'OH MY GOD.' Ralph sighed in relief when he reached the top of the neverending staircase, leaning against the doorframe for support and breathing like he had just run a marathon.

'It wasn't that bad, slowpoke.' Lou taunted him as she passed by, squeezing through him and Tess as they had both stopped to gather their breaths.

'You try climbing ten fuckin' floors with our knees, see how ya feel.' She panted, pushing off the wooden plank to set sail after Joel. Ralph shuffled after her with Ellie not far behind him.

They headed to the end of a corridor, the dead end of a corridor, and Ralph covered his eyes when the reflection of the sun shone down on him through a gap in the roof.

'Well, when the fuck did that happen?' Tess grumbled, turning to her right and wiggling the door handle as another resort. Joel tried the left but got nothing. 'Alright, well, I mean, maybe I could climb up there, work my way around, and open it from the inside?'

'Uh, no, well, I'm the smallest, so it'd be easier for me to get through.' Ellie stood forward.

'Can I go?' Lou asked cheerfully.

'No, you cannot.' Ralph said quickly.

'Why not? It'd be fun! And Tess would keep an eye on me.'

'...I could use a couple of reinforcements.' Tess shrugged, looking at Joel about all of this. The man offered her a shrug in return. She gave a quick glance in Ralph's direction only to see that he was pissed off at them, and nodded towards Joel to help her up. 'Whatever your dad says goes, Lou-Lou.'

Lou turned around and put on her best, biggest puppy eyes. Ralph glared at her for a moment, until tears began to form in her eyes and he was somehow won over with a sigh and a loll of his head.

'If you kill her, I'll kill you.' Ralph threatened Tess as Joel bent down to give her a boost up into the gap. The woman laughed hysterically, like that was the funniest thing she's ever heard, and it only angered him more. 'I'm being serious, Tess. Dead serious!'

'Sure you are, princess!' Tess yelled back, amusement still in her voice while she gave Lou a helping hand. The smaller girl slipped through the gap with a surprising amount of ease, and leaned back down to offer her dad an assuring thumbs up before she stood up and wandered out of sight.

The three of them stood in the dimly lit hallway awkwardly like a bunch of introverted kids at a high school party. Ralph looked at Ellie, Ellie looked at Joel, and Joel looked at Ralph for what felt like an eternity before the tallest of the group decided to take a seat on a nearby crate and lower his gun for the first time in forever.

Across from him, Ellie sat down as well, this time on the floor. Ralph felt a little bit left out, but there was also nowhere for him to sit, so he just leaned on the wall and tried to look occupied as he messed with his fingers.

There was a click and he looked up to find Ellie tossing and catching the knife that she had tried to tear his face off with. She caught it by the handle, flicked her wrist to spin it, and repeated. Ralph didn't know any cool tricks like that.

'Nice knife.' Joel complimented, one of the only positive things he had said throughout this entire journey. Ellie looked at him, looked at Ralph, and went back to catching. 'Where'd you learn to do that?'

'The circus.' She faked amusement. Joel sighed and rolled his eyes which prompted her to click her knife closed and look between the two of them for a moment. '...Where are you two from?'

'Texas.' Joel said quietly, looking over to Ralph so he felt pressured to answer his half of the inquiry.

'Seoul. It's an, uh, a city in South Korea.' He pursed his lips awkwardly, joining his hands together behind his back and sliding down the wall a little bit. 'But, after I came here, I mostly lived in Connecticut, out in the forest.'

'Why'd you come to America?' Ellie furrowed her eyebrows.

'I came here for college. Then, I guess I just stayed here.' He shrugged simply.

'Do they not have colleges in Sou?'

'It's Seoul. And, yeah, they did. But, I was having a... Hard time over there, so I left.'

'What happened?' Joel butted in, just as invested in this conversation. It threw everything a little bit off track when he had begun to speak, reminding Ellie and Ralph that they were in the presence of the big, bad asshole and ruining the fun for a little bit.

'Just... Things. Y'know, like... Family and stuff.' He answered vaguely, not making eye contact anymore. He looked at the gap in the roof and ducked his head like he was trying to see something within it, and even though he didn't, he continued to stare.

'What about Tess?' Ellie went back to interrogating Joel when Ralph made himself clearly uninterested.

