My GOD it's been FOREVER since I last updated. I'm really sorry. Enjoy.

Jakes POV

There was no one there. Not a fucking soul. After Me and Ellie's little talk we had continued on into the university, Climbed some shit, picked some locks, and bashed a few more infected skulls in, we found the university to be completely goddamn empty. Fuck, I mean all that shit for nothing? It looked like they got out in a hurry. Stuff was tipped over, glass was broken, and the lamp things were still on.

"What are we even doing here? It's obvious they fucking left." I said with irritation.

Joel was searching under a counter. "We need to know where we're going, a memo or something. Just look around okay?"

I just nodded my head and went along with his plan. As I walked to the other side of the rather large room, Ellie moved over to Joel and started having a quiet conversation; I was out of earshot and couldn't hear what they were talking about. I didn't really care. I figured they were talking about Ellie's family or something. I learned that it was best to stay out of people's business the hard way, a long time ago. As I rummaged I found a few revolver bullets from under the counter. When they were done talking, we moved on to the next room. It wasn't much better. Chairs were knocked over, Dry chemicals stained the carpet, and the overall mood was one of gloom.

We turned a corner and found monkeys. Fucking monkeys. They stared at us with empty look of despair and of a disturbed psyche, possibly plotting are imminent demise. There dog like mouth recoiled at our sight. Their gnarled yellow teeth midway to a snarl, their human like arms hung limp at their sides waiting for who would make the first move. Then they turned tail and climbed out one of the windows. Huh, didn't expect that.

"Oh wow, monkeys." Ellie said with awe in her voice.

"First time seeing a monkey?" Joel asked.

"First time seeing a monkey." She said.

As we continued onward from that encounter, It was just more of the same. Stuff strewn about, they probably left in a hurry, yadda yadda yadda. What was actually pretty interesting is that Joel found a voice recorder about some bloke who got himself bit trying to free the infected monkeys we saw back there. Revealing that they were evil and dangerous, yeah in case you hadn't noticed I don't like monkeys.

Next room we found the corpse of the infected bloke. His head had a gaping hole and his fingers were coiled around a revolver. His corpse looked pretty rotten, so I'm assuming he'd been there for a couple months. On the desk to his right there was a voice recorder. Joel quickly grabbed it and hit the 'play' button. At first he started reminiscing about the good old days. Joel skipped through that part. The guy than recounted his initial actions when the pandemic began. Joel skipped through that part too, so much for that's guy's final words. Finally after skipping through enough parts the guys monologue, the guy revealed that the fireflies were holed up in Utah. Well that sucks.

Joel cursed in frustration. Ellie spoke. "Is that far?"

"Well it isn't exactly close." Joel said.

"What about me?" I piped in.

"What about you?" he asked

"Well I'm guessing that you only picked me up because of how close I was to the fireflies and I'm kinda dead weight when it comes to firefights. So now it's in Utah and so I guess what I'm trying to ask is am I going with you? I asked.

"Wel-"He was cut off by a shine of a flashlight and bullets crashing through the windows.

Ellie's POV

More bullets crashed through the windows as we took cover behind a counter. We heard yelling from below, I figured there were more of them coming up to greet us, I got my pistol out. Joel silently cursed as he readied his shotgun; we crept out into the hall and was immediately greeted by a guy running toward us with a hatchet gripped in his hand. Joel just raised the shotgun and blew the guys face off. His messy corpse sprawled awkwardly on the floor, hatchet still gripped in one hand. Joel pried it from his finger tips and put it into to his seemingly bottomless backpack.

We heard angry shouts and more footsteps running up the stairs. More guys, this time with pistols. We took cover behind another counter and got too shooting. First guy poked his head out of cover and was met with a bullet; He fell to the floor in a bloody heap. The other guy, seeing Joel's handiwork cursed in anger and came out with the shotgun blasting. Joel took one of the motolovs from his backpack, lit it, and tossed it. I didn't get to see this hum but what I did hear was his screams. The final one made a brake for it but was stopped by a shotgun shell exploding the back of his head.

I looked over at the carnage. Even after all we've been through, stuff like that made my stomach churn. We ran down the stairs, No one. We burst in too the next room, No one. It went on for a while as we made our way down. Picking off a few stragglers along the way, finally we got on top one of those walkways, surveying a huge floor down below. Joel was approaching the door when suddenly a hunter burst in. The door knocked Joel right on his ass, as the charged him with a knife, Joel only had enough time to get up and block the guy before he pushed him on to the handrail they struggled for a bit as Jake and I stood, not knowing whether or not to intervene or not.

