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「 four. I know who you pretend I am,
I know who you pretend I am . 」

THE TWILIGHT SKY GLISTENED COLDLY THROUGH THE TORN ROOF OF THE ABANDONED BUILDING. Inside, a young brunette with the heavy weight of a bite adorning her arm, lay sleeping. A couple of feet away, a golden-coated dog lay sprawled over the grassy floor, releasing soft snores every couple of minutes.

The one person who wasn't greeted by the peace of sleep was Elizabeth Dean.

Aside from Tess and Joel's whispering, something about laying five feet away from a girl who could, at any moment, shift into a dangerous, mindless killer left a dry taste in her mouth.

Elizabeth used a red flannel she'd had stored in her bag to cover herself from the cold. Unfortunately, the material did little to protect her from the breeze that circled her.

For the umpteenth time that night, Elizabeth turned on her side, noticing Tess and Joel in a whispering argument, she closed her eyes.

All night long Tess and Joel had been taking shifts. One of them would sleep for an hour or too and the other would take watch, then vice versa.

"We need to keep an eye on them, Tess. Look at them. That one's got a fuckin' bite, the other could have god knows what." The man stressed, sparing them both a look overflowing with suspicion.

The woman scoffed, "you think I don't know that? But we made a deal, alright? Besides, they're just cargo." She stated, "we'll have to move soon. You take another hour, I'll keep watch."

The two bickered for another minute, Joel finally giving in to his counterpart and taking a hesitant nap.

Joel and Tess were strange. To Elizabeth anyway. Their bickering didn't come from a place of malice, or dislike. They protected each other, and they cared for each other. Elizabeth had pondered the thought of maybe they were married, or romantic partners. She wasn't sure.

"you and your friend argue a lot."

Tess' gaze fell onto the curled up blonde that lay on the grass. Tess had assumed both girls were quick to fall asleep, both of them yawning noticeably by the time they'd reached a safe space.

The woman kicked her lips, looking down, "yeah, well kid, that's life." She mumbled.

"But you care about each other though, I can tell." Elizabeth responded.

"We've known each other a long time." Tess stated simply, "what's the deal with you and dog? I assume it's yours—turned on your friend when it saw sensed something was wrong."

Elizabeth shivered slightly, curling up tightly in hopes of finding warmth. "his name's Bellamy. He found me when i was just a kid-" Tess raised an eyebrow, noting that the girl before her was just a child, though she didn't see herself as a child, "-he saved me from a pack of wild animals. Stayed together ever since."

Tess nodded, "how old are you?"

"Fourteen."

Tess lowered her head, "Jesus Christ," she mumbled under her breath.

Marlene had a mind set of 'you-have-to-do-what-you-have-to-do'. Tess almost felt stupid for thinking Marlene wouldn't go out of her to manipulate a child into joining a rebellion.

"Pretty young to be a firefly." Tess commented, picking at her nails.

"I'm not a firefly." Elizabeth stated, her tone slightly defensive as she sat up from her lay down spot on the floor.

"No, you're just hanging around a group of much older, dangerous terrorists, right?" Tess sarcastically spoke, narrowing her eyes slightly.

"It's not like that."

"Then where are your parents?" Tess raised an eyebrow.

"They're gone. One of them dead and the other, somewhere on the other side of the country." Elizabeth frowned, "my aunt and uncle were fireflys, but my parents weren't. They hated them."

"Who're your parents?" Tess asked curiously. There wasn't a high change that she knew them, but she was curious to know.

"They're names were Arabelle and Nathan. Doubt you'd know them. Marlene said they took new identities near the start of the apocalypse. Olivia and Michael." She admitted, nonchalantly. The girl looked up to the ceiling, missing the wide-eyed stare Tess suddenly adorned.

"Hey, what'd you say your last name was?" The woman asked, biting the inside of her cheek with nervousness.

"Dean. Why?"

Tess turned slightly pale, sparing a glance to Joel's sleeping body, then turning back to the girl. "Nothin' just knew an Olivia and a Michael a couple of years ago."

Elizabeth hummed, unconvinced.

"You should try get more sleep. It'll help you later. We've still got a dozen more miles to walk. Every minute of sleep counts, trust me." Tess commented.

The two fell back into silence, the younger turning back on her side and facing away from the woman.

Elizabeth pondered Tess' words for an awfully long time. Tess probably didn't know her parents. Elizabeth's family wasn't from Boston anyway, and though Tess may not have been either, it seemed to unrealistic.

The morning sun had finally risen, outshining the once twilight sky. Joel had awoken, sitting beside Tess as they mumbled to one another.