'Detroit. It's in Michigan.'

'I go to school, I know where Detroit is.' The way Ellie got all mean and snarky with Joel was weird. Ralph was certain she hated him (and she did), but she had never made a huge deal about calling him names or making him feel like a dumbass. '...So, are you two like a—'

'Me and Tess are just friends.' Joel said.

'No. I mean you two.' She spread out her middle and index finger, one pointing at Ralph and one pointing at Joel. The men on the other side of the finger-pointing looked once at each other, once at Ellie, and then at each other again before beginning to speak together.

'What!? No! Gross!' 'Me and him? You've gotta be shitting me!'

'Why would I date a hillbilly?' 'Why would I date a wuss?'

'Hey, I'm not a wuss!' 'I'm not a hillbilly either!'

'Yes, you are!' 'You are too, then!'

'Okay, agree to disagree. You're a hillbilly, I'm a wuss.' '...Fine.'

Ellie laughed at the two of them like she had just seen the funniest thing in the world, and, yeah, it was a super stupid argument in hindsight, but both of them were still unnecessarily defensive about that topic, so they didn't find it funny in the slightest.

A rustling came from behind the door, and Joel shot to his feet with his gun by his side.

'Put the gun down, G.I. Joel.' Tess's gruff voice came from the other side. There was rattling whilst Joel did what he was told, and then the door handle wiggled and swung open to reveal Lou and Tess.

'Howdy.' Lou grinned.

'You sound like Joel.' Ellie giggled.

'I do not say howdy.' Joel argued.

'Okay, hillbilly.' Ralph pushed past him.

'Okay, wuss.' Joel bit back.

'Shut the fuck up.' Tess demanded. The two of them went quiet.

...

THEY MADE IT TO THE MUSEUM, and Ralph was less than pleased to discover that it looked far more like a mental hospital or haunted house or something that was definitely not so friendly from the outside. It also didn't help that, all along the walls and windows and pillars, were plants and moss and, of course, fungus.

It was all grey in colour, though. Wasn't a realistic threat even though the voices in the back of Ralph's mind were trying to scare him off and make him go back home.

He would love to go back home in fairness. He missed his comfy bed, and his neat bedroom, and his toast and coffee in the morning, and rushing Lou to get to school on time, and watching movies, and going grocery shopping, and—

'You gotta be fucking kidding me.' Ellie sighed to herself.

'There's a way across from the top floor.' Tess explained.

'We have to get all the way up there?' Lou pointed to the top of the building which was nearly out of sight, at least from her height.

'We used to take it all the time. Besides, it's not that bad, slowpoke.' Tess nudged her with a small smile, bringing back the mocking from earlier. Lou laughed a bit, looking at her feet and then raising her eyes to look at Joel as he stood back up and stopped stabbing a root of dried-up greenery.

'It's bone dry. Could mean they're all finally dead in there.' He reported back to them, walking the short distance it took to stand between Ralph and Tess. She nodded her head briskly and then kneeled down to grab some of her equipment from her backpack. Ralph guessed that he should've done the same, so he did. He handed his spare flashlight to Lou.

'Did Marlene pack you one of these or just sandwiches?' He looked up at Ellie and waved a flashlight at her, prompting her to unzip her bag and start digging around.

The adults rose to their feet again, slipping their backpacks back on while Tess went over some ground rules with Ellie, Lou, and even Ralph. 'Okay, so, more ground rules. We're gonna go slowly. If we come up against anything, you get behind us and you stay there, okay? Yes, even you Ralph.'

Ralph clamped his mouth shut and rolled his eyes, following after Joel once he gave them the all-clear.

...

THIS PLACE DIDN'T LOOK LIKE A MUSEUM ON THE INSIDE EITHER. It looked like the home of a mentally disturbed grandmother who liked to hoard things. He had no idea who would be visiting a shitty museum like this, with little wooden houses and fancy old couches. It also happened to be fucking vile and dirty and grimy and gross, but he hoped that those features had been added over time.

'Yeah, cooked.' Joel said finally as he waved his flashlight in a dried-up corner of the main room, casting light onto black, ashy fungus, and also on a corpse that was missing half of its head. Ralph winced and made sure Lou didn't have to see such a thing.

'Finally, some fuckin' luck.' Sighed Tess, sounding completely relieved.

