The Cost of Survival Part 1
Chapter 1 of a new crossover idea I have just come up with. A combination of The Last of Us and Life is Strange, had to twist and edit some stuff with the LIS characters, timelines and such, will have all the characters around at the same time, albeit all at the same age in their debut games, anyway, hope you enjoy this little introduction.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Last of Us, Life is Strange or their characters,
Chapter 1
The day was dawning like any other, particularly the Haven Springs Safe Zone, a community that had been set up for those who sought to live safely, but not in the oppressive quarantine zones that had been set up when the Infection spread and began turning the people infected into monsters. This of course meant great danger for anyone who ran into these infected, as they could easily be attacked and killed, and those were the lucky ones, simply breathing the spores released by the dead or being bitten by someone infected would infect the other person. Of course the infected were only one threat, the military took over following the collapse of the government and became oppressive, using the quarantine zones as makeshift dictatorships. Then there were human groups that had gone feral or vicious, bandits, hunters and other groups. All of it posed threats and meant anyone who dared venture out in the wilderness needed to be alert. But in the safe zone, there were at least walls, guarded by some of the inhabitants, allowing those inside to lead relatively normal lives. One of those people was about to start their day, which would in fact lead to an unexpected chain of events, a chain that would result in their life changing forever.
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It was the knocking at the door to her small but comfortable home that woke the young woman up. She mumbled a little at first, but did not fully wake up until the next set of knocks which finally caused the young woman's warm brown eyes flutter up. She yawned and stood up from her bed, clad in a pair of simple shorts and a tank-top. The young woman was twenty-one and wasn't that tall, only around five foot four. She had short black hair stylized into a pixie cut with a large protruding bang swept to her left. She was slender but with notable curvy hips and thick thighs. She quickly put on her red glasses and stretched, she also had diamond earrings in her earlobe and two helix piercings with silver hoops on her right ear, and a silver stud piercing on the left side of her nose. She also had two small tattoos on her right hand, one of a shooting star on the back of her hand between her thumb and forefinger and a shield on her middle finger. Then came the knocking again and the young woman quickly started and began to walk over to the door.
"I'm coming." She called out.
She went and finally opened the door to see a young woman of eighteen standing there was a smile on her face. Said young woman was skinny with auburn brown hair, blue eyes, and pale skin with notable freckles. She was a little taller, at five foot five, than the young woman who had answered the door to her. She was dressed in dark jeans with an olive green jacket over a dark T-shirt or tank-top and boots.
"Morning Alex." The young woman greeted her. "How are you this morning?"
Alex smiled lightly. "Morning Max, I'm fine."
Alexandra Chen and Maxine Caulfield were two inhabitants of the safe zone and notably preferred to be called Alex and Max respectively.
Rubbing her eyes, Alex suppressed another yawn and asked.
"So, what brings you here, Max?"
Max smirked. "You forgot, huh? We have patrol today, the two of us and Sean have to patrol around the north ridge."
Alex was immediately fully awake at that. "Oh shit, yeah. Um, sorry. I'll get ready right away."
Max just nodded at that and replied. "I'll see you at the gate with Sean."
With that she went and began to head away while Alex closed her door and quickly hurried through her home to find her patrol clothes. It was literally the only clothes that those in charge at Haven Springs insisted their people wore and only those who were going on patrol as the clothes were designed to be at least somewhat protective while not limiting mobility. Said clothes were similar to Max's although Alex's jacket was burgundy instead of blue. Nevertheless Alex was soon changed and dressed and left her home, locking the door behind her. She began to walk through the safe zone to head for the gate, looking around with a smile, noting that the place still managed to look relatively beautiful in the light of a new day in the Fall. The orange leaves were already starting to fall from the trees, luckily she had heard that they had a good year with supplies and harvest which meant they would have plenty of food and wood for winter.
As she walked onwards she bit her lip.
'It's such a lovely place, but I still feel guilty being here...it reminds me of what I lost, of who I lost...the cost it took to get here.' She thought sadly. 'Mom, Dad, Gabe...all gone, I'm the last member of my family.'
She shook her head, quickly trying to push the thoughts out of her head, especially as she noticed another familiar figure. A rather tall girl, five foot nine in height, she had dyed hair that was mainly bright blue with teal highlights, with roots that fade out from pink to light purple. Her natural hair color, strawberry blond, was visible at the roots from new growth. She also had bright blue eyes and pale skin, she also had a tattoo sleeve on her right arm, an intricate design featuring red flowers with green stems and leaves with thorns, blue butterflies, red ribbon and a yellow skull. She also had a punk aesthetic which showed in her clothes, a pale bluish-gray ripped patched jeans with braces/suspenders, black boots, and a white tank top with a skull on it. She also wore light blue nail polish on fingers and was as usual wearing a necklace that has three bullets hanging as pendants.
Alex smiled and greeted the nineteen year old. "Hi Chloe."
Chloe Price turned and smiled when she saw the other woman. "Oh, hi Alex. What's up?"
"Just heading for patrol with Max and Sean." Alex explained.
"Oh." Chloe bit her lip. "Be, um...be careful out there, yeah?"
That confused Alex and then she noticed that Chloe had a stack of posters in her arms while the town board next to her had a couple of the pinned up, missing persons posters for another girl, a girl with a familiar name, Rachel Amber.
Alex bit her lip, taking note of this.
"Rachel Amber...how long as she been missing?"
Chloe sighed. "Too long, about a month. There's been no success in finding her. I'm not convinced there's been enough effort in looking for her, I just know she's not, not been infected. I've been asking around but I can't get around enough to talk to and ask everyone for help."
"Hence the posters, right?" Alex queried.
Chloe nodded. "Yeah...Well, sorry. I should get back to this and you've got patrol, I'll...talk later, yeah?"
"Sure, good luck, if I can help out in anyway when I get back, let me know."
"You got it." Chloe replied, her usual confident smile returning.
With that Alex left her to put up her posters, hoping things would turn out okay and that Rachel wasn't one of the infected by now, and that she was still alive. Finally she reached the gate and saw Max there with the three horses already set up, Max smiled and nodded to her, a rifle slung over her shoulder and a handgun and knife secured to her belt, she handed similar weapons to Alex who set herself up and looked over to Sean. Sixteen year old Sean Diaz was reasonably tall at five foot seven with short, cropped dark brown hair, brown eyes and tanned skin. He was clad similarly to them in his patrol clothes and armed similarly.
"Morning Sean." She greeted him.
Sean didn't smile however, he just nodded and mumbled. "Morning."
Alex was a little surprised at this, she noted right away that Sean seemed down and began to worry about him. But she said nothing just yet and finished preparations before mounting up and, with the gates opening, the trio rode out to begin their patrol.
End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.