Elizabeth sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest as she waited for Ellie to wake up. Bellamy sat close to her, his eyes following an orange butterfly that danced around the air. Lizzie had volunteered to wake Ellie up, however, Joel and Tess had both told her just to wait.

Finally, Ellie let out a yawn-like sigh. The girl faced away from them, shifting her gaze to the sun that covered the small gap in the roof.

Finally, the brunette turned, hearing a whistle. "You okay there, ponytail?" The feminine voice that had gotten to be so familiar asked.

Ellie turned, startled by the stare of  the three. "Mornin'." She greeted, giving the two adults strange glances before nodding her head in greeting to the blonde. "Hey Beth."

Ellie moved to sit up, stopping at the sound of two guns being pointed straight at her. Obviously, the adults had yet to trust her.

"that's a bit dramatic." Elizabeth commented. Ellie showed absolutely no signs of turning, remaining exactly the same as she'd done he day before, and the day before that. Of course, if Ellie were to make any sign of changing into one of them, Elizabeth would be the first to run away, but at that moment in time, Ellie showed no sign of turning into a fungus-covered monster.

"Yeah, do I look like I'm infected?" Ellie grumbled, lowering herself back down onto the grass.

Joel remained cold, "show us your arm." He demanded, his knuckles tight as he gripped the gun.

Ellie gave the older man a look, before rolling up her sleeve for all to see. The bite hadn't grown since the previous night, instead remaining perfectly fine. "Yeah, it's not getting any worse, is it?"

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in surprise, "well, what'd you know." She mumbled faintly, stroking her hand through Bellamy's fur.

Tess and Joel shared a look with one another, as if deciding wether or not to trust them, or more specifically—Ellie.

"If we're out in the open city, why aren't we getting swarmed?" Ellie asked in confusion.

"Don't worry about that." Joel dismissed.

"I thought the infected live in the cities." Elizabeth added, "and that's why everyone died."

"I said don't worry about it, kid." Joel repeated, his voice lacing with faint annoyance.

Joel turned to Tess, hearing the woman's raspy voice. "What was Marlene doing with an infected kid?" She inquired, her eyes narrow as she inspected Ellie.

The brunette bit back instantly, "I'm not infected. She found me after I was bitten." Ellie stated.

It seemed as though Marlene's favourite hobby was finding lost girls and recruiting—or simply kidnapping them.

"And she didn't shoot you." Joel raised an eyebrow.

"Clearly not. She locked me up and had her guys test me everyday to see if I was getting bitten. Then one day, Blondie over there-" she gestured to Elizabeth, "-found me." Ellie finished.

"We had a plan to figure out what Marlene was planning, but it was interrupted by those crazy guys and the two of you." Elizabeth added, stretched her legs out and leaning back on her arms.

Tess looked between them oddly, "Wait, you said she tested you. How?" She asked.

"I have to pee." Ellie stated, bluntly.

"Test you how?" Tess repeated, leaning closer with a dead-set look on her face.

Ellie deflated, "they'd make me count to ten and hold out my hand and then keep it steady. But, you know, I think what really impressed them was the fact that I didn't turn into a fucking monster." Then the girl stood up, "now can I please."

As Ellie stood up, Joel raised his gun once again.

Turning to Tess, Elizabeth gestured to Joel. "Your boyfriend's very angsty." She commented.

The older woman gave Elizabeth an exasperated glance, shaking her head. "Shut up, Lizzie." Turning her attention back to Ellie, she motioned for a door in the corner of the room, "back there. You can find a spot."

"There's not gonna be anything bad in here?"

"Just you."

"Funny." Ellie sneered, walking out of the room.

Elizabeth moved to rest in the ruins of a maroon-coloured chair, which looked as though it were a hundred years old Joel and Tess had given the girl direct orders not to leave, and to stay in their line of sight. And if she were to be honest, she didn't have the energy to argue at that point in time.

Opening her backpack, Elizabeth pulled out the small notebook she always carried in her bag, followed by a pencil that looked to be on the verge of snapping. Elizabeth didn't have a sketch book, instead she simply drew in her notebook. It didn't really make a difference to her.

As odd as it sounded, drawing was almost freeing to Elizabeth Dean. She drew whenever she was on the receiving end of Marlene's lectures, she drew when she couldn't sleep, she drew when she wanted to remember something she'd seen.

She wasn't the best artist in the world, she knew that. But it didn't truly matter in the end—most people focus on just surviving instead of a crafty hobby.

Joel and Tess sat not far from the girl, whispering to each other. From what Lizzie could make out: Joel wanted to shoot them, both needed a battery.

Elizabeth also reached down in her bag, pulling out a sandwich Marlene had provided the girl.

When Ellie came back, she moved to sit closer to Elizabeth than to Joel and Tess, most likely due to the craving of having somebody near that wasn't a grown up.

