A/N: It's a long one. Total of 6,000 words. Enjoy!

Heavy eyelids blinked slowly to life, and subsided breathing laboured into a quickened pace, Joel awoke a day later, reacting fast as he moved too quickly.

He flinched at his wound, cupping a hand where the spike had gone through. Sparing a glance around the room, he found himself in a basement.

Alone.

"Ellie...?" Joel called out, carefully picking himself up, "Y/N...?"

He received nothing but the wind, and his own ragged breathing.

"Ellie!? Y/N!?"

He staggered as he moved, collapsing to the floor as he did, his gaze looking upon his backpack stored in the corner with all his gear. He forced himself to move despite the pain, and grabbed the bag, hefting it on his shoulder, and headed to the stairs.

"Where are you two...?"

Opening the door once he climbed the stairs, Joel steadied himself on the kitchen counter, hand at the freezing table top. Winter. He had been out for weeks, dripping in and out of consciousness.

Except now he was awake.

He made his way to the garage and gingerly reached for the handle, pulling the door up and he was greeted by the snowy landscape and harsh winds that cut bitterly. He needed to find them, and fast.

Pushing through the neighbourhood, it was deathly quiet. Any sign of what had transpired hours before was gone with the bodies, blood and guts washed away by snow and ice, and despite that, Joel felt something in the air.

And it wasn't good.

"Ellie! Y/N!" He shouted out to them, worried in his heart and fire in his voice, he wouldn't forgive himself if anything happened to them.

It was his job to protect them, not the other way around.

"There he is!"

A couple raiders appeared before him, pressed between the street of wrecked vehicles and houses, each brandishing melee weapons and the odd firearms.

"Shit."

Joel equipped his shotgun from his back and went to town, ducking behind a wrecked sedan, he fired at them. Killing one of the raiders, the rest of them squirmed in fear and pushed to attack him.

"Where are they!?" Joel raged, hands rough and voice scratchy as he killed another raider that rushed him, a machete through the man's neck, clean through. "One way or another, you're gonna tell me!"

No matter what he said, the raiders were nothing but loyal, rather focused on killing him than uttering pleas. Joel gunned them down, making quick work of them as he moved on, rushing further and further down the street from where they came.

Ducking into an alleyway between a set of houses, Joel heard the scraping of boots against the iced courtyard ahead of him. Lighting up a smoke bomb, he threw it as far as he could, landing dead centre between three more hostiles. It soon followed with an explosion of smoke that had them coughing up their lungs, stunned and distracted.

Joel barrelled right into them, shotgun in hand he blasted the first and turned his head to pure red mush, before turning to his buddy and firing into his chest. The body went diving into the snow, as the last one recovered and went to hit him with a bat, only for Joel to block it with his shotgun. A kick to his legs, he knocked the man over, and smashed the butt of the gun into his head, again and again, until the man moved no longer...

With the raiders dealt with, Joel hurried into the house across the courtyard and made his way through the house. The front door was blocked off, but a window in the kitchen to his left was smashed open. Vaulting out and into the alleyway, he made it to the end, following his earlier action and climbed over the bins in the way.

When his feet touched the ground, he was attacked. Two of them were on him, a raider grabbed him from behind as his buddy approached him with a knife.

"Gotcha, asshole!" Joel wrestled with the man, "Finish him off!"

"Hold him still!--"

The raider was cut short as a heavy kick from Joel found its way into his junk, causing the man to kneel over and collapse, "Ah shit." Before he quickly sent a headbutt backwards into the man holding him still, breaking his nose.

"Son of a bitch."

Joel snarled, grabbing the man by his jacket and shoving him into the wall of the house, with his head colliding against the stone. Turning to the raider who struggled on the ground, he sent a kick to his face and grabbed him.

"You're coming with me."

Dragging the poor bastard off as the other laid unconscious, Joel had a plan to find the kids, and it wasn't gonna be pretty.

For them.

"What do you want?"

It wasn't long before Joel had them where he wanted them, one of them tied down in a chair shitting himself while the other was being beaten to an inch of his life, punch after punch, until he spilled what he knew.

"What the fuck?"

Sending a final fist into the man's face, Joel backed off, "You stay here," He didn't bother with his hand, knuckles bloodied and cut from the force of his attacks. He grabbed a knife and a chair for himself and sat across from the terrified man. "Now... the boy and the girl, are they alive?"

The man shook uncontrollably, "What boy and girl? I don't know no--" He screamed out in pain as a knife found it's way into his kneecap, twisting in untold pain. "Fuck!"

"Focus right here. Right here. Or I'll pop your goddamn knee off." Joel threatened, a dark look in his eyes. "Now, the boy, and the girl."

Biting at his lip hard enough to draw blood, the man let go and nodded, "They're alive. They're David's newest pets."

"Where?"

Screams of pain only intensified as he said nothing.

"In the town. In the town!"

Joel lifted the knife and placed the handle in the guy's mouth, and showed him the map, "Now you're gonna mark it on the map. And it better be the exact spot your buddy points to. Mark it."

"It's right there. You can verify it. Go ask him. Go on..." He squirmed in his seat, pissing himself as he did. "He'll tell ya. I ain't lyin'. I ain't lyin',"

Wrapping his arms around him, Joel snapped his neck and ended his life, as his buddy by the wall looked up at him, barely clinging to life as he spoke.

"Fuck you, man. He told you what you wanted to know." Joel grabbed a metal pipe from the floor and approached him. "I ain't telling you shit."

"That's alright. I believe him."

Goodