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Ellie couldn't stop crying.
Riley, for her part, doesn't say anything about it. They quietly head back into the mall, looking for something else to do to bide their time. This is the only thing that was left for them. They were destined to become another one of those damn infected living in this stupid mall.
“Do you wanna ride the carousel again?” Riley asks. “Or we can throw some more shit at some cars.”
“No, Riley. I don't wanna ride the carousel again.” Ellie says.
She wishes she could have Riley's attitude about this. All calm, resigned to her fate. Riley was trying to enjoy what was left of her life as much as she could. She had, in some ways, given up the fight. Ellie was still desperately searching for their option three. She didn't want to believe that this was it. There had to be something else. She couldn't make herself believe that her life was over.
Riley suddenly stopped, doubling over into a coughing fit. The noise was deep and rattling, as though her lungs were filled with liquid. “I'm okay.” She finally managed, wiping her mouth as she stood back up.
Ellie didn't mention the blood smearing onto her hand as she did, or the way the veins in her hand were beginning to pop up.
She glanced down at her own bite, at the angry red mark on her arm. It didn't look anything like Riley's did. Maybe it was just taking her a little longer.
“Hey, a vending machine.” Riley said, quickly moving on. “Let's get some soda. I bet whatever they had in the old world tastes better than the crap FEDRA gave us.”
Ellie walks over and peeks into the machine, her eyes landing on a red bottle of Coca-Cola. “Whatever we get can't possibly be worse than that alcohol you got.”
Riley laughed. “Alright, how to get these out…”
She pressed a couple buttons on the machine, shaking it a few times for good measure, trying to get the drinks.
“I think you need money for that.” Ellie told her.
Riley shook it a few more times, ignoring her, as Ellie walked over to the stores behind them. The wall was beginning to crumble, and she managed to pry one of the bricks out. She walked back over, noticing Riley begin to glance at some of the stores. Ellie brought her arm up, took aim, and then launched the brick directly into the glass.
Riley turned sharply to look at her, admiring the broken shards of glass and punctured soda leaking onto the floor. “Holy shit, Ellie! Why did you do that? I was about to go take a dollar from one of the cash registers.”
Ellie shrugged, holding up her hands in surrender. Riley sighed as Ellie picked up a dented coke can from the back of the machine. She gingerly avoided stepping on the glass, and then sat down at one of the benches. She pulled up the tab on the can, hearing it sizzle as it was exposed to air. She lifted it to her mouth and took a quick sip. “It's flat.” Ellie frowned.
“No shit. It's twenty years old.” Riley told her.
Ellie offered her the can, and she took a sip, only to fall into another coughing fit and spit most of it out.
“I don't want any.” Riley said, and that was that.
She waited patiently for Ellie to finish the can, and when she did, they began walking again. Some time later, they found a toy store, and Riley all but dragged her inside. Ellie wasn't in the mood for any more antics, but she ultimately let Riley do as she pleased. It was the last time they'd get the chance, after all. “Look at all these cute little animals.” Riley said, picking up a stuffed giraffe from the shelf.
Ellie was looking at a model space ship. “Mm hmm.” She hummed.
“They just had these things in zoos and stuff.” Riley continued. “Imagine seeing a real one. I heard giraffes have blue tongues.”
“No way.” Ellie said.
Suddenly, she dropped the toy at Ellie's feet. “Whoops!” Riley exclaimed.
She picked it back up, putting it onto the shelf again. This time, Ellie caught the way her fingers were twitching. It was all happening so fast.
They went into a store with a bunch of awful smelling candles that all blended into each other, and then they went into a shoe store and Riley suggested Ellie swap out her ratty old canvas shoes for something a little more durable. Ellie had laughed it off, but the it's too late now hung in the air between them.
Eventually, Riley led her to a back tunnel in the mall, seemingly used for maintenance employees, when it had those. There was a stairwell in the back, and they both climbed to the very top, heading out of a door at the end. Riley led her onto the roof, and they both took a seat. The sunrise over Boston was beautiful, more so than Ellie remembered it being. Maybe it was because she knew it would be her last. It's a shame they had missed the first half of it, when the sky was more orange than blue. “Your arm isn't changing at all.” Riley told her.
Ellie glanced down at it. Sure, it was red and angry, but it wasn't black and puffy and… well, infected, the way that Riley's was.
“I don't know.” Ellie told her. “I don't know.”
Riley sighed. She laid a twitching hand over Ellie's and turned her head back towards the sun. Ellie laid her head against Riley's shoulder, and neither of them said anything for a long time. So long that Ellie began to fall asleep, her adrenaline crash finally kicking in.
The next thing she remembers, Riley was coughing again, this time more violently than before, and with grunting and moaning mixed in. “Sorry.” Riley said, her voice hoarse.
