'WHAT ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH ARE YOU DOING?' Joel looked back at Ellie after hearing a plethora of wheezing sounds fall from her mouth for well over three minutes, wondering if something was wrong or if she was just being Ellie. The line blurred sometimes.

She had two fingers jammed in her mouth and was breathing heavily around them like a weirdo, drooling all over her knuckles. Ralph grimaced when she announced that she was "learnimph how to whistlemph.'

'You don't know how to whistle?'

'Does it sound like I know how to whistle?'

'No.' Joel mumbled, digging around in his pockets for something. A wheezing noise similar to Ellie's previous ones came from next to him, and he looked over to see Ralph trying to copy her. 'Oh, Jesus, you too?'

Ralph scrunched his nose and wiggled his head to mock Joel, taking his fingers out of his mouth and wiping them off on the side of his jeans. Ellie did the same and wiped her fingers off on Ralph's jeans as well, which led to him snatching the wooled hat off her head and awarding her the title of "grossest person ever."

'How do you even do that?' Ellie asked Joel once she had jumped high enough to retrieve her hat, tugging it over her head and huffing when Lou fussed about it and began to fix Ellie's hair for her.

'Talent.' Joel replied snarkily, expecting to get away with it.

'No, it's not.' Lou replied, placing her index and thumb in her mouth and whistling so loudly that they swore it echoed from where they stood in the middle of nowhere. Ellie laughed victoriously.

'Hahaha! Oh, she got you good, man!' Ellie held up her hands— Her index finger pointing up and her other fist forming a circle. 'Zhenya, one. Miller, zero. Hey, you guys should teach us how to hunt.'

It was typical Ellie fashion to hop from one conversation to another like it was nothing. Ralph didn't respond to her as he was busy trying to prevent Lou from wiping her spit on his trousers as well. Joel replied with a "hm."

"'Hm."' Ralph had been secretly missing Ellie's Joel impression. 'Like, "Oh, they're girls. They can't handle it. Grr, look at me. I'm Joel Miller. Rooaaarrrr! Al, come help me with this! Al, come help me with that! Al, I lov—!'

Joel smacked his hand over Ellie's mouth.

'Hunting's not all fun and games.' Ralph was smiling, particularly at Joel following that interaction. 'I mean, the shooting's kind of fun. But, then you get down to dressing, with all the guts and it's just... Ew.'

'Doesn't it suck?' Lou asked her dad. 'Like, especially for you, because you're such a big geek and everything? Does it make you sad to kill them?'

'Super sad.' He nodded. 'But, I mean, it's, like... The circle of life and everything.'

'Why do they call it dressing?' Ellie asked. 'It's like, you should call it undressing, 'cause it is. It's like undressing from the inside... Still interested, though!'

...

'DAM.' Ellie said as they stood on the edge of a huge dam. Ralph resisted the urge to shove her in just for that terrible joke.

'You're no Will Livingston.' Joel replied rudely.

'Yeah, yeah, but who is?' Ellie smiled, looking down at the bright blue water below them. 'So, that makes electricity?'

'Yeah.' Joel said, turning to Ellie before she could turn to him. 'Ask Al. I don't have a clue.'

'Ask Lou.' Ralph shook his head, following Joel as he turned to walk away. Ellie looked at Lou with her eyebrows furrowed, wondering if she would actually explain it, only to discover that she was also running away and was going to do no such thing. Ellie sighed to herself. 'You know, you guys could've just made something up. I would've believed you.'

'Yeah, but if we made something up, you'd keep asking about it.' Ralph said, following the river with Joel by his side.

'No, I wouldn't. I'm not that desperate to know about fucking... Water electricity dam contraptions.' Ellie thought for a moment. 'Actually, maybe I am. You're sure you don't know how it works? You're, like, big nerd number one, Ralph.'

'Okay, can I just say that I don't like that I'm the designated nerd of the group?' Ralph protested, waving a finger in the air to show his disagreement.

'Well, you are a nerd.' Ralph looked at Joel like he couldn't believe he would say such a thing. 'Closest thing to a nerd that we got, at least.'

'You're a nerd too! With all your guns and shit!' Ralph said. He blamed Ellie for the horrific impression he put on next. "'Oh, this here is an M twenty-seven, it was manufactured by a pregnant lady in Nigeria at exactly four seventeen in the morning. I have watched documentaries on this specific gun because I am Joel Miller and I am a humongous nerd."'

