I wake up the next morning to sunshine streaming through my small window, and sink deeper in my blankets. There's a fine line between getting up and getting out of bed, and I'm straddling it.

Blinking slightly, I let my eyelids drift downwards slowly, enjoying the moment. There is nothing you appreciate more after months and years on the run than a comfy bed to call your own. Then, of course, there's shelter and all…but a bed comes above all else.

Finally I throw back my blankets, stretching and making little dinosaur noises (reee!), before walking over to my duffel and picking out some of today's clothes.

It's strange to think we've lived here almost four months, and yet I still live out of bags instead of the dressers here. I suppose it's habit. My biggest fear is leaving here without all of my things.

Well, that's at least one of them.

After getting dressed, I pull my hair back into a ponytail and glance at myself in the freshly cleaned mirror. Hmm. As appearance goes, I'm not too bad. I'm tall…which may sound good, but I tower over everyone else. Dr. Mundell thinks it's because of my parents. I've almost surpassed my mom, and my dad…well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I pad down the steps to the kitchen, and open up the fridge, which is a joke. There aren't much pre-packaged things floating around, usually it's empty, pardoning our water bottles and maybe a granola bar or some fresh fruits and vegetables around.

Grabbing my bottle and an apple, I eat a quick breakfast, pacing the worn linoleum as I think about the day's plans. Often it involves me up in the Crow's Nest, playing games on my laptop, or walking the streets with Felix until I find other kids.

Or…hey. I could go see Ellie. A quick glance at the clock on the microwave reveals it's only 11. Hmm. Am I getting up early?

(-_-(-_-(-_-)-_-)-_-)
I pray (wait, I never pray)…I wish (ah, better), that Ellie opens up the door. Because that could make all the difference of how this plays out.

I knock three times, then stand back, tightening my faded drawstring as I bounce from foot to foot.

Try not to sound like an idiot. Say something sophisticated. "Hello. I was wondering if Ellie wanted to come with me and some other kids to…" Ah, crap. I laugh to myself, and then the door opens up, revealing…Joel?

"Hello." He says, and I muster in a high voice, "Can Ellie come out and play?"

He seems taken back, and I can't help myself from laughing while mentally face-palming, "That wasn't sophisticated at all, was it?"

"Can't say it was. She's, uh, upstairs taking a shower." Joel's eyes glint as he agrees with my previous statement, and I can feel his respect for me sinking lower by the minute. I nod, my plans and courage crumbling slightly, "Oh…"

"Why don't you come inside? I was just about to leave to go see Tommy…but I'll manage to stick around for a few more minutes." Joel suggests, stepping back and holding the door open.

Giving a smile and nod as I walk into the house, "Thanks." Then I glance around.

It's a crossover between our house and the townhouses I've seen around. Big, but not massive. Cozy, almost. The furniture isn't grand and stately, but it fits the small place. The fireplace sits on the right, surrounded by an array of a couch and recliner and a few armchairs.

I take a seat on the couch, taking off my drawstring and setting it beside me. Joel walks into the kitchen, which is a few feet off of the living area, "Do you want anything? I just put on a pot of coffee."

"I'm okay, but thanks." I say, trying not to cringe at the mention coffee. I hate it so much, even though we've had to drink it numerous times in our travels. While Mikey and Mom downed it without an issue, I'd just warm up some hot water, and that woke me up just fine.
The water shuts off in the house, and Ellie's voice calls down the stairs, "Joel?"

"Yes?"

"Where are the f—oh, hold on…never mind." I hear footsteps and then a door closing. I glance back at Joel, trying to rack my minds for questions so I don't have to sit here in awkward silence. He pours himself a mug of coffee, "Ellie says you, uh…you got an older brother."

I nod, "Yeah. Michael."

"Does he have an intention on being on the force?" The 'force' is basically border patrol. I shake my head, "No sir. My mom is worried about our survival enough as it stands."

Joel nods, taking consideration in for my mom's choice. I pause, trying to get my confidence up, swallow hard, and then, "Do you have a son?"