Ellie just stared at her, unable to say anything.
“How do you feel?” Riley asked.
Ellie glanced down at her arm again, slightly more puffy than before but ultimately unchanged. She briefly considered lying. Telling Riley that it was painful, that she was certain that they would both turn soon. But she couldn't bring herself to lie, especially not as Riley was… was dying. “I don't feel any different.” Ellie admitted.
Riley smiled at her, sad as Ellie had ever seen.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
Ellie blinked. “Yeah, Riley. Anything.”
Riley hesitated, but then leaned in and kissed Ellie on the lips again, causing warmth to bubble up into her chest. Despite the circumstances, Ellie's mouth curved upwards at the corners.
“What was th-”
Ellie stopped, watching as Riley pulled back and began to reach around for her holster. “No.”
“Ellie. You said anything.” Riley told her.
“Not that. I can't do it, Riley.” Ellie replied, a tear springing to her eyes.
Riley pushed the gun into her hands, and Ellie took it with trembling fingers.
“I don't know how you did it, Ellie, but if you're not turning yet, then I can't let you get hurt.” Riley said. “I need you to do it.”
“But you're not infected yet!” Ellie argued. “You're still here, you're still you!”
Riley sighed.
“I can't do it, Riley. I can't shoot you.” Ellie's voice trembled.
Finally, Riley conceded. “Just hold on to the gun. I won't be needing it.”
Ellie nodded. “Neither will I. We're in this together.”
“Let's go get our bags.” Riley said. “I need some music, anyway.”
They walked back down the long staircase, and they started retracing their steps through the mall. Every once in a while, Riley would stop to cough, hacking up blood and bile. She kept rubbing her eyes, as though trying to get something out. She pointed up towards one of the stores with its lights on, her arm only able to extend halfway. “It's-” she stopped and swallowed. “I think they're in there.”
She let out an inhuman scream, almost as if to intimidate someone who wasn't there. She stopped and sighed again, rubbing at her eyes. Ellie walked up behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, we can-”
Riley screamed again, slapping away her hand and grabbing both of Ellie's shoulders.
“Riley!” Ellie exclaimed.
She could almost feel the way Riley was fighting back the infection, trying her hardest to let go of Ellie.
“You need-” she coughed again, grunting. “You need to do it.”
“Riley, I can't-”
“Don't make me hurt you, Ellie.” Riley said, and Ellie could see a single tear work its way out of her eye. “Please.”
And Ellie knew that, within moments, Riley would be gone. Her friend was dying. She was too.
Ellie pulled the gun out from her back pocket, her hands shaking as she wrapped them around it. She aimed it at Riley, who stood as still as she could.
“Thank you.” Riley said.
“I'm so sorry.” Ellie told her, and it wasn't enough, but it was all she had to offer.
Ellie closed her eyes tight, pulled the trigger, and braced herself through the recoil of the gun.
When she opened her eyes, Riley was on the floor, blood pooling around her head.
“No!” Ellie shrieked, throwing the gun on the floor. She sat beside Riley, cradling her limp body in her lap. “No, no, no.”
She cried, as loudly and openly as she could ever remember doing. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Riley, I'm so sorry.”
Ellie sat there for longer than she really knows.
Her bed in Jackson had been comfortable up until this point, but the pit in her stomach made it hard to settle into one spot. Her entire life has been shaken upside down and inside out and now everything was wrong and she was just left to find her own place in it. Alone, like she always was.
Maybe this was just how things were supposed to be. She glances down at the girl in her sketchbook. A lifelike replica of her FEDRA roommate on her last day. Smiling, dancing on top of a display case in some run-down mall store, and everything was all right. Just as it had always been with Riley, there wasn't a single worry in her eyes.
If you had known her like Ellie did, you would've known that the worries all stayed concealed behind her eyes, out of view. She was good at things like that. Ellie had always been envious of her ability to put everything away in her brain and focus on what she was doing now. She'd never been able to separate her emotions from the present like Riley could. But she hid it well, her fear of the FEDRA soldiers, and of the future.
Surrounding her, a bunch of tiny little repetitive moths had been drawn, almost filling the whole page. There were a few other faces that had been scribbled out - a failed Marlene and Tess - but other than that, it was just the moths and Riley. How many people had died to get her here? She had this cozy little life in Jackson, with her friends, and a family, and a job. Yet, all of it felt stolen now. She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be dead.
This was someone else's garage, someone else's friends, someone else's family, someone else's life. Ellie wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be a sacrifice. She wasn't supposed to get farther than St. Mary’s hospital. That was the end of her journey. Maybe that was the future her and Riley could've never imagined when they were wasting away in that FEDRA school. Finally doing something to fix the world that everyone else had given up on. Ellie would've been okay with that. She didn't need to have the cozy life in Jackson. What was her life supposed to be, if everything had been broken before she got here, and now her one chance at making it better had been taken from her in a moment of selfishness?
