Two men alone in the apocalypse, Joel Miller and Steven Richards find each other. As their relationship grows stronger they must fight their way to safety in order to finally find peace with one another in their world of horrors.
I keep to myself for most of the days trip. Joel and Ellie are in their own little world right now, they haven't noticed my silence. I'm not sure if I even want them to.
I can tell they're close. It's kind of heartwarming to see such a close bond. Ellie looks up to him, that much is clear. And Joel cares about her more than himself. Is it weird I'm feeling kind of jealous?
I've never really been second fiddle for Joel's attention, it's strange to be it. He hasn't said a word to me in hours. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though, he and Ellie must have a lot to catch up on. I think? "Steven?" Ellie asks, worriedly. "Y-Yeah?" I reply, "C'mon. And be quiet."
Suddenly we were entering some old hotel, not sure why. It smells old, decrepit and almost earthy. Red walls now decayed and brown, cracked glass and vines climbing the walls. Perhaps we needed to pass through it I'm not sure. All I know is that once we were inside I heard them. Infected. At least ten of them.
Clickers. Stalkers. Runners. All of them unaware of our existence as we slowly inch towards them, concealed by the overgrowth of grass coating the hotel's carpeted floor.
I jump up, stabbing a Runner in the head, Ellie does the same but with a switchblade. I kind of want one now. The two fall to the floor, squeaking like animals. Joel takes down another one. We all three take them down one by one. These things aren't smart. This isn't really all that hard.
"Any of them still movin?" Joel asks, panting as I wipe the blood from my knife on to my pant leg. "I don't think so." I reply. He doesn't reply back besides a nod. "Holy shit." Ellie says, I look towards her. She has a large crate marked explosives. Looks militant. This must've been used as some sort of makeshift base. I don't want to know just how big that explosion would be.
And just before I let my guard down I hear something. We all do, the three of us pause. Something's moving, something big. Something far to big. It's coming from beside the exit, a door adjacent to it.
I inch towards the door, axe held ready to spike as I about grasp the rusty handle. Joel is behind me. Ellie behind him.
The door flies open, a monstrous shriek is echoed out as I fall onto my back. Looking up I see it. I'm not sure what it is. It's big, big enough it couldn't fit through the door frame without breaking it. Which it did with ease as I instinctively throw myself back, backing up in horror.
It looks like a cluster of infected, like they fused together to create an amalgamation of fungus and dead tissue. Limbs jut out in strange ways, legs hanging off the top of the cluster. Not even helping with movement. Hands and legs being used in unison to scurry around.
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"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!" I scream, the thing shuffling towards me as it groaned. "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" Joel shouts as we all panic, scurrying away in terror. Ellie is somehow running with the crate of explosives.
We run, not even thinking of where we're running. We find ourselves on the third floor to this place. There's nowhere else to run besides up, but running up higher would make it worse.
We find ourselves on some sort of balcony. Infected are beginning to show their deformed faces all around us as the thing shows up once more. "GIVE ME THE CRATE!" I shout, ripping the crate from Ellie's hands and fumbling with it. I have a pipe bomb I found. So I taped it to the crate and set it at our feet. The monsters growing closer to corner us. "JUMP ON THREE!" "WE AIN'T KNOW WHAT'S BELOW US!?" Joel shouts, "SHUT UP AND LISTEN!"
We pause once more, I wait for that thing to get close before I begin counting down. "3...2....1!" I scream, lighting the fuse to the pipe bomb, kicking the crate across the room as we jumped. Falling through the air as the hotel blew up behind us.
I hit the cold water, the current immediately pulling me down the stream. I couldn't see anything. The water was too rough, I was struggling to keep my head above the water as I gurgled on it.
My nose burned, water shooting up it as I begin to cough and scream desperately. Ellie and Joel are making the same noises, I can hear them just barely. It was as if I was being repeatedly shoved in and out of the water.
And then I hit something, a concrete platform with my shoulder. I can't see the sun anymore as I crawl out of the water, coughing up water as I flip to the floor panting. My clothes stuck to my body and soaked.
I try to roll over, only to notice a shard of god knows what metal lodged in my arm. I rip it out, blood begins to spill down my arm as Joel climbs out of the water. "Fuck..." Joel groans, slouching against some sort of concrete pillar.
It was at that moment I noticed we were in the sewers, how we ended up here? I'm not sure. I didn't know that the sewer systems have such massive entrances and streams. I can only imagine the smell when this place was still functional. Luckily it's been so long the place is free of waste. But it's still full of garbage. "Is everyone okay?" Joel asks, "Yeah... Wait." Joel's eyes widen, "ELLIE?!" He shouts, immediately she replies, at the top of the tunnel we just slid down. She wasn't in the sewers.
Lucky Ellie had managed to grab onto something I'm not sure of and pulled herself to shore before she went down the drain. "You okay up there?" I ask, "Yeah!" "Alright, just stay there and we'll find a way outta here."
Gathering ourselves took a moment but soon enough we were all back on our feet. Freezing cold as we air dried in sixty-degree weather. It really isn't working. There was a door that led into some sort of structure. Had to be some sort of maintenance thing. Lucky for us there were signs pointing to an exit back to land.
"How do you know Ellie?" I ask, walking beside Joel who's all but running. "What?" "Ellie. Who is she?" He's never even mentioned Ellie, or any girl for that matter besides his wife and Sarah. We've been together for nearly a decade and he's not so much as hinted at Ellie's existence. "Oh. I've just helped her out once or twice." I'm sure that's probably true but they're way to close for that. Joel's treating her like his baby. He's focusing on her and her only. I wish he was just honest with me. "Feels like you two are pretty close." I insist, he raises his brow. "If you say so." I'm not a fan of this sort of clueless thing he's got going on. He's too smart for that.
"Joel stop playing dumb. What's your whole dichotomy?" "We ain't got a dichotomy." He insists. "You two have been in your own world all day. Come on do you think I'm stupid?" He groans at this response. Irritated. "You've always been persistent huh?" "Joel." I scorn, "Fine. Y'know how I lived in a QZ for a little while?" He mentioned it briefly a long while ago. I thought it was just a brief stint to gain some shelter and safety?
"Yeah. Before we met right?" That's all he told me, in 2022 he stayed in a QZ. "Well when I was there, I got a job. I don't remember what I was doin' it for. Met Ellie during the job, she's a nice girl. Don't want nothing bad to happen to her is all." He's really trying to avoid this question. Why? "You look at her like... well... a daughter?" I say, slightly cringing at the word Daughter being used at all.
We don't speak of Sarah. Joel doesn't like too and I have no reason to bring it up. But right now I swear it makes sense to. I hope Joel sees my side and doesn't immediately shut me down. "What?" He asks, I immediately pick up on the tone in his voice. Almost shocked. "It's like she's some surrogate-" "Not another word." He interrupts, ending my argument as he stared daggers into me. "Listen if you wanna keep me in the dark that's you're call. But don't fuckin' lie to me." "I haven't lied to you." He still insists.
I'm not doing this with him, this charade. So I continue on, finding a ladder to the surface as Joel and I climb in silence. Once I get onto the surface however I hear something strange...