Joel eventually fought the guy off him, socking him in the face. As he did that the railing broke, Joel and the other guy falling down onto the floor below. Jake and I could only watch as he seemed to be falling in slow motion. Joel cried out in pain as he landed, I ran over to look at the mess below. As soon as I saw him, I knew I couldn't wait any longer as I jumped down without any real sense of self preservation, "Oh man." I whispered as I looked over at Joel.

Joel was lying on his back, pain was etched on his face, a two or three foot rebar was sticking out of his stomach, as he whispered. "Oh shit."

Jake quickly jumped in after me, looking over the scene with his dark brown eyes. The Fucker who attacked Joel was lying on the ground, dark blood forming a huge puddle. Jake just stood there in shock, staring at the rebar lodged in Joel's abdomen. I looked back at Joel he was lying there in pain as my mind panicked, this looked bad, really bad. I've read about these kinds of things in my books. Typically this would lead up to some emotional climax where the guy died, but I didn't want Joel to die. He saved my life, I saved his, he told me about how things were before shit hit the fan, and he's the closest thing I got to family and now he might die and that WON'T happen.

"What do I do Joel, what the fuck do I do?" I said almost yelled.

"Just pull me out." He said talking in a low whisper full of pain.

Jake and I grabbed each of his arms as we started to pull. He cried out in pain. I let go of him immediately fearing more pain. "Its fine, its fucking fine, just yank me out." More pain in his voice. We pulled one more time. Fast and hard enough to finally get him free of the rebar, It seemed like his blood was pouring by the gallons as he stood up painfully. He quickly hunched over in pain, like he was punched in the gut. Jake quickly picked him up letting him lean on his shoulder.

"Fuck." As Joel's blood started pouring out on to his lower body.

"Here I'll take him.", as I took a few steps forward.

"No its fine, I'll take him, just clear a path for us, okay?" he replied.

I took out my pistol and lead away. Each passing room was surprisingly empty, though I barely noticed it as all of my thoughts redirected back to Joel. Jake seemed to be soldiering on, though his effort in supporting a heavy framed man like Joel, was obvious. Next room I was greeted with two guys standing in the center, chatting. As soon as they saw me, one took out a pistol and the other, an iron pipe. I shot the one with the gun in the chest. The other guy charged me, knocking me to the floor as his friend crumpled on the ground. He raised his pipe up to strike the killing blow; I quickly grabbed the gun that was tossed to my side and unloaded on him. He fell to the ground dead, with blood leaking out of the many holes in his chest. I quickly recoiled in disgust as the smell of dead bodies struck me.

We quickly hurried outside, taking out the guy trying to hotwire the vehicle. "Who's gonna drive?" Jake said in short breaths as Joel's muscle mass were taking a toll on him.

"I'll do it, don't worry about me." As he got up from Jake and staggered over to the car seat. Jake and I climbed onto the back seat, sitting next to each other as he started the engine and drove.

I looked over at Jake; he was covered from the waist down in blood, his Jeans ruined. I don't know how I felt about Jake, first I was just being polite, making conversation and being a bit overly nice for my taste because I felt bad for him, me killing his… parents and all, but he's been more than willing to stick his neck out for us on numerous occasions. I feel absolutely guilty over having killed his parents, and especially not telling him, I mean I don't know what he would've done if he did find out, get depressed maybe, probably get super pissed, and for good reason. There was also another feeling, something I couldn't really place like guilt but different somehow, it was strange, really strange. Something about his face and the way he's been helping us lately, when he could've hung back and cowered I mean-

"Joel? Joel!" Jake said as he interrupted my train of thought.

I looked over at Joel. He passed out and began bleeding more heavily, the car rolled over to a stop as we both carried Joel out of the car. Joel might die today and I can't do anything about it, I thought as I looked over at him.

He won't He can't, and I'll do anything I can to save him.

So sorry about the late chapter. I rather like this chapter. I think I handled Ellie's monologue quite well actually. I probably sound like an arrogant ass right now XD. I should be getting back to my regular schedule. So expect a chapter introducing our 'friend' David next week. Reviews also really help.

Until next time.

-Jogman