Joel fought back a grin and pitched his voice higher to get Ralph back. '"Those trees are acidic, Lou, not atomic! I'm Raphael Zhenya and I know everything about berries and trees and animals and Sun Bears and shit because I'm an even bigger, humongous-er nerd than Joel Miller!'

Ralph thought that was the funniest thing ever, just as Joel had laughed at his impression, and the two of them started giggling like maniacs while the two girls behind them looked at each other with knowing looks on their faces.

'Hey, that river sure is blue! Isn't it, Lou?' Ellie spoke loudly, trying to remind the two love birds in front of them that the teenagers behind them were still, in fact, present and to not start making out in front of them.

'Sure is! Love me some blue rivers!' Lou yelled just as loudly, watching amusedly as Ralph and Joel cleared their throats and stopped snickering. She looked at Ellie, expecting the two of them to burst out cackling and squealing with laughter once she did, but instead, Ellie was looking at the water.

'Hey, guys?' She said, all the happiness and laughter in her voice was gone in the blink of an eye. 'What if this is The River of Death?'

Joel stopped dead in his tracks and spun around to stare at her blankly. Ralph reached down and shifted his gun to the far side of his belt so he didn't shoot his dick off while he searched for the map in his pocket. He held it up high and Joel bumped arms with him trying to read it, standing right over Ralph's shoulder.

Ralph turned on the ball of his foot, holding the map up to the lake in front of him and observing the geography around them, trying to see if it was a match or not. He looked at Joel for his input and the man next to him shrugged and turned around to keep walking. If they were at The River of Death, he wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the strangers at the top of the hill had other plans for them.

They were surrounded before they even knew what was happening. All Joel and Ralph could do was make sure that Ellie and Lou were hidden behind them and instruct each other to put their hands up.

'We ain't looking for any trouble, we're just passing through!' Joel announced to the group, heart hammering in his chest as rifles and shotguns and pistols were pointed at him from all angles.

'Drop the gun!' A man at the front of the group announced, a bandana covering his features, showing only his bright green eyes. The cowboy hat on top of his head (which gave Ralph wonderful flashbacks) hid most of his hair too, but Ralph could make out some brunette curls from underneath it.

Joel did as he was told, taking the rifle off of his shoulder and placing it onto the snow next to him, and then quickly stood up straight to raise his hands in surrender again.

'You two.' He nodded his head at Ellie and Lou, gun raised. 'Take five steps back.'

'How about we just talk about this?' Ralph suggested, raising his shoulders in a polite shrug.

'How about you shut the fuck up, you old hag!' Ralph hadn't even noticed the kid on the horse to the right of them until he screamed that response at him. He looked quite similar to the first man, this time with big, blue eyes and curly blonde hair that the hat did no use of hiding. He had a gun too, which didn't seem like a very bright idea and left Ralph a little more afraid than he was initially.

'You been near Infected?' The first man ordered, tilting his head at him.

'There ain't no Infected out here!' Joel shouted back.

'Yeah? How come that motherfucker's bleeding himself dry?' The gun waved at Ralph and until then he had completely forgotten that he had been running around with a mixture of his and Kathleen's blood on his shirt for about a month now. His bullet wound was alright. Wasn't exactly healed, it didn't really have the right care for that, but it wasn't bleeding so freely anymore. It was still bright red, but the bandage had been discarded and it only hurt when Ralph reached for far away things or walked for too long.

'That's dried, I got shot.' Ralph said softly, reaching down to pull up his shirt and show them only for every gun within a mile's radius to be aimed right at his head.

'That why it's all over your face, too?' The man interrogated not waiting for an answer as someone next to him got off their horse and the barking of a dog could be heard. 'Come on, last chance for a bullet.'

Ralph's eyes widened when a German Shepard was led to stand in front of them, barking furiously and lunging at them. Ralph had never really liked dogs, so that made the panic set in. 'Okay, the hip thing was true, I did get shot. But, the blood on my face isn't my blood, it's some lady's blood!'

'You killed a lady?'

'She was trying to kill the kids—! It's a long story, alright, asshole!?'

'Yeah, sure thing, man.' The man obviously didn't believe him for a second, lowered his gun as the dog was brought closer and closer. 'But, just so you know. If you've been infected, he'll smell and he'll rip you up.'

