chapter one     /      exulansis
n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an
experience because people are unable to relate to it.

When a child dies, parents either split or grow closer as one. Everybody thought Joel and Isabella would be the latter.

They were not.

Unspeakable things were done to get to the Boston QZ, much to Joel's annoyance who didn't feel the need to constantly be told what to do by FEDRA of all people, Tommy forced him to cave and Isabella didn't mind either way.

Neither parties were the same after Sarah died but while Joel channeled his anger and sadness into protecting what he did have left, Isabella remained a shell of the woman she once was. No, not a body, for a shell requires you to be present in the exoskeleton of your past. Isabella Miller is merely a ghost. Wandering the roads of the Americas in search of everything she lost, hoping, begging to be saved, not physically- but spiritually.

To cut the roots of the burden she's held for, god knows how long now. To be free.

A QZ was the opposite of that.

She didn't know how Joel and Tommy managed to smuggle themselves in, but the QZ was desperate for a doctor.

Upon arrival, Belle was immediately given an apartment above the doctor's station at the center of the city and special treatment. Much to Joel's discontent and refusal, Belle was now under constant supervision of FEDRA, they followed her, escorted her everywhere, protected her, and rarely allowed Joel to see her. Almost.

When the fireflies attacked and the military presence weakened, Joel would slip in through the back door and spend the evenings with her till the sun fell and rose again the next day. In the beginning, she would just give him one-word answers, they'd eat, and sleep on opposite ends of the same bed when dusk fell over the city. Over time she became more closed off, quieter, less eating, and less sleeping, coincidentally around the time another doctor arrived at the QZ.

Joel, on the other hand, was happy. He thought that with the arrival of a new doctor in town, Isabella would be more inclined to go outside or even strike up a conversation with him, even if he had to mail a pigeon to do it. And yet...she didn't.

She grew cold. And then Tommy left, and she grew colder. Barely acknowledging Joel's presence whenever he'd come over, trading her large accumulation of ration cards for more time outside the QZ, and even spending more time with one specific guard outside the walls. He tried to ask her about it once, not that it went very far.

"So, uh, you and...what's his face, I've seen you two sneak out." She peered up at him from the book she was reading on her round table, not answering and looking back down to turn a page.

"If you have something to say, say it." She mumbled, her temple resting on her fist.

"What do you do with him outside the walls?" Joel asked bluntly.

"What do you do with Tess outside the walls?" He paused and gave her a pointed look, she drifted her eyes away from the book to look at him, annoyed. "Not very fun being accused, is it?"

He scoffed, "It's not the same and you know it." She pinched her lips into a thin line and picked up her book, walking away from him to go into her bedroom, leaving the door open. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" She asked, the thin walls echoing her voice back to the kitchen where Joel stood.

"You were the one who said you didn't want to be with me anymore." He reminded her, of a painful memory in both of their minds.

She sighed, "I did."

"So, now, why pretend you care what I and Tess do outside the walls?"

Belle walked out of her room with her hand outstretched towards him. "I don't care what you do with her, Joel."

His eyebrows pinched together. "Ration cards?"

"You're short with a guard, heard him talking about wanting to kick your ass for some more pills." Were her last words to him that day. But the man he was before couldn't let his girl go to sleep with that.

"For the record, I will never stop caring about what you do. I don't care if you hate me for the rest of your life, the rest of mine. I care about you..." he sucked in a shaky breath, reaching for the doorknob. "Isabella."

Belle stood motionless as Joel left the room. She didn't stop him or even try, but the soft sound of the door clicking shut left her flinching. That night, the haunting sound of the door clicking followed her into her sleep. In her dreams, her subconscious mind filled her memories with the happiest moments she shared with her family. Whether they were real or distorted memories that her mind created to cope, one thing remained constant: Sarah was centered in all of them.

Sarah knew that Joel had nightmares about that fateful day, and sometimes she wondered if she had it better or worse than him. Her dreams took her back to a time when Sarah was just eight years old, and Belle woke up to find her snuggled between her and Joel. Belle spent the rest of that morning brushing her fingertips over Sarah's smooth skin, seething the feeling into her skin and her mind. But every morning she woke up, and she was back in the real world, the bad place, the reality.

And the reality was a repeated pounding on her door. Grumbling under her breath the entire way up to her door, Isabelle swung open the piece of wood and blinked.

"Marlene? What the hell are you doing here?"

The woman looked back and forth in the hallway before shoving herself into Isabella's apartment and closing the door behind her. "I need your help."

"After you just invited yourself into my room, yeah sure, why not take all my medical supplies while you're at it?" Isabella said sarcastically, facing the intruder with her arms crossed over her chest and a nonchalant attitude.

"We might need to," Marlene mumbled, shoving her gun behind her back.

"What are you on about?"

"I can show it better than I can explain it." She said cryptically.

Isabella instantly shook her head, "No."

"Please, Isabella. You're the only doctor capable of helping me with this." Marlene begged

"There is a perfectly good doctor right under us you can go to, I don't see why you need me."

