Lilium in Bloom || A The Last of Us story.
They've been walking for days.
The kind of walking that eats at your spine and leaves your thoughts screaming louder than the silence. After getting sidetracked by crumbling colonies and empty promises, Joel and Ellie are running low-on food, on bullets, on hope.
That's when they see her.
Alone. Hunched behind the rusted corpse of a car, hoodie drawn tight, one hand clenched around a blade that's already seen too much use. She doesn't beg. Doesn't speak at first. Just looks at them like she's deciding whether to fight or bleed out.
Joel raises his gun.
She doesn't flinch.
"Go ahead," she says, voice flat. "Wouldn't be the worst thing that's happened to me."
Ellie shifts. Joel doesn't lower the weapon. Not yet.
They let her stick around-just for the night. That's what they tell themselves. She doesn't talk much, eats less. Sleeps with one eye open and a blade under her pillow. There's something broken in her. Not the kind you fix. The kind that cuts if you get too close.
But they keep walking. And she keeps following.
No one asks why.
There's a story behind her silence, behind the bruises she won't explain and the nightmares that make her choke on her own breath. Joel sees it-he's lived it. Ellie feels it-like a weight shifting in their trio. A new presence. A new threat. Or maybe something else.
They don't trust her. Not really. But they know better than to leave someone behind just because they're haunted.
The world took everything from her-and what's left is sharp, angry, and dangerous.
For a few days, they're not two-they're three. But nothing stays whole in this world. Not for long.
TW
