not believe he was doing this.
Ellie rolls her eyes. What choice did she have this time? Ellie begins to wonder if Dina was really over Jesse. It was hard to tell because of their love hate relationship.
"Ellie you might want to come with us unless you don't mind turning into one of those things." Dina distracts Ellie from her thoughts.
Ellie shook her head to get herself to snap out of it." I'm coming!" She leaps down.
Jesse and Dina already made it across the broken street by the time Ellie leaped down, but there was only one problem. Ellie jumping down made the streets a bit more unsteady and the street began to fall down. Ellie screams to the top of her lungs trying to make the biggest leaps of her life. Jesse and Dina couldn't do much but to try to guide her to them. It was starting to get hard for Ellie to see since the gravel was falling from the streets. Ellie was doing okay so far despite of her panicking. Ellie had one more leap of faith she had to take and she would be reunited with her friends.
"Ellie grab our arms" Jesse and Dina had their hands out ready to grab her.
Ellie leaps and she barely was able to grab a hold of them, Jesse and Dina pulls Ellie up in relieve that they got her in time. The streets fell into the large bodies of water under them. Ellie was in both of their arms hugging them, She collapse onto the floor, bringing Dina and Jesse down with her. She burst out crying in fear of her life, falling to her death was one of her deepest fears and she did not want to go out that way.
"It's okay, Ellie." Jesse rubs her back to comfort her.
"We're here." Dina adds wiping the tears from her face.
"Let's get out of here." Ellie sniffles.
The two helps Ellie up and they proceeds to walk to the bridge.
When they finally made it to the bridge Ellie stares up at the graffiti in awe.
"Woah look at all these artist." Ellie was very amazed.
Jesse bends down to pick up a half empty spray bottle and tosses it over to Ellie.
Ellie smiles at Jesse. She never told anyone this but she was very dedicated to drawing. She eagerly sprints over to the wall and begins to spray paint.
"Ooo what shall Ellie draw?" Dina was quite curious to see what she will come up with.
It didn't take long before Ellie was done. "Ta da" Ellie steps away from her drawing, excited about what she has drawn.
"A dick." Jesse raised an eyebrow.
"It's the biggest one I have ever seen, Congratulation on the drawing!" Dina approaches Ellie to high five her.
"You could of drawn anything else, but then you draw that." Jesse shook his head.
"What's wrong, jealous Jesse, JJ" Ellie teases.
Jesse walks over, taking the spray away from Ellie . "Let me show you true art." Jesse begins to draw a horse.
"Actually that's not bad. Here pass it to me." Dina had her hands open so that she could catch the spray bottle.
Jesse passes Dina the spray can and she painted a flower.
"Aww that is so cute." Ellie yawns.
"Sounds like someone is getting tired." Dina puts down the spray can and she begins to walk south again, Jess follows behind her.
"I am not tired" Ellie lies, grinning at Dina. Ellie walks on the left side of Dina.
They were suddenly interrupted when they heard a horse approaching them.
"He is so beautiful." Ellie went over to pet the brown horse.
"Don't startle it. We can use him to ride home." Jesse begins to search through his backpack for a rope. He was able to tie the rope around the horse.
Jesse got the horse to kneel down and he climbs on the horse first, Dina was the second person to climb on the horse followed by Ellie.
"Alright you girls hang on tight." Jesse glanced back at the two.
Dina held Jesse tightly around his chest while Ellie held Dina tightly around her waist. Ellie closes her eyes and puts her head on Dina's back. She closes her eyes smiling. Jesse nudges the horse and the horse began to head towards their town.
About an hour later they were finally able to see the huge gates that led to their home. They were also greeted by a beautiful sunset upon them.
"I haven't seen a sunset this beautiful in a while." Ellie was taking in the gorgeous scenery upon them.
"Good thing we're almost home, the dance starts in a few hours." Dina was looking forward to it.
Jesse and Ellie on the other hand were not looking forward to it at all, they only came to events like this for the food and drinks.
"Well let's not keep them waiting. Hang on." Jesse tells the horse to gallop and the horse was racing to the gate.
A minute passed and they were at the gate. The three of them hopped off the horse and the gates opened for them.
"Welcome back" A middle aged man greets them. "Look what we have here another horse." The man was quite excited. "We'll take this fellow off of your hands"
"Thank you." Jesse replies handing the guy the horse.
"So I'll see you guys tonight." Ellie was getting ready to go home.
"Tonight for sure." Dina and Jesse agrees also going their separate ways.
Ellie opens the door to the log cabin and she plummets on the couch near the fireplace. She had quite a rough day and she was nervous to go to the party, but she wanted to hang out with Dina more than anything. Ellie lays on her back and stares at the ceiling, letting her mind wander of endless possibilities of what could happen.
"Are you going to the party tonight?" A familiar voice came from the kitchen, pulling Ellie out of her deep thoughts.
"Actually Joel I am"
"Your first party as a nineteen year old" Joel chuckles. "Aren't you excited?"
"I mean they have food so who wouldn't be excited about food."
Joel laughs" What did you do today?" He was quite curious on catching up with Ellie and her adventures.
"You know the usual, hanging out with Dina and Jesse" Ellie didn't want to go into detail about where they went or Joel would freak out.
"Well have fun don't have too much to drink"
"Joel you know how much I hate alcohol"
"Yeah, but you do drink a lot of root beer. That's where it starts" Joel laughs even more.
"Ha ha" Ellie laughs sarcastically.
"Oh and Ellie one more thing" Joel gave her the talk about this before and he felt like this would be the right time to hand it to her. He holds a condom out for her to grab. "Just in case."
"Pshh" Ellie nudges it off" I'm not going to do that, I'll be fine. I'm just hanging out with my two best friends"
Joel trust her judgement. "Sorry if this made you uncomfortable, but I just want you to be safe."
"You have nothing to worry about." Ellie gives Joel a comforting hug.
Joel hugs Ellie back and smiles. Ellie's facial expression changed to a sad, concerned look, Joel wouldn't have to worry about that at all because she is gay. She begins to feel guilty about not telling him. She could feel her palms sweating. Ellie stops the hug and stands up.
"Well I should get to bed so I could be well rested for the party."
"Alright I will catch you later"
Joel heads towards his room while Ellie walks up the stairs to hers
Author's note
Phew almost 2,000 words on this chapter. Thank you guys so much for reading. I will upload chapter 3 and 4 next week but until then I will be streaming and studying for my finals.