The dog was let off the leash and it hurried towards Ralph, sniffing the bloodstain by his hip and then jumping up to sniff his collar as it had also been covered in the red substance. After a good minute of Ralph holding his head, it hopped down and moved onto Joel. His process was a lot faster, and the dog returned to his owner without another issue.

'...Like I said, we'll just move on.' Joel said, letting out a deep sigh.

'Now them.'

Joel and Ralph froze.

They looked at each other, completely horrified as the dog walked over to Ellie and Lou, unable to turn around and see what was going to happen next. For a second, Ralph considered reaching for his pistol, the one that nobody had discovered yet, and trying to somehow kill these people. Typically, it wouldn't be a hard task, but their being armed made it a lot more difficult than it should've been.

A bark came, and then a squeal, and then a laugh.

Ellie cradled the dog as it licked her in the face, cooing at it and giggling as Lou stood by her side, absolutely mortified by what had just happened and also the animal that was growling and barking at her friend. The owner whistled, and the dog abandoned Ellie quicker than it had become her friend.

'You just bought your asses ten more seconds. What are you doing out here?'

'We're just looking for my brother. That's all, nothing more.'

'What's your name?' A woman yelled at him, eyebrows furrowed.

'Joel.'

...

THE GROUP OF PEOPLE WERE ACTUALLY SURPRISINGLY HUMBLE AFTER THAT, even gave them horses so they would get back to town faster. And what a town it was. A huge, medieval-looking wall covered the outside of it, not allowing anyone to see in or out, and a wooden gate was in the middle of the cobble-built shield.

The inside was somehow even better. The houses were furbished, looked like they were being cared for and lived in, and, more importantly, there were people in every direction you looked— Kids building snowmen, teenagers talking with their friends, adults holding hands with their spouses. It was all strange to see. Even in the QZ, it wasn't like this. People were never this happy, never this free. There was always some corrupted cop around the corner waiting to get a power trip off of screaming at you and beating you black and blue.

Ralph found himself scrubbing a hand over the right side of his bloodied face more than he usually would've, a doomed attempt to cover it as the group came to a halt in the middle of the street.

'Tommy!?' Joel screamed suddenly, craning his neck to peer off into the distance. Ralph couldn't make out who he was yelling at, but it must've been the right guy because Joel was hopping off his horse and hugging the man within a split second.

'Damn.' Lou mumbled behind Ralph, taking her arms from around his waist and shuffling to climb off the horse, deciding that turning it to its rightful owner would be a good idea. Ralph caught on and did the same, Ellie being the last to follow. She waddled over to the Zhenyas awkwardly, hoping they would accept her for the time being while Joel was busy fussing over his little family reunion.

A woman stepped in to take the horse Ellie was riding, wrapping the reigns around her hands and continuing to speak to the man she was having a conversation with. Nobody had swung by to claim Lou and Ralph's horse yet, so the man began to make small talk with the tiny brunette on the far side of the animal. She peered over the top of it at them, planning her best route around it, until someone waddled over to her.

'Sorry about calling your dad an old hag.' The blonde boy from earlier said nonchalantly, walking over to the horse she was accompanying and petting it on the cheek. It huffed at him, but it must've been an affectionate one because he didn't back away.

Lou stared at him for a little while. He was still wearing that humongous, brown hat with the star in the middle of it. The fabric that had been covering his face was now bunched around his neck, revealing a bunch of freckles and pearly white teeth that showed when he smiled. His jacket looked like it was smothering him. He was Lou's height, maybe a smidge or so taller, and must've been near her age too.

He looked at her, up and down, and she quickly remembered that he was waiting for a reply. 'Oh, yeah, it's cool. He is an old hag, some of the time.'

'Why was that lady he was talking about trying to kill you?' He tilted his head, full of questions. She couldn't say that she blamed him, but also wishes that he handled it with a bit more pacing.

'She was totally nuts.' Lou shrugged her shoulders, saving the story for a later date.

'...Your dad seems totally nuts as well.' He continued, not really enjoying that he kept circling back to the man. Lou didn't seem to enjoy it either, and it fell silent between them for a moment. 'I'm Bowie.'

He stuck out a pale hand towards her, smiling with his bright, white teeth.

'I'm Lou.' She said, accepting it with an even bigger smile.

...

NOTES!
publishing this before i leave the house is not an epic gamer moment

i have not proofread or even reread this at all so im hoping its alright LOL

EPIC BOWIE MOMENT i love bowie u guys

OKAY BYEBYEB