What say did Joel get in her future?
The knock at the door startled her out of her spiraling thoughts, and she cleared her throat, tired from disuse, just long enough to fire a “Go away, Joel!” at the door.
It opened despite her wishes, and the visitor proved to be a lot shorter and, well, girlier than Joel. “Guess again.” Dina deadpanned, waltzing inside.
She took about two steps in, then paused and looked down at her feet. “I think I ruined your sandwich.”
Ellie propped herself up a little more to try and see what she was referring to. It was the sandwich Joel had tried to leave her for dinner the day they got back. He knocked, opening up the door uninvited with a “Hey kiddo, can we-”
Only for Ellie to coldly interrupt with an, “I don't want to see you.”
The look he gave her squashed the anger in her heart a little bit, but not enough to make her regret her words. She couldn't bring herself not to be mad at him, even now. The wound was too fresh. He cleared his throat awkwardly, left the plate on the ground as though extending an olive branch, and then left wordlessly. She hadn't seen anyone, or really moved that much, since.
“It's okay. I wasn't going to eat it.” Ellie told her.
Probably unadvisable at this point. The meat, or possibly the mayonnaise, was actually beginning to smell a bit.
“Dina, I'm actually kind of busy right now, so…” Ellie tried, hoping she would fall for it and leave.
Alas, Dina only snorted in laughter, “Yeah, El, you look real busy.”
Okay, she probably had that coming.
“Dina, seriously.” Ellie wasn't looking forward to whatever conversation she had come looking for.
“You don't get to disappear for a week and a half and then expect me not to come asking questions.” Dina told her. “What's going on with you?”
“I'm just… dealing with some personal stuff.” Ellie finally said. “You shouldn't worry about it.”
Dina looked like she wanted to laugh at her again, but she only sighed. “Go take a shower.”
“Wow, I really smell that bad?” Ellie tried to play it off like a joke.
“Your clothes are covered in dirt, and your hair is all greasy, I can see it from here.” Dina told her. “I'm not kidding. Shower. Now.”
“Wha- You can't just barge in here and demand I shower.” Ellie indignantly replied. “This is my house!”
“If I don't tell you to take care of yourself, who will?” Dina told her.
Ellie sighed, knowing better than to pick a losing fight with Dina. This wasn't worth the effort.
She grabbed a clean shirt and jeans from her drawers and headed into the bathroom. As she stepped into the shower and began to scrub off the grime from her trek to Utah, she begrudgingly realized that Dina was right. She actually did feel a little bit less like she was stewing in her own filth and anger.
As she left the bathroom, now wearing a clean pair of clothes, she found Dina straightening out the sheets on her bed. In fact, everything had been cleaned up. The day-old sandwich from the floor had presumably been thrown out, the bed was now made, the dishes on her desk had disappeared, and her guitar had found its way to the stand in the corner. Even the mess from before Utah had been fixed.
“Wow. Maybe I should invite you over more often.” Ellie remarked.
Dina playfully slapped her arm. “Not if that's how you're gonna be.”
Ellie went to sit down on her bed again, noticing the journal sitting on her nightstand. She eyed it, and Dina watched her. “I didn't look at it.” Dina hummed, like it was no big deal.
Every secret, every feeling, every thought Ellie had ever needed a place to voice was in a journal just like this one. It was certainly a very big deal.
“I wouldn't do that. I just closed it and set it aside.” She said, relieving some of Ellie's panic. “I mean, I saw the - the girl on that page you were on, but I tried not to look.” she added quietly.
Ellie quietly put the journal into the nightstand’s drawer, tucking it out of sight.
“Why are you here, Dina?” She said, avoiding her eyes.
“I told you.” Dina insisted. “I'm worried about you. All of a sudden you started missing patrols, and me and Jesse tried to ask Tommy, but he told us not to worry about what patrol you were on, so Jesse went to Cat, but she said she didn't know, so we asked Maria, and all she said was that it was between you and Joel and we shouldn't worry about it, so we tried Joel's house, but he wasn't there either. Shimmer wasn't in the stables, your house was all empty. You just vanished.”
“I'm sorry I made you worry.” Ellie told her.
“Bullshit.” Dina muttered, flopping onto the bed beside Ellie. “That's not an answer to anything.”
Dina didn't say anything for a long while, so Ellie didn't either, worried she would have to make up some excuse as to why she left Jackson for so long. The two of them just sat there in silence, picking at their fingers and scuffing their shoes.
“Who's the girl?” Dina asked. “That you drew. I don't recognize her.” Then, she quickly added, “Not that it's any of my business.”
