send me ‘☯ + a scene from my characters canon’ and i will drabble it from my character’s pov.
Ellie knew something wasn't quite right when they went through the old truck's box car.
If there was anything she knew about the drills and procedures she ran at the military school, it was that most soldiers were very careful, and very thorough. Joel's signal of 'all clear' before the trio had piled out into the open had seemed almost too quick, but the moment Ellie stepped out beyond the safety of the QZ walls, it was a forgotten worry. She was outside. Holy shit, she was actually outside.
As she made up the middle of the little rag-tag line they had made, with Joel scouting out before them, Ellie felt her muscles tense. The air had changed, and it wasn't due to the thunder. Something...no, something not quite right. But Joel and Tess surely felt it too, right? They were the pros. Footsteps made dull thuds in the old and rusted metal as they made their way up, and it was only a flicker of a second before Joel stepped off and a soldier jumped forwards and slammed her rifle into his temple.
The girl froze in shock as the man let out a sharp grunt of pain, falling to his knees in the mud from the impact. Ellie's hands immediately shot upwards as the light turned on her, spooked at the sight of such violence. They never said this would be part of the procedure when she was in training.
"Don't do anything stupid," The soldier growled. Shit. Fuck. Shit. They had gotten caught -- not even a hundred feet from where they escaped the QZ!
Slowly, Ellie made her descent off the car and towards the soldier. There was a short, barely audible sigh from Tess; somehow, if the girl hadn't been so nervous, her ears would have burned with shame at getting them caught.
"Turn around. On your knees." The soldier looked to her comrade as Ellie made her way around to Joel's left, watching him from the corner of her eye as he picked himself up. "You scan it. I'll call it in."
The second soldier made a short 'mhm' in acknowledgement as he kept his gun pointed at Tess, taking over on the orders. Ellie's fingers laced together atop her head, her throat bobbing nervously as she swallowed. Holy shit. They were so fucked.
There was the ever-infamous chirp of a scanner off to her right, and Ellie felt herself fill with dread. Oh no. Oh, no. Marlene told her not to tell them. It wasn't part of their job, they shouldn't know. What were the soldiers going to do to her once they found out? Oh, fuck, what were they going to do? "Look the other way," Tess commented. "We can make this worth your while."
"Shut up." Ellie's face paled as the clear signal came back from Tess's scan, and the soldier moved on next to Joel. "I'm gettin' real tired of this shit," The soldier commented, holding back a yawn.
"Oh man," Ellie breathed to herself. It was now or never. Joel had been cleared. Oh fuck. Which back pocket was it in? The scanner pressed up against her neck roughly. "Oh man."
Just as the scanner beeped back it's results, she barked out an apologetic, "Sorry!" and whipped around, her hands coming off her head to wrench her switchblade out of her pocket. Without thinking, it jammed into the soldier's knee -- one of the few places that was not protected by the riot armor. The man snarled in pain as his newly injured knee gave way, but she was already up and making a grab for his gun.
Immediately, she knew she didn't have the strength to combat with a soldier who had been in service for multiple years. He slammed the butt of his assault rifle hard into her cheek, sending her tumbling backwards against a cargo crate. Her knife skittered to her side, gleaming in the low moonlight with blood as she tried to recover from the stunned feeling of being hit. Gunshots rang out and her eyes jolted to Tess, who had felled the female soldier, and then to Joel, who had tackled her assailant to the ground and forced the man's own handgun to his head. It was over in a matter of seconds -- but for Ellie, it was an awful feeling to behold; she felt like she was betraying the very person she would have been raised to become.
"Oh, fuck," Ellie breathed, her voice slightly ragged as she scooted all the way back to the side of the crate and drew her knees up. No; no, she needed a breather. Her switchblade clicked as she quickly put the blade away and back in her pocket, not even wanting to look at it. " I thought we were just gonna -- just gonna hold 'em up or something."
Her head ducked down to rest on her forearms, but she heard a shuffle of feet. Surely the scanner would have shut itself off by now, right? Like how thermometers do after they're done reading temperature? Or maybe it didn't even get to finish-- maybe she reacted in just enough time for the results to be invalid. "Oh, shit," Tess said. Ellie's head raised, white as a sheet.
Joel crossed the distance between them, catching the scanner. Ellie stares at him as he reads the results; she sees how he tenses, how his face clouds and is overcome with realization. Aged eyes narrow in the dim light as he lets out a low breath, with what Ellie can only assume is 'Jesus Christ.' Quickly, he steps to Tess, bewilderment on his face. "Marlene set us up?"
Oh, fuck. They knew.
His gaze snaps to Ellie, and it's so hard and so angry at the possibility of going through all the trouble they had gone through already for a fluke that Ellie cowers slightly. His lips race in a grimace slightly.
"Why the hell are we smugglin' an i n f e c t e d girl?"
At the sound of 'infected', she somehow snaps out of her fear to shake her head, her eyes wide. No, no, no, no. She had been worrying about the wrong group of people. She shouldn't have been worrying about what the soldiers would have done to her if they found out -- it was what these two would have done if they found out. She was desperate to not know an answer to that foreboding question.
"I'm not infected," She replied, the panic within lining her voice.
