AN: Quick warning, Ellie thinks about religion in this and some thoughts aren't exactly flattering.
Four days ago. Had it really only been four days? Four days since Sam turned and Henry blew his brains out? At some points it felt like it happened decades ago, and others just a couple minutes. Time always had been skewed for me.
I kept going over the conversation I had with Sam, tearing every word apart looking for meaning and/or some type of warning of what was to come. It wasn't as hard as I expected. In hindsight our conversation had a bunch of red flags.
The most obvious and glaring one was when he questioned if the people inside of the Infected were trapped in there, unable to control their actions. I'm scared of that happening to me...
And what had I said to that? Bullshit about how we're all a team now and we're going to help each other out. Plus the nice tid-bit about the person not being there any more. Yep, I'm real comforting.
Especially when I next said didn't really believe in heaven either. Sam hadn't believed too it turned out so it softened the blow (in my mind at least). Could you blame us for not believing in this hell? Friends turning, people getting shot or starving, clickers (or rather all the Infected)... I'd heard some of the soldiers talking about it back in the QZ, saying stuff about something called a bible and church. As I learned more about religion, the more I was confused. How was the world made in six days? Are we all related to two people who were kicked out of a garden for eating an apple? It just seemed a bit off. And heaven, a place of eternal paradise because you lived without sin, and if you failed the entrance exam you were sent to eternal damnation. Sounds fucking peachy.
But when Joel and I were standing over their graves, I couldn't help but hope there was a place for them to go to. Neither one of them deserved to die, but then again, who does but the most deranged and sickest of them (I met one them later on this journey and I will never get him out of my mind).
Before we dug the holes we went through the radio station and took what supplies we could. In the room where Sam had been, the robot was on the ground next to the desk. Picking it up, I just stood there for about half a minute before slipping it in my bag. Sam didn't get it then, but he should get it now at least.
Eventually, Joel just sighed and said we should go. I didn't argue. Just more people dying because of some stupid shitty fungus/virus thingy. I knew I was kidding myself, I was already starting to care for them despite knowing them for around what? One, two days? But just anything to feel any better.
Back to the now, four days later, we traveled out of civilization completely and were moving by west through the back roads. When I asked why, Joel just muttered about encountering less people. Now we were just sitting opposite each other by our fire. I was tired of walking already, but the only working vehicles were miles away in others QZs with the military.
I was tired of thinking about it, but my mind kept forcing me back to it. Sam clawing for my face, the gunshot and him going limp above me, Joel trying to get the gun from Henry, Henry raising the gun and pulling the trigger before rag-dolling as well.
I understood why Henry committed suicide, but that didn't make it any easier. Another memory floated by, this time I was in a bathroom in Pittsburgh with Joel. Two bodies in a bathtub, blood and other stuff floating around them and Joel saying it wasn't it easy. Based on the way he said it, he probably thought about or even tried to kill himself but couldn't.
Sitting there, I wanted nothing more than to get to the Fireflies now, and feeling that it better be damn worth it.
AN: I was being lazy and some of you wanted the aftermath of Sam and Henry so here. About the religion thing, in my head Ellie wasn't really exposed to it when she was younger so some of the ideas in the Bible might seem ridiculous to her (probably doesn't help that I'm also agnostic).
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