"You two hungry?" Tess asked, opening a small piece of wrapped-up food. "You can share some of ours."

Elizabeth dismissed the woman, "No, it's alright. Marlene gave me some," she gestured to the sandwich in her lap.

Bellamy, for once, was not by the Lizzie's side and was instead following the butterfly he'd previously seen. Tess and Joel seemed surprised by the dog's currently playful nature. Not even a day ago he'd been chewing off a man's leg, and now he was prancing after a miniature bug.

Hearing his owners whistle, Bellamy came bounding over, his tail wishing as he did so. Elizabeth ripped the sandwich in half, placing one half on the ground for the dog and eating the other half herself.

"Is that chicken?" Ellie and Lizzie both looked up, noticing Joel and Tess' gazes locked onto their sandwichs.

"Mhm. Marlene gets it from smugglers." Elizabeth responded, picking up her pencil and continuing the sketch she'd started. She noticed a beautiful painting in the corner of the room, it's frame was damaged, but the painting itself was intact. It resembled a flower-filled valley surrounded by the rising sun that ascended from the horizon.

"Obviously not you guys." Ellie added. Lizzie chuckled lightly at Ellie's remark, but Tess remained unamused. Standing up, the woman approached the two, despite Joel's protests.

"Why are you so important to Marlene, hm?" She inquired, "and don't lie to me, or I'll take you back."

"You take us back, you lose your battery." Elizabeth shrugged, "and you'll have killed that man for nothing." She looked to Joel.

Tess scoffed, "you heard that?"

Both nodded, Ellie retorting with, "you're not as quiet as you think you are."

Tess hummed, "then you must've heard that he wants to shoot you." She motioned to Joel, "I'm gonna talk to you like you're adults, understand?" She leaned down, "Joel and I aren't good people. We're doing this for us because, apparently, you mean something. But we don't know what you're worth if we don't know what we have. So answer my question."

Ellie placed down her sandwich, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Marlene told me not to tell anyone, and now I'm telling the first people that I. . ." Her voice faded momentarily, "There's a firefly base camp somewhere out west. With doctors. They're working on a cure."

Joel shook his head in irritation, "I've heard this before."

Ellie gave the man a small glare, "And whatever happened to me—"

"Is the key to finding the vaccine." Joel and Ellie finished. "That's what this is?" He snarled, "we've heard this a million times. Vaccines, miracles, cures. None of it works—"

"Fuck you, man. I didn't ask for this." Ellie sneered back at the man, standing up. Joel shook his head stepping forward, "this isn't gonna end well Tess." The man's eyes shifted to the unusually quiet girl behind Ellie, "What about you, huh? What type of crazy ass shit is going on with you?"

Immediately Tess stood back up straight, "Joel. We've got all the information we need for now." She warned, sending him a wide-eyes stare.

The man scoffed, "we need to go back."

Tess kicked her lips, harbouring a conflicted stare as she placed her hands on her hips. "Let's just finish it. It doesn't matter if she is or isn't what the fireflies say. If they believe it, then we get what we want."

The two adults turned, glancing to the two teenage girls and the stretching golden retriever.

Joel sighed, "If she so much as twitches, or that one tries anything—"

The man was interrupted by Ellie's chocking gargles, her hands twitching as though she were possessed. Elizabeth laughed in amusement, encouraging Ellie as she faked her transformation into a clicker.

"Don't." Tess warned.

"Yeah okay."

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THE BUILDINGS THAT LITTERED THE STREETS LOOKED AS THOUGH THEY'D TURNED ON EACH OTHER. Endless piles of rubble and concrete lay sprawled over the vast Boston domain.

A large circular-dome looked as though it'd been purposely ripped from the ground, leaving it with a gaping hole in the centre, surrounded by heaps of rubble.

"It's like a fucked-up moon." Ellie remarked, standing close to the edge of the bombing sight.

Lizzie, curious to see, went over to join the brunette. "Holy shit," she commented, her eyes scanning over the large hole. "So, is this where they bombed?"

Tess looked back to the two, nodding. "Yeah. They hit most of the big cities like this. They had to slow the spread some how. Worked here, but didn't in most places." She told them, carrying on her journey.

To Lizzie's surprise, Joel didn't seem to despise Bellamy as he seemed to dislike her and Ellie. The man trekked onwards, the dog not far from his side.

The group stopped, standing before a block of collapsed tower-like buildings and broke-down cars.

"So, the State House is across there. It's about a ten-minute walk if you could go straight." Tess explained, squinting her eyes at the sight before her.

"I'm guessing this was the straight way." Lizzie tilted her head, looking up at the ruins.

Joel nodded, "Good, you do have a brain." He grumbled, earning a glare from the shorter girl, "Long way or short way?" He directed his attention to Tess.

