Silver ||Joel Miller||

we've been doing fine

LAURA

Laura was sick of walking. Sick of hearing joyful conversation between Joel and Ellie. Or, more specifically, she was sick of hearing Joel. She wasn't sure how far they'd walked, but she knew they would only have a few more hours before they'd need to set up camp. That was for the best, because she was starved.

They had crossed not one, but two fucking rivers on their hike. And so far they hadn't come across any death. Or destruction. Maybe the warning had been bullshit...

"Look at the river, it's crazy blue." Ellie pointed out, so Laura looked back at the one they had just crossed. It was indeed extremely blue. "Hey, guys... what if this is the River of Death?"

Fuck. What if the kid was right? Laura pulled out the map from her jacket and unfolded it. Which river had the man pointed to yesterday again?

"Laura, what's the possibility-"

"Shut up." She held a hand towards Joel to keep him quiet. What if they were in danger? What if they were... why could she hear a thundering in the distance?

She looked up from the map to the top of the hill they were walking the base of, and figured out exactly what was making that sound.

Horses. A lot of fucking horses.

"Ellie!" Laura shouted. She looked over her shoulder to see Joel grabbing onto Ellie's wrist, so she took out her bow and knocked an arrow. But there wasn't any point. There were too fucking many of them.

"Get behind me." She heard Joel say to the kid as they were circled by whoever the fuck these people were. "We're just passing through." Right, de-escalation. Smart move.

"We're not looking for trouble," she said. It might have been a little more believable if she wasn't pointing an arrow directly at the closest rider.

"It doesn't seem like it," that rider answered. "Put it down." She took a shaky breath as she looked around the circle of horse riders once more. They were vastly outnumbered, and her bow was not the best weapon to use against this many people at close range.

If she didn't comply then they would shoot Ellie and Joel... River of Death.

Slowly she knelt down and put her bow on the ground. She lifted her gloved hands in the air as she stood back up and the people turned their attention to Joel.

"And you, drop the gun." Joel did as he was told. "Now you and you, five steps back." The leader of the group pointed to Laura and Ellie. No, she didn't want to back away from anyone. She didn't want any distance between any of them...

"We can talk this through," Laura said. Joel's breathing was getting heavier... fuck. He was going to have another fucking panic attack and they didn't have the time for that right now.

"You can just shut the fuck up." Okay. Okay, she could work with the verbal hostility. Verbal hostility meant the opposing group didn't necessarily want to kill them, which was a good thing. The three of them would be shot by now if whoever these people are really wanted them dead.

"Okay, easy..." Joel's deep voice cut through the cold air. "You'll be okay." He looked at Ellie as he spoke, and then his wide eyes landed on Laura. God, they were at the complete mercy of these people. She shook her head.

"No, I'm not-"

"It's okay, we'll be okay." God, was she supposed to believe that? She took another shaky breath before she nodded her head and took five steps backwards, forming a triangle with the other two.

"You been near infected?" The man asked.

"There's no infected out here," Laura said. That was probably a little too confident, all things considered.