'I guess we should've gone this way in the first place.' Joel murmured, continuing to explore and duck into room after room.

'Oh, shit!' Ellie gasped from the other room, pointing her flashlight at something in a secluded corner. Joel raised his gun and hurried over to her, Ralph at his side like always when the girls were getting themselves into trouble.

In the corner lay a body, which was nothing out of the ordinary in a sinister setting like this, but the blood that dripped from his temple all the way down to his chest was bright red and shiny. Fresh.

'What the fuck did that!?' Ellie continued, staring at the corpse in a mix of disbelief and curiosity. Ralph placed a hand on her shoulder and led her backwards, the body drifting out of view. She stumbled a little bit but caught herself eventually. Lou had gotten there by now, and was standing on her tiptoes to try and catch a glimpse, but Ralph swatted her on the shoulder and she instantly knew that this wasn't the time to fuck around.

Ralph had never encountered one of these... Zombie monsters before, but judging by the sight in front of him, he didn't really want to. Like, ever.

'Maybe— Maybe he was attacked outside, and crawled through the doors. The door was open, could've been him.' Tess rationalized quietly, her voice so quiet that Ralph could barely hear her from the far side of Joel. 'I don't hear anything.'

'Who would you hear?' Lou asked, and even though she wasn't speaking as loud as she normally did, her voice almost sent Ralph into cardiac arrest. Joel and Tess waved at her, signalling for her to be quiet, which only caused her to repeat her question even more quieter.

'From this point forward, we are silent.' Joel spoke to the group. 'Not quiet. Silent. No questions, just do it.'

...

THEY MADE IT UPSTAIRS WITHIN AN INCH OF THEIR LIVES, seeing as the roof outside had completely collapsed when Tess and Ellie walked through the door. Upstairs was way cooler than downstairs, though. It was something you'd see in a real museum, with all the display cases that had medieval guns and swords and torture devices inside of them. Ralph wasn't really focused on that anymore as he helped Tess stand up, brushing some dust off the front of her pants.

Then, something screeched.

It hurt Ralph's ears and made him jump. He reached for Lou and shoved her behind him. She didn't protest one bit because she was scared shitless too, reaching for Ellie and grabbing onto her. Joel actually had a reason to raise his gun now, and Tess raised her pistol too.

The thing started to click.

Tess and Joel began moving backwards, so the trio cowering behind them did too, and that was when they realized that the sound was coming from behind a door frame rather than around the corner. A bit of relief washed over Ralph because at least they were where it was now, until another loud scream came from around the corner they were just looking at, and it dawned on him that there were two of these things.

A gentle hand on his chest pushed him back to hide behind a display case, and Ralph looked to Joel for some help, still keeping a close eye on Lou.

'They can't see, but they can hear.' Joel mouthed to him, pointing to his eyes and ears respectively to further get his point across. Ralph nodded and turned his head to peer through the stained, dirty glass, watching the thing like a hawk.

It moved weirdly, not like a human. Which made sense because it wasn't. Didn't sound like one, didn't move like one, wasn't one. It lurched and limped and stumbled, but somehow all in a perfectly measured way, just enough uneasiness to help keep itself steady. Its hands dangled in front of its chest like it didn't know what to do with them, kind of like a dinosaur. Lou used that simile to keep herself on the verge of laughing and to stop herself from crying.

It staggered out in front of them uselessly, trying its best to figure out where all the voices and destruction had come from. That was when Ralph discovered that the only reason the thing couldn't see was because its eyes had been overgrown by the very same fungus that infected it in the first place, only its mouth on display.

It was a disturbing sight, that was for sure.

So disturbing that Ellie gasped and accidentally sabotaged them all.

...

NOTES!
im spoiling u guys arent i
three updates in two days jeepers oh!!!

guys i am so confused about the spelling of connecticut
because why is it spelled like CONNECTICUT??? that's like eighteen extra letters and it looks so confusing, i was literally shocked when i discovered that that was the correct spelling.
i stg it was spelled "conneticut" like last week.
idk maybe i'm just irish and dont care abt the states LOL

bit of ralph backstory!!!! aaaaahhhhh scary!!!!

i have no specific notes other than the fact that ralph is gonna beat them clickers UUUUPPPP in the next chapter
okay toodledy boodledey