"I mean, it's the long way or the 'we're fuckin' dead' way." Tess responded, sparing Joel a glance as she gripped the sides of her backpack.

"Well, I vote long way just based on that limited Information." Ellie added, earning a nod of agreement from the blonde beside her. "You know, I think ponytail's right for once."

Joel went silent for a moment. "We have to check it from the hotels first."

"Okay."

The streets appeared to be abandoned. Any sign of past life forms were gone, replaced with greenery and overflowing plants. A dozen cars sat idle, with deceased plants strewn over them.

And Tess, Joel, Ellie, And Elizabeth were just waltzing through.

Every so often, Lizzie would stroke Bellamy's head, making sure he wouldn't accidentally fall astray, or get distracted by something useless.

"Where the fuck are they already?" Ellie broke the silence. Lizzie assumed she was talking about the infected due to her angsty looks at anything that moved.

Tess shrugged, "you'll know it when they're close."

"I didn't know last time." Ellie retorted, nonchalantly.

Lizzie supposed that was true. She didn't know where, or why Ellie had fallen victim to a bite of the infected—the girl had never explained it to her during their time together with the fireflies.

"How did you get bit?" Tess asked the burning question. Obviously, Tess, Joel, and Lizzie held a desire to know, so of course they listened intently as Ellie spoke.

"You know the old mall in the QZ?" Ellie inquired, walking over a piece of rubble.

Lizzie's interest was immediately captured, "oh, I used to love that place. There was one girl I knew, who loved it there, but she went out one night, and. . .never came back."

Lizzie missed the saddened look that ellie carried, the way her eyes turned salty for a split second, before she blinked away her feelings.

"The one that that's sealed off and boarded up, and no one's supposed to go in. . .ever?" Tess raised a disapproving eyebrow at both of them, like a mother who's children had disobeyed her.

"Shut up." Lizzie mumbled, rolling her eyes at the older woman's stare.

"Well, one night I snuck in. Wanted to see what it was like. Didn't think there was gonna be anything in there, and then one just came at me outta nowhere. Thought I got away, but. . ." Ellie's voice faded.

"So it was just you in there, alone?" Lizzie could almost hear the slice of sympathy in Tess' voice.

"yeah."

Tess stopped, turning to the brunette. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen. Same as Beth."

"Wow. Well, I mean, you got some balls on you, sister." Tess raised an impressed eyebrow.

Lizzie grinned as she saw the small smile appear on Ellie's face as she received a compliment. She assumed Ellie hadn't received many compliments by people, so getting one from Tess must've been like Receiving a golden medal. Lizzie playfully numbed Ellie's shoulder, the brunette giving her a teasing roll of her eyes. "Thanks."

The group carried on trekking through, jumping over a pile of upturned cars.

"Nobody's gonna becoming after either of you, right? Like, Mom, Dad, siblings," Tess glanced towards Lizzie, "aunts, boyfriends?"

"None that would care." Lizzie responded. It was true. Her mother was dead, her father had left, as had her brother. She'd had an aunt who was god knows where, and the last she heard of her uncle was from Marlene. He'd settled down, had a wife and kids, but he and his son had gotten infected. The wife, her aunt, had been presumed dead.

"I'm an orphan, and uh-" Ellie's gaze fell towards Elizabeth for the phantom of a second, "-no." Ellie responded.

The group carried on, falling into silence for a couple of moments. The cities hadn't been what Elizabeth had presumed at all. They were practically abandoned, covered like a tsunami with overgrown plants and trees.

"I thought the cities were overrun by the infected. Back home everybody said they were crazy." Lizzie commented, her hand trailing the steel edge of the bridge.

Joel scoffed, "not exactly like that."

"People like to tell stories." Tess added, her tone filled with foreign amusement.

"So, there aren't Super-Infected that explode fungus spores on you?" Ellie interjected, earning a startled laugh from Elizabeth. "Where the fuck did you hear that?"

"Shit, I hope not." Tess spoke, slightly encouraging the two.

"Or ones with split-open heads that see in the dark like bats?" Ellie added. Though she was curious, she wanted the atmosphere to have a little less tension after she spoke.

The three women looked to Joel for an answer, to which the man simply looked back at them unsurely.

Bellamy's ears immediately pricked with the sound of a foreign, inhuman screech, his teeth bearing dangerously as he walked closer to Elizabeth, Tess, and Ellie.

The group stood silently, unsure of what the fuck had made the sound. Finally, Lizzie spoke, "I think there's your infected." She looked to Ellie with a nervous pitch in her voice.

"Let's keep moving."

☼

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Sam and Henry 💔
writing their episode is gonna HURT