Death With Dignity - The Last Of Us

Chapter Nine - Five Years Later

{Tuesday, February 28th, 2039 }

I killed that woman, killed her so brutally I looked as if I had bathed in blood. I wish I could say I regret it, tearing into her, ripping her into shreds with my knife. But I don't. And it's starting to scare me.
"You okay?" Joel asked as I sat on the porch of our home. Looking at the overgrown grass surrounding us move hypnotically in the wind.

Following our denouncement of the sanctuary we spent a good month on the search for a home. We needed somewhere remote, yet wide enough to hold a good sum of sheep (Joel's insistence)

We ended up with the least rundown home in the Pacific Northwest. A small cottage tucked into the forest surrounding Mount Adam's in Washington. The wood is grey and weathered, moss growing all along and atop the exterior.

The inside is different, when we first arrived it wasn't actually. It was weathered and dusty, almost rundown. But with some rags and serious effort, the house is now somewhere I can call Joel and I's home.

It has a few busted windows Joel's boarded up, and a spread of Cordyceps in the basement we've just sealed in. Joel left for a few days and came back with three sheep, he won't tell me where he got them. However, he's bred them and now we have almost a dozen.

I'm pretty sure this was a hunting cabin at some point, there's a large number of old rusted hunting rifles hung up on the walls, antlers and deer heads mounted on the wall. According to Joel, that was something people did a lot in the old world. I find it creepy the idea of just hanging an animal's decapitated head on your wall as decor.

On the day of my twenty-fifth birthday, Joel proposed, after singing me some nineties ballad about love. Still don't know how I felt about it, he's a fuckin' pro with his six-string but the singing I could do without, I dunno, makes me feel stupid.

We had our "wedding" a few weeks after the proposal, to call it a ceremony or anything even remotely similar would be an exaggeration. It was in reality, Joel and I alone in a field saying little vows of love. Sounds stupid, but it was perfect. I never would've ever even considered the idea I'd get married.

I figured I'd die alone, kill myself in an empty apartment. But instead, I'm alive, and happy, so unbelievably happy with my life as I find it. I wish I could say I was just as happy with myself.

I scared myself, what I'm capable of wasn't expected. The way I effortlessly murdered a mother for wanting to avenge her son. I ripped her into shreds with a cold blade without even the slightest of hesitation.
"You alright?" Joel asked as he appeared behind me. Sitting down with a cup of coffee he'd inexplicably acquired.
"I'm fine," I mumbled.

"Talk to me. What is it?" Joel insisted, taking a long sip of his bitter drink.

"I can't get that woman out of my head."
"What woman?" Joel sets down his cup,
"The woman I killed."
"Why you were just defendin' yourself?" Joel smiled in an attempt to make me feel better. It didn't work. I still felt shitty.

He usually knew exactly what to do to make me feel better, but for some reason right now nothing seemed to help. This is the worst I've felt since then. Everywhere I look I'm reminded of the horror on her face.
"I stabbed her. A hundred times," I sniffled, "I've never killed someone like that. And I-I-" I
speak as my emotions got the best of me, choking
up tears as Joel pulled me into his arms.

God, I hate feeling like this. So pathetic I can't even look in the mirror. Joel's trying. And I appreciate it, but there's nothing he can do about this. And I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it either.

That night I slept in Joel's arms closer than I usually do, feeling his breath on my neck as he rubbed against me. I had trouble falling asleep, I spent what felt like hours staring at the hair on Joel's forearm, waiting to fall asleep.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, in fact, some nights I don't sleep at all. I find myself up way past sundown staring at the moon and wandering aimlessly for something to do till Joel wakes up.

However that night I did fall asleep, but that success was short-lived after I was shaken awake violently enough to scream.
"Steven! Get the hell up!" Joel screamed, I shot awake in a panic.

A thick viscous smoke filled my lungs the second I inhaled, I coughed harshly in response. Looking through the haze of the grey cloud I see a blurred orange light, fire spreading across the wall from our bed.
"What the fuck!" I shout as I stumble out of bed, Joel runs over to the flames and attempts to put out the fire by whipping it with a blanket. The flames roar louder, spreading across the ceiling as he gives up.

He sweeps me from my legs like I'm a bride or something and rushes me downstairs, the fire spread all across the home and storming in the living room before we burst out the front door in a cloud of smoke.

We fall to the ground in a fit of coughing as we look up to watch our dream burn to the ground, the fire soon engulfing the entirety of the building until the structure collapses in a flash of hot light.

All that remained was a charred pile of wood and a small white piece of paper. I open it and widen my eyes, it's a note that says one thing and one thing only.

Behind You.

I flicked around to be met with a ghoulish mask and a hard hit to the side of my head, immediately knocking me out cold.