"No?" Joel asked, stepping forwards, and she shakes her head again. "Was this lyin'?" He chucks the scanner at her and she flinches away from it before it can hit her. Right there, on the screen, is the flashing 'INFECTED' warning across it. She had to think, and fast. Her chest heaved as she felt another pulse of fear flood her veins, and she raised a hand. "I can explain--"
"Well then, you better explain fast," Tess piped up, coming to stand beside Joel with her gun in hand. The barrel pointed indirectly at Ellie, and the girl couldn't quite remember a time or place where she had felt so small and so intimidated. The sergeant could be yelling at her, or giving her scrubbing duty for a month, and she didn't think she would be even this spooked. Hastily, the girl grabbed her left arm's long sleeve and tugged it backwards, exposing the very bite that Marlene had instructed her very deliberately to never do.
"Look at this!" She exclaimed, presenting the bite to them. She might have been immune to the infection, but the wound still festered and healed at a much slower pace than most. The infected's bite had run deep into her forearm, and parts of it were still looking nearly fresh.
Joel's face morphed into that of disgust and he turned away, whether by the fact that the girl had been bitten, the bite itself, or the potential set up, she didn't know. "I don't care how you got infected--"
"It's three weeks old," Ellie pleaded, but Tess cut her off sharply.
"No, everyone turns within two days, so you stop bullshitting." The gun shook in her direction, but Ellie continued onwards.
"It's three weeks, I swear," The girl promised, the begging of mercy and will to be trusted thick in her voice. She could see the doubt in Tess's eyes begin to form, and she latched onto that. Her own emerald hues narrowed, as if bewildered by the mere suggestion. "Why would she set you up?"
It was a valid point, at least. Marlene didn't need those guns -- she just needed Robert on a leash. Ellie had begun to know more than she should have when Marlene's care of her resumed.
Tess stared her down for a moment longer, her jaw hard as her gaze held with the girl's. Please work. Holy fuck, please, please -- I'm not infected. Believe me. Slowly, ever so slowly, Tess's gun lowered, despite her gaze still full of mistrust and wariness. Ellie avoided a sigh of relief just yet as Joel turned away, shaking his head. "I ain't buying it..."
He seemed to pause, and the other two followed his gaze. In the distance, light from headlights seemed to light the ground, and a dull roar of an engine came to life. The backup they had called in. "Oh, shit. Tess-- run." He grabbed at her forearm and turned, jumping into a sprint. "Run!"
Ellie thought they might leave her behind, thought they might ditch her to find her own safety, but Tess jumped towards her instead of bolting after Joel and helped haul her upwards. "Go, go -- move!"
The girl wasted no time in scrambling to her feet, taking off after the old man as he jumped down an old drop-off. Holy shit. They didn't kill her. Holy shit.
Now the just had to make sure the soldiers didn't do the job for them.
For a second she's silent. The world between them is silent.
"Nate.."
But of course, there's not much to say, is there? She can't back out now. Not even if she wanted to. The soldiers stood beside her, shoulder-to-shoulder, with assault weapons slung on their shoulders. Staring this fifteen-going-on-sixteen boy down. A third soldier had him in an iron grip underneath his shoulder, occasionally jerking backwards painfully to keep the boy from trying anything. It was only her compliance that kept his blood un-spilled on the rubble of the street before them.
It was so hard to look at him, for when she did she saw confusion and pain and the very clear yet silent why that made her feel ten times worse. But she had to -- the sooner she was able to cut her ties and send him away, the more time she'd have to reflect on the good memories between them before they pressed the mask down on her face and turned on the anesthesia.
"Ellie, tell me they're lying." His other hand reaches out to her slightly, but his captor yanks him back a safe distance. There's a stiff moment, in which he takes to glance up at the hospital and back at the direction where Joel must've been before speaking again. "Please."
Riley. Tess. Sam. Ellie's gaze does not falter -- she owes him that much -- but it's her voice that does. "...I can't."
"Cure," One of the soldiers comments, nudging her slightly impatiently, but she elbows him roughly in a very clear demand of shut the fuck up. Her attention remains on Nate, and her voice crackles in apology. "I'm sorry...."
"But you know what they'll do, right?!" Nate abruptly lurches forward, puling the soldier with him, and his free hand stretches away from his body and out to his side. "You can't -- I mean, there has to be another way --"
"Nate." Now her resolve is broken and she's fighting it all back, her wide eyes glued to the floor. "I have to do this."
There it is again, that moment of ugly silence that she can't bear to stand all of a sudden. It's Nate who speaks first, his own tone desperate and barely above a whisper. "...No, you don't."
"That's enough," The soldier on Ellie's left speaks out again, and this time he doesn't accept no for an answer. He grabs Ellie's shoulder, who doesn't offer much resistance, and it's three strides before she turns back and pauses to lock eyes with Nate one last time.
"Take care of AK for me. He'll want to know why I'm not there."
Nate's face flickers with different emotions -- none of them involving acceptance of what he knows is going to happen once she walks past those doors. But finally, with all the strength he can muster, he nods to her. She's far enough away that she can't see his trembling frame. "Yeah. You betcha."
Ellie seems to find it an acceptable answer, because she offers him a weak smile and nods in return. "Thanks."