Ellie was quiet for a beat, and considered ignoring the question all together, but then said, “I used to know her. When I lived in Boston.” Subconsciously, she reached to scratch at the scar on her forearm where her bite mark and subsequent chemical burn was.
“Where did you go?” Dina asked.
“Utah.” Ellie replied.
“Utah?” Dina exclaimed. “By yourself?”
Ellie just shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Wait for a private escort?”
“Well, you could've asked me.” Dina replied. “Or Jesse. Or, hell, you could've asked Cat if you really wanted to. Better than going off by yourself.”
“I needed to do it alone.” Ellie said. “It's not like I could've asked you to come all the way to Utah with me.”
“Yes, you could've!” Dina exclaimed. “I would've gone with you! I know Jesse would've too!” She groaned. “Sometimes you make being your friend incredibly difficult.”
“At least I don't show up to your house and nag you until you shower.” Ellie replied.
“At least I shower.” Dina said.
“I do shower!” Ellie argued. “This was an exception.”
Dina sighed. “Well, next time you go on some life altering journey to go chase some ‘personal stuff ’ I'm going with you whether you want me there or not. Next time and every time. Ellie and Dina against the world!”
“That's a new one.” Ellie laughed.
Her stomach rumbled, barely loud enough to really hear, but Dina was close enough that they both stopped to acknowledge it.
“Wow, when was the last time you ate something?” Dina asked. “Or slept?” She added, upon further inspection.
“You know how it is out there.” Ellie shrugged, glancing away. “I could only find so many meals, and I was worried about getting jumped.”
“Further reason I should be coming with you for your next excursion.” Dina reasoned. “I plan ahead.”
They both stopped as they heard Joel come outside and grab something from the shed on the opposite side of the yard. Ellie shied away from the window, laying down on her bed and making herself comfortable below its line of sight. Dina, none the wiser to her real motivations for this action, followed suit.
“What's going on with you and Joel anyway?” Dina asked quietly, as though he would be able to hear from outside.
“Who says anything is going on between me and Joel?” Ellie replied.
“Well, the hostile welcome I got earlier, for one thing.” Dina said.
Ellie sighed. “There's nothing going on between me and Joel. We're the same as we always are.”
“Why is it that whenever I ask you something about yourself you make it so difficult to actually get an answer out of you?” Dina turned to her, all the exasperation a teenager could muster in her expression.
“There's not much to tell.” Ellie said. “I lived in a QZ for fourteen years, and now I'm here. That's it.”
Dina looked very much like she wanted to either call her out and pry for more information or slap her (probably both) but all she did was sigh and say, “You should probably get some rest.”
“I've been sitting here all day.” Ellie countered.
And yesterday. And the night before.
“Did you actually sleep at all?” Dina asked.
“I rested my eyes.” Ellie replied pretentiously.
“My point exactly. Sleep.” Dina ordered.
“You don't have to take care of me, Dina.” Ellie said. “I'm not gonna keep you here all day.”
“Well, you're more important than anything I had going on today, and since you can't seem to take care of yourself, I'm going to stay here until I know you've been taken care of.” Dina replied stubbornly.
“Those are just rumors. I'm actually right on top of my health.” Ellie told her, eyes already closed.
“Keep telling yourself that, El.”
And well, after getting inadequate sleep all week on her way to and from Utah, then spending 26 consecutive hours awake, she actually found it pretty easy to fall asleep there. Especially since she was safe, and warm, and Dina was there rubbing her hand soothingly over her hair. She didn't mean to fall asleep, even. She had fully intended to stay awake and spite Dina for implying she was bad at taking care of herself. But, well, she was exhausted, and she couldn't fight the sleepiness in her eyelids, so before she knew it, she'd succumbed to dream world.
On the edge of consciousness and unconsciousness, it had occurred to her to thank Dina for checking up on her, but she wasn't quite awake enough to pry her mouth open and utter the words. “I really appreciate all this stuff you did for me, Dina. You're a good friend.”
Ellie thinks she imagined the, “Anytime, Ellie.” That came after.
When she woke up, it was a lot darker out, and Dina wasn't there anymore. She sat up and stretched, rubbing her eyes until she didn't feel so groggy. Her clock said it was about eight in the morning.
“Jesus.” Ellie muttered. “I don't think I've ever slept that long without waking up.”
She then noticed the sandwich perched on her nightstand, this one free of the spoiled smell that the one on her floor had sported. Accompanying it was a note.
Eat this, then come rejoin society. You should leave your apartment and come get some human interaction.
There was a heart drawn, and then Dina had signed her name in a loopy cursive.
“She worries too much.” Ellie sighed, then picked up the sandwich and began to eat.