The Last Of Us (Fanfic)

Joel Lives Pt. 16

The rundown condos had very little supplies for Ellie and Dina to scavenge, but a few hero cards out of a kid's backpack made it worthwhile. Long expired medication sat on the sink in the bathroom and a skeleton lay in the tub, didn't take much to figure out what went down here.

"Do you think you can still take old medication?" Ellie called from the bathroom. The lingering smell of rot hanging in the air.

"Probably not the smartest thing to do, but if you were desperate - then maybe?"

Ellie sat down the bottle and went on to search the kitchen.

"You good?" Dina asked.

"Yeah, I thought I was f*cked back there," She took a breath. "Thanks for the save by the way."

"Of course," Dina replied thoughtfully.

Ellie looked through cupboards for anything helpful but came up short. Twenty-four-year-old Unwashed dishes sat in the sink, and rusted knives and forks sat in the dish drain. It was strange how small things like this bring insight into people's lives, like wondering what they had for a last normal meal before everything went to shit. What did Joel do before it went to shit?

She sighed, "So those are the Wolves... They're really armed."

"Yeah, they are," Dina replied. "Did you think there was gonna be this many of them?"

"Tommy said this was a possibility."

"Does that change anything for you?"

"No."

Silence fell between them for a moment and Dina wondered if it changed anything for her. It made everything a lot more complicated, that was for sure, but it didn't change anything. She wanted to find Joel, or at the very least find out what happened to him so that Ellie and Tommy could find a way to move on.

"I wonder if there's even anything left in these old buildings," Ellie said to fill the silence.

"There's always something left behind."

On the bottom shelf of a bookcase, Ellie found a half bottle of bourbon and Dina smirked, "See?"

As they made their way to the next house, Dina told Ellie to keep an eye out for patrols, "A lot were trying to smoke me out around here earlier."

"How many?"

"I passed two, but I got a feeling there were more," Dina said, paranoia lingering in her mind.

"And once they realize that we're out of the school -"

"And that we killed their f*ckin friends."

"They'll be out looking for us."

By the swimming pool was a trail of blood leading to a house, at first they didn't notice it till they were inside with a bigger puddle at the bottom of the stairs.

"Dina, fresh blood," Ellie whispered as she drew her gun.

"I'm ready."

For a moment, she wondered if it was even worth risking it, but she couldn't in good conscience leave it for them or maybe even Tommy or Jesse to deal with later. So she walked up the stairs slowly, hearing movement to the far side of the top floor, and waited for it to hear her too as the steps creaked under her weight.
It ran at her, pushing her into the wall and causing her to drop her gun. His teeth snapped as he went for her throat, but she pushed him away as she went for her blade. She pushed her knee between them and used as much force as she could to throw him back, catching him off balance before driving her knife up through his chin.