𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐤 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐔𝐬

18. Heart Burn or Heart Attack?

E I G H T E E N
Heart Burn or Heart Attack?

Three months later...

I envy these people's set-up, a wood cabin, fire, electricity, hot water. It's cushy and comfortable. They have everything one could possibly want in a post-apocalyptic world.

We are robbing them. Kinda. Not really. But yes. They're going to be fine.

The woman hardly looks traumatised, sitting with a knit blanket over her knees, barely blinking twice as Joel told her not to move. Technically she didn't even do as told, she kept bouncing her foot off the floor, slightly rocking back and forth.

I want to be this woman. Happy and comfortable.

The man – I assume husband – walks through the door, looking at the situation he too is calm, putting down the bow and pulling off his gloves, setting them on top.

Have they been through this a million times, or are they just the most chilled-out people ever?

"And the gun," Joel tells the man as he realises the situation unfolding.

The man looks more annoyed by the inconvenience a robbery poses, and not scared of the actual crime being committed. "Who the hell are you?" He questions gruffly. He stares at Joel with mild to moderate disdain whilst taking off his jacket.

Joel walks out from where he stood deeper in the cosy cabin, gun pointed at the tubby man. I wish I had enough food to be tubby, my attempt at seal-level blubber has been a big, fat fail. "Just someone passin' through." He answers cryptically, and quite frankly unhelpfully. When he gets out into the open space he moves on to the next objective, "Take the gun out, two fingers only, put it outta reach."

The man does as he's told, pulling the gun from his trousers with two fingers, holding it up, glaring at Joel. After giving him a prolonged look to convey his annoyance, he slowly puts it down on the table beside him.

I look from the man, over to who I assume is his wife, still sitting comfortably, seemingly without a care in the whole wide world. Rocking herself back and forth with the gentle push of a foot, looking between Joel and her husband.

"Why didn't you shoot him?" The man asks the woman. She should've, although we almost certainly would've won that battle. I stormed in without a look around, annoyed at something I cannot remember. So I would not have won, but Joel and Ellie would've realised someone was prepared to shoot once my body hit the wooden floorboards. Then she'd be fucked. Joel wasn't impressed with my one-man show, he didn't say anything, but the look was enough.

It's probably good she seemingly doesn't give a fuck. Maybe she's high? Fuck Joel and Ellie, I want whatever she has.

"The gun's all the way over there," the woman looks over, not even lifting a finger. "He didn't hurt me, by the way." She adds.

"Yeah, I got eyes." The man grumbles. He is definitely Joel, but a little older. And without an overly relaxed wife. He walks a few steps further into the house, looking down at the neat coffee table he notices the bowls of soup. "You made him soup?"

He may have seen that his wife didn't get butchered, but he, as far as I am aware, doesn't see me sitting in the kitchen, eating some jerky. Or wherever Ellie is hiding.

"Yeah. I did." She answers. The answer seems obvious to her. "It's cold out." If there was a system to review your captives, she'd get a great rating. She even gave me a scarf. My last one got dropped in a river and I was banned from attempting to fish it out, Joel was convinced I'd get sucked in and freeze to death.