To the Light { a joel miller fanfiction }

Prelude - Encounter

A.N. Little taste of this new fic. I completely reworked the plot, so if you think you've already read this, I promise you haven't <3

"And all the lives we ever lived
and all the lives to be
are full of trees and changing leaves."
—Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

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He was out on patrol the day he found you.

It was a cold night, late October, those few weeks before Halloween that turn the air crisp, a low, excited buzz blurring out the edges of everything, like one could will the brittle, yellow leaves down with just a whisper into the trees.

He'd heard the men first, hollering like banshees, completely apathetic as to who or what might hear them.

Tommy had flashed him a look, one that asked several questions at once.

Should we deal with them now?

Should we wait until they get closer?

Should we call for backup?

Then he'd heard it, the heart shattering sound of you screaming, a shaky, bloodcurdling thing, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Even then, before he'd ever seen your face, it was the most abhorrent sound, a terrible, vile noise that made his jaw twitch and ache, his hand— the one that wasn't cradling the barrel of his gun— curled into a fist.

"Go, now." Joel had ordered, gruff and low in volume as he nodded toward the woods.

They separated, Tommy splitting off to go far around the right side, in hopes to target the group from the back. Joel went straight in, head on, rifle raised as he took slow, precise steps— heel to toe— as not to be heard, but his stride ate the ground, he cleared the space quickly, ducking behind a tree to observe the group once he reached them.

He spotted Tommy doing the same, waiting for a signal from his hiding spot, behind a large pine tree toward the back of the group.

There were four men, mid-twenties to late thirties, all well-armed, all toting backpacks that looked well stocked.

They didn't get many groups all the way out near Jackson. It was too remote, the areas that one needed to travel through to reach it were far too riddled with infected. Most anyone in their right mind wouldn't try— or need— to reach this part of Wyoming.

Unless they were trouble.

His first thought had been that they were raiders, his mind then immediately bestowing upon him morphed and wobbled images of his life during the few years following the outbreak. A time he was less than proud of, a time that proved, perhaps more than anything, what kind of man Joel truly was, what he was capable of.

But then he saw you.

Hands tied behind your back, being carted along— dragged more like— by the largest of the men. That had pissed Joel off. You were a tiny thing, face obscured by the distance, but certainly crumpled up and red in protest, still screaming, that horrific sound that felt like it thundered through the ground and straight up into his chest, twisting and stabbing away at his heart.

"Shut up." The big one muttered, yanking you by your arm to the front of him, where he raised one meaty hand into the air, then swung it forward, smacking it across your face with a crack that echoed through the woods, rattling Joel's skull, his hands taking a tighter grip of his gun, jaw ticking as his molars grinded together.