"No. I, ah, I…" he drifts off, thinking hard as he glances out the small kitchen window. Taking another sip of coffee before continuing, "I'm just looking after Ellie now."

I nod, not about to push on. After a few minutes the footsteps sound once more, and I glance at the staircase, seeing Ellie come down the steps in a t-shirt, "Hey Joel, do you—uh…hi, Maria?"

"Hi." I say, and Joel looks over at her, "Ellie?"

She jerks her head to him, obviously surprised by my presence (score 1 for me for a sexy existence), and then, with a sheepish smile,

"Do we have any rags? For my, uh…arm?"

It takes Joel a flash of a second before he nods, "Yeah. Here, I'll show them to you."

"Did you hurt your arm?" I ask, and Ellie gives a shrug to me as Joel crosses over the faded carpet to the stairs, "More or less."

So I sit by myself for a few seconds, relaxing on the couch, until finally Ellie bounds down the stairs, wearing a long-sleeve baseball tee, jean shorts, and her worn shoes. She takes a spot on an armchair opposite of me, "If you don't take it the wrong way…what are you doing here?"

Sounds a bit harsh, I know, but Ellie's just…upfront. I shrug, sitting up, "Thought we could hang out and I could introduce to some of the other kids."

Ellie nods, "Oh. Right."

Joel crosses across the carpet once more, retrieving his cup of coffee, "You leavin', Ellie? I'll be at the power plant until 6 or so."

"I don't know…" Ellie admits, and Joel glances over at her, "Or you can sit around with that horse that you've given that God-awful name to."

"Callus Jr. is not an awful name!" She shoots back, but I catch the glint in Joel's eye, satisfaction at getting under her skin. Ellie catches it too, "Oh, you—"

"At least remember to bring your backpack." Joel cuts her off effectively, tossing her a little green and navy bookbag with pins and a purple monster keychain. Ellie rolls her eyes, "Fine, fine. Whatever makes the old man happy."

She gives me a grin at this and I return it. Then I stand up, pulling on my drawstring, "It was nice talking to you, Joel."

"It was, Maria. I'll see you two back here at…matter of fact, just come to the power plant."

"Will do."

(-_-(-_-(-_-)-_-)-_-)
"So, where are we off to first?" Ellie asks in a monotone, and I shake my head, "We're not meeting anyone. I want to go scout out some houses first."

"Scouting houses?" Ellie asks, eyebrows poised. I give a half-shrug and a sheepish smile, "Raid, more or less."

"You do this with the other kids?" She asks as we continue on the path. I shake my head, "No, not really."

"Don't I feel special." She murmurs under her breath, and I give her a nudge, "C'mon. It's not that bad. We look for anything of value. Comics, books, stuffed animals, electronics…"

"Is your brother good with electronics?" Ellie asks, curious. I pause, continuing my stride for a good bit before coming up with a suitable answer, "Yeah…I guess."

I don't feel like giving her too false of information, "But his friend Matt is really good with them. Why?"

Ellie whistles, observing the upkeep (non-existant, might I add), as we walk farther and farther out from the civilization. I don't notice she's deliberately avoided the question until it's been too long to bring it up again.

I glance at the houses, open and abandoned, and Ellie comes to my side, "Aren't the coming families going to take these?"

I shake my head, "No. Tommy says that their structures are awful, y'know, 'good bones but awful meat'."

"I guess it'd take a lot to get them up and running." Ellie notes, and I nod, "Yup."

Then she hitches her bag up onto her shoulder, "There better be something good in here."

Raiding houses makes me feel as if I'm on the run again. Mikey and I raided old houses all the time, and he and his friends leave the town sometimes to explore the neighboring ranches. I guess that despite the safeness we like here, most of us grew up exploring, and it feels wrong to suddenly stop after years and years.

Ellie's almost cleared out the first floor, kicking aside a brush of leaves from a culprit broken window. I head upstairs, eager to see if there's anything to make our trip worthwhile.

Much to my sucky luck, there isn't. I scour the bedrooms, the bathroom, even a hallway closet, only to find that there's nothing of value.

