The Last Of Us: Part I - Darker Days (Male Reader)

Chapter 21 - The Scars that Bind Us

A/N: Make sure to check out the A/N at the end of the chapter. Got some real important stuff there, and I also need to explain myself to you guys for my absence and such. Also I had originally t said 6000 words, well, here's 7000 instead. Hope you enjoy the chapter and I'll see you all again soon!

There was uneasy silence that rocked the courtyard — and to an extent — Y/N, too.

It was a silence that was felt by not just him, but through the bones of every man and woman residing here, just inside the walls of the electrical dam. Each of them connected not by a single emotion, but by a constant reminder, and whether it be one or the other, they all felt it.

Surprise, fear, anger, or disgust.

They all inhabited one of them, flowing through their veins like a drug that fuelled them forward. A drive that pushed them, motivated them, and in the end, they all arrived at the same point.

It wasn't safe.

This place wasn't safe.

And yet, they already knew that. How could they not? After so long, it's normal for one to get used to the daily ins and outs of a dangerous life that was thrust onto them without much of a warning.

But for one of them?

For him, it was more a realisation. One that had alluded to him to this point.

That no matter what, he'd never be safe.

That was the painful truth, as he stared down at his hands. They had once trembled, perhaps even shakened with a sense of uncertainty. But as he stared down at his blood covered hands, he knew now that what he had to do was certain.

It had to be.

Pulling back from the inner crevice of his own mind, Y/N blinked and lowered his hands to his side; his gaze opted to turn and survey the mess around him.

And what a mess it was.

The courtyard was in a state of distress that looked forgein to the people that worked here. Bullet holes riddled the walls, a nearby watchtower had been blown up and now a smouldering ruin. Dead bodies — from both sides — littered the ground. Many of the survivors hauled off their friends, their loved ones. And the others, the undesirables that had attacked this place, were thrown into a discarded pile on the edge of the courtyard. To be burnt, or thrown to the wolves, Y/N didn't know.

In the end, he found himself not caring to know, for either of them.

Not because he was without a heart. He had one, beating back at him. But... because his heart had long since pulled back its strings, fluttering its last wings, before it was captured inside its own, dark, prison. Left with only the fleeting moments of transparency that breached through the cracks of his hardened state.

And that was enough for him...

"Here's the supplies."

Y/N was broken out of his musing by the familiar voice, and the thumping sound of a duffel bag that was plopped down hard, on the metal table before him. Blinking, he turned a hard right, to meet the stern, but not unkind eyes of Maria. Another duffle bag was in her other hand.

As she stared at him, Y/N turned back and unzipped the duffle bag, his voice responding automatically. "I said I didn't want much." A grumbled sigh left his lips when he eyed the contents. Canned food, some of it fresh, and medical supplies, too. "Just enough to last a couple days."

But Maria thought otherwise, "Think of it as payment for helping us fend off the raiders."

He didn't say anything more, finding himself struck silent once more in his lifetime, and instead of responding, he zipped the bag back up. He figured the other was much of the same.