WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD ✸ Joel Miller

xiii. When the World Goes Quiet

[ CHAPTER THIRTEEN ! ]

when the world goes quiet

I'D STILL BEEN ASLEEP WHEN I heard Ellie shout. "Joel!" 

My eyes open quickly and I'm met with the car swerving as the windshield breaks. My head jerks forward and I immediately analyze my surroundings. There are abandoned buildings around and the tires begin to screech beneath me, jerking my body from side to side. 

Hayden begins to squirm beside me and I don't even know if I've fully woken up yet. 

I blink and suddenly we've crashed into a random building. 

The first thing I hear next is Joel's voice. "Is everyone okay?" 

I don't respond, I just reach over to look over Hayden to confirm her safety. She's shaking all over and her eyes have welled with tears, though, as I examine her body--she appears to be fine. Then, my entire body flinches when there's a loud gunshot from around us--tapping against Joel's window. I pull Hayden's head down, and I let out a gasp as I cling onto Hayden. 

There's gunfire and glass breaking and I'm feeling so much nervous adrenaline. "Belts off! Fast!" 

I obey without hesitation--without thinking. I unbuckle Hayden's seatbelt, then mine and we quickly escape the truck. 

As soon as we're sat on the ground, Hayden's tears begin to flow and she sinks her head into my shoulder while I hold her small frame. 

"Grab the guns," I whisper to Joel--since I wouldn't be able to. He does, handing me a long rifle while he remains with the shotgun. 

Usually, I'd argue with him over this, but now wasn't the time to banter. I grab the gun and immediately cock it so that it's ready to aim whenever. Then to my left, there's a large hole in the wall that would lead to another room. One that Hayden and Ellie could go into. However, Joel's already beat me to it. "You see that hole?"

Hayden doesn't budge, but I know she can hear what he's saying. 

"Can you two squeeze through?" 

Neither Hayden or Ellie respond, Ellie looks around frantically while Hayden remains shaking in my grasp. I lower my lips down to her ear. "Look over there," I whisper. She does, slowly. "You and Ellie crawl through that hole and don't come out until Joel or I say so, alright?"

She hesitates, her brown eyes pleading with me silently. But once I nod with confirmation, they harden slightly and it's seems that she'll do so. 

"They're not going to hit you. Look at me!" Joel reassures Ellie with a soft and worried gaze of his own. "You stay down, you stay low, you stay quiet." 

I frantically tap Hayden's hand, trying to pull her out of her state of panic and to focus on me. "Listen to him, follow Ellie." 

She turns her head to face Ellie, who is already watching her with big, wide eyes. I look up to Joel and wait for his command to start fire, and he's already waiting on me. I nod, and he mimics the motion, pulling his shotgun over the tail of the truck and begins to shoot. "Go!" 

The girls crawl over to the hole and I'm forced to steady my trembling hands as I shoot at the small movements of this group of men. 

With each push of the trigger, my shoulder jerks back as my weak frame holds the weight of the metal gun. 

"Move back," Joel orders, and I do, I follow him but I don't necessarily like that he's barking commands at me like I'm some child. 

We've hidden ourselves in this small, closed corner. We're barely able to fit and I'm almost sitting on top of him. There's a man that I can see making his way through the room, toward us. My heart is almost beating out of my chest and my ears are ringing from all the loud gunshots so close to my ears, but I don't have time to think after broken glass crunches beneath my feet, totally revealing our location.

The man is quick to turn on his heels, but right as he does, Joel is quick to shoot him right in the chest. He collapses and my gut twists and clenches, but I can't fight off the strong feeling of relief easing into my system. 

We both stand, slowly. I cock my gun, reloading it while Joel analyzes our surroundings. He peaks around the corner and gives me a light nod, letting me know that the coast is clear and I can come out completely. My back is to the door, and I have to take a minute to catch my breath. 

However, I'm not given one since my body is immediately jerked forward and my head is bounced off of the hard ground. A groan escapes my lips and it feels like I've blacked out. I suddenly can't remember where I am or what has previously happened, all I can see is Hayden rushing to me with eyes full of tears. 

She examines my body but all I can hear and focus on is the crying distant in the background. Except, it's getting louder and louder as I regain consciousness. 

"What's your name?" The trembling voice says, and I attempt to sit up but am met with spots fluttering over my vision and a harsh pain in the back of my head. It doesn't take me long to realize that I've got a fucking concussion. Ellie is standing at the bottom of my feet, a gun in her shaking hand. 

Joel gets back on his feet, and first, analyzes me and my body. Then, steps toward Ellie with his hand out, offering--demanding that she gives him the gun. 

She does, and Joel slides it in his back pocket as the two look at one another for a moment. The man is begins to cry again and it seems that Joel remembers that he's still there. He pulls the gun back out, and faces him. 

"Wait, wait, wait," the boy sobs, and I don't even have enough energy in me to stop Joel from doing this.

All I can manage is to say his name. "Joel," 

He hesitates. He hesitates and I can see it in his body language. He probably doesn't realize but his shoulders stiffen and his head drops just a little, giving away the fact that he's shifted his gaze to the ground to think. And hope wells in my chest. For a few seconds. He even begins to turn, and I hope he'll take one look at me and say never mind. But he doesn't. Instead, he looks at Ellie with a frown and says, "Get back behind the wall." 

Hayden takes a minute, but she stands up and wipes her tears away, to leave room for more to stream down her face after she crawls through that hole. Ellie follows behind her with hesitation and the boy's pleads only get louder, echoing in my mind as I'm brought to only think of Jeremy. My baby boy who didn't get to see the world. 

He would've just turned 20 years old--probably only a couple of years older than this boy. All I can see his what could have been. This could have been Joel shooting our son. It feels almost as if I'm trapped in a nightmare, like maybe what I'm seeing now is just an imaginative vision of me shooting my unborn son. 

No matter how many times I'd struggled with this thought over the years, I still feel like the same girl I was when I was 31. 

A scared girl who had no idea what to do after losing both of her children and her husband. 

The teenager's screaming finally comes to a stop after a gunshot echoes throughout the town. 

It all goes quiet. 

a/n

i'm just gonna write this so poorly and in a rush bc i don't want to write this but i feel bad for not finishing it