"Anything up there?" Ellie calls up the stairs, and I shake my head, coming down them, "Nope. Let's check the next house."

So we do. And the one after that, and as we reach our fourth, I give a look to Ellie, "Let's head back now. I'm beat."

She pauses, taking it into consideration, then shoulders me with her backpack, "One more house. If it's another bust, then we'll head back home."

I nod in agreement, and Ellie kicks the door open. I learned that she loves doing that, because even if it's something as insignificant as a closet, she doesn't resist the opportunity to kick the doors open.

Stepping inside, a wave of cobwebs and dust greets us, and I go to work on the lower floor, letting her run up the squeaking wooden steps to the bedrooms.

Huh. Not too bad. We had both agreed a house or two back to not explore the basements, mainly because of the fact we didn't know if any bodies or clickers remained down there.

I check the cabinets, rewarded with a few cans of soup and some granola bars. There's a shattered TV, and underneath it is a cabinet. Kneeling, I press it open, seeing it's jammed.

I reach back into my drawstring, grabbing my switchblade and fiddling with it. I'm no genius, but I'm no idiot, either. After a few minutes, I get it working, and open it up to come face-to-face with plastic cases to DVD's and videogames.

"Score." I grin, and begin shoveling the stuff into my bag. Maybe it's all broken or empty, but then again, maybe I've found something worthwhile. It's all a matter of attitude.

"Ellie?" I call, leaping to my feet. No response. Can she not hear me?

I move to the base of the stairs, "Ellie? You up there?"

I'm greeted with more silence, and I head up the stairs, wary of the creaking wood beneath my feet. I take a page out of her book and kick the doors to a bedroom and bathroom open, and then I enter the opposing bedroom by twisting the knob to the worn door,

"Ellie?"

I glance around the room. Two windows on the wall show the beautiful mountain range surrounding us and illuminate the space, showing off the bed, dresser, desk, and the auburn-haired girl chilling by the window pane.

"Ellie…?" I speak with uncertainty, and she turns for a split second, registering the fact that it's me, then smiles and waves me over, "C'mere."

I bring my eyebrows together in confusion, but walk across the lighted room nonetheless. I come to her side, "Woah…"

On the opposite side of the window, baby birds chirp in their nesting of a flower box. The mother looms over them, looping her talons on the edges of the metal box and keeping an eye on her chicks.

A swelling in my chest follows, but it's a nice swelling, like hope that these little creatures will survive. They waddle around on their skinny legs, plump and fluffy with feathers, bumping into one another and causing more chirping. The mother watches over them with intent black eyes, capable and ready.

We don't say anything in that moment or promise to be best friends forever or look for more baby animals...it's just the simplicity of sharing a moment like this together.

Finally Ellie turns her head to face me, a real smile on her face, "So freakin' cool."

A few minutes later we kick off our shoes and sit cross-legged on the bed, splitting a snack of granola bars and water from my bottle.

I pull out the videogames and DVDs from downstairs, and we go through a process with them: open them up, check to see if there's a disk, snap it shut, put it back. After this over the past few minutes, we find that a handful of them actually have disks that aren't busted, and I slip them back into my backpack.

We lean against the wall the bed's pushed up against, and I gaze out at the amazing view, hearing the baby birds chirping in their flower box.

"You find anything up here?" I ask, glancing over at her. She shrugs, glancing over at her own backpack, "A few comics."

I slip my hand into my backpack, pulling up a videogame and handing it to her, "Does this look any good?"

"'Triple Phoenix- A story about three pigeons mutating from a dip in radioactive fluid. For players age 10 and up. Play as Hawkeye, Bleu Jay, or Robin with your friends as you battle through hundreds of levels and mini-games!'." Ellie reads from the back cover, and a small smile begins to play on her face.

"You know about it?" I ask, and Ellie shrugs, glancing at the faded cover art with something else lingering in her eyes. "Yeah. It's…based off a cartoon that was really popular."