"Because of you..." Marlene sighed, "because I know you're a good person. Everybody knows you're a good person."

"Being a doctor good doesn't mean you're a good person."

"Yeah, well...I've seen bad people trust me. You're not one of them, no matter how hard you try to seem like it. So please, I'll ask again, can you help me?"

Isabella bit her lip and reluctantly agreed, mentally complaining about how this is how Marlene must've convinced the rest of the fireflies to join her. She is very persuasive, okay?

However, as they made their way through the streets of the quarantine zone, Isabella couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. The guard they had encountered earlier had been too close for comfort, and now, standing in the dilapidated building, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

As she surveyed the room, Isabella noticed the girl chained up to the heater. She wondered what had led to her being imprisoned in this decrepit building. Was she also planning an escape from the QZ? Or had she been caught for some other reason? Goosebumps filled her skin as they always did when she came across a child younger than fifteen.

"Marlene, what the hell is this?" Isabella asked, looking into the nearly empty room in pure confusion.

"You're asking the same question I am, lady." The young girl on the floor asked, she looked more bored with the situation than anything.

Marlene motioned Isabella toward the crouched girl and sat down next to her while the doctor remained standing.

"You gonna unlock me?"

"How about we start with "thank you"?"

"For what?" The teenager asked incredulously

"For saving your life? I am the one who told 'em not to shoot you if you recall."

"Yeah." She muttered under her breath. "Why did you stop them?"

"We'll get to that." Marlene looked up at Isabella for a second. "So... Veronica... how ya feelin'?"

"The same. Is it gonna happen?"

"No"

"So, can I go?'

"No."

"I won't tell anyone about any of this. I swear."

"Hold on, what's gonna happen?" Isabella interrupted. The young girl pinched her eyebrows together, looking between both women.

"Did you not tell her?" She asked Marlene.

"Tell me what?"

"I was getting to that-" The short brunette scoffed and lifted her sleeve to show the standing doctor her bite wound that has already begun healing over the trauma of the past.

Isabella sucked in a sharp breath and gave the leader of the fireflies a hardened glare. "Marlene..."

"Now hold on a minute." She interrupted, gently holding the pale child's wrist and extending it out to expose it to the light. "Look at it. And I mean really look at it."

Hesitantly, Isabella bent her body forward to analyze the attempt the cordyceps had made at entering the main bloodstream pathway and dissipating only a few inches outside the initial bite.

"It...healed," Belle observed, Marlene, nodded from below her. "Where the hell did you come from, kid?"

She shrugged. "FEDRA Military school."

"You that anxious to be a soldier?" Belle scoffed, leaning against the nearest wall left of the two on the floor.

"You think I chose that place? They put me there when I was a baby. It's for orphans."

""They" didn't put you there. I did. Ellie." Marlene pointed out, her eyes softening at the grown baby she once left behind.

"You my fucking mom or something?" She questioned breathlessly

"Do I look like your mom?"

"No, you do not." Belle bit her tongue to stop a chuckle from building up.

"My name is Marlene. I'm the leader of the Fireflies in the Boston QZ. That woman over there is Isabella Miller, she's not a firefly but she is a doctor. She's also the only person I trust for something like this."

Ellie gave the brown-skinned woman a side-eye. "Why would a terrorist dump me with FEDRA?"

"Because it's where you'd be safest, and you were safe there until you decided to sneak out. And "terrorist"? Was Riley a terrorist?" The teenager visibly flinched at the name and swallowed her saliva.

"Why won't you let me go home?"

"Because you have a greater purpose than any of us could've ever imagined. So we're leaving tonight, and we're taking you with us."

"We?" Isabella pushed herself off the wall.

"Yes, we, Isabella. Look," Marlene sighed and got up off the door, huddling closer to Belle to avoid Ellie's wandering ears. "I know you've been sneaking out of the QZ recently. I saw you with the FEDRA officer and I saw how much he helped you improve your shooting and hand-to-hand combat, and that is what I need on my side. We get Ellie to those doctors...and we save the whole fucking world."

Isabella exhaled deeply and held eye contact with the firefly, her expression unreadable. "What makes you think I'll agree?"

"'Cause you hate this shitty world just as much as I do, maybe more."

Their eyes locked, each holding the other's gaze, searching for answers in the depths of their souls. The intensity between them was electric, the silence speaking volumes. In that moment, they both knew the answer. What they didn't know was the outcome.

"Marlene?" Someone new peaked their head into the room, "Robert's here with the battery."

Breaking eye contact, Marlene nodded over to the firefly. "Isabella, you stay here with Ellie, when we get the battery from Robert we leave, got it?" She nodded.

"Awh c'mon man, don't I get a say in this?" Ellie complained from the floor, not making an effort to stand up. Both women looked at her.

"No." They answered at the same time.

Marlene gave Isabella the key to Ellie's chains and left the room. Leaving the two parties in an