(-_-(-_-(-_-)-_-)-_-)
Walking back from the run-in with the baby birds and raiding houses, we stay in silence. I'm a good few feet into town, and I glance over at Ellie, realizing she's not by my side.

Turning, I see her back at to me as she gazes at the empty houses. Her head cocked back slightly and her auburn ponytail hanging over her faded backpack, she looks as if she's questioning some bigger.

She turns her head and catches me looking, and then whirls around to come back to my side.

We don't talk for the first few minutes, and then, "Do you think they'll live?"

"The baby birds, you mean?" At this she shoots me a look like what else? Then I shrug. "I can't be one to say. But I hope so."

Ellie keeps her head down, facing her feet as her hand curls around the strap on her backpack, "Maria?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you...believe in an afterlife?"

Huh. In terms of religion and God my mom tried to educate my brother and I. I can't count the number of times she's celebrated Christmas with us on the run, revealing rag-and-newspaper wrapped toys she'd kept in her backpack for months to surprise us.

But going back to the afterlife...I give a shrug to Ellie, "I guess...maybe. What about you?"

She stays quiet for a few minutes, then, "I guess I do."

I hear the uncertainty in her voice and nudge her with my shoulder, "You don't sound too convinced."

Making a face and her mouth in a peculiar twist, she shakes her head, "I don't...really. I try to think about it...because then I think that all those deaths I saw, those people might have gotten a second chance."

The gravel shifts and crackles under our feet, and then I swallow, finding my courage to keep the conversation going, "My mom talks about heaven sometimes. She says we're in good hands, that there're a lot of people looking out for us 'up there'."

"You know about your family?" Ellie asks, and I can detect something in her voice. A longing. What did Joel say? "I'm just looking out for Ellie."

Maybe she's as alone as I am.

I give a slight smile, "My great-grandfather stowed away on a boat when he was eleven to come to America."

"Really?" Her lime green eyes are alert, curious for more, and I nod, "Yup. He was convinced there must've been something better than living in poverty."

"Must be hard, leaving your family and starting a new life at eleven." Ellie remarks, whistling. I shrug, "I suppose." Then, as silence threatens to take hold of the conversation, I muster up the strength to admit, "It's kind of silly...but I use it to encourage me. Like if he could escape on a boat at eleven to a whole other world and know no one, who's to say I can't survive this apocalypse?"

Ellie nods, and then we continue to walk in silence the rest of the way to the power plant. They let us in, knowing me for my mom and Ellie for Joel and Tommy, and we head up the rickety metal steps to the headquarters, which overlooks the plant and the view of the mountains. Another awesome view.

Ellie twists the knob and pushes the door open, and Joel and Tommy look up from where they're conversing over a piece of paper, a map, maybe.

Tommy breaks out into a smile, "Hi, girls."

"Hi." Ellie says, and I give a wave. Ellie sits in a chair beside Joel, who gives her a look, "Meet new people?"

"Yeah." She doesn't meet his eyes, and I'm hoping to not get a black mark beside my name. Then I inch closer to the door, "My mom's probably going to need my help with dinner. I'll see you all tomorrow."

Tommy nods, and Joel looks over at me, "We're heading to the stables tomorrow at around eleven, if you're interested in coming."

Setting up playdates so I hang out with Ellie. Clever. I think in my mind, and then I nod, "I'll...be at your house at eleven, then."

Joel nods in agreement, and as I lay my hand on the cool, metal knob, Ellie whirls around in her chair, her lime eyes intense, "Maria?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me if that game's any good." I catch a smile with this and return it, give a nod as I leave, "I will. See you tomorrow."

As the door closes and I'm making my way down the rickety steps, I feel as if a weight's been lifted, my mind racing with ideas. There's so much behind that videogame with Ellie than what she's letting on.

And I make myself a promise. I'm going to find three controllers so Mikey, me, and Ellie can all play. I'm doubting it's going to have her reveal all of her history to us, but maybe...it'll help her lighten up a bit.

Maybe she'll just enjoy playing videogames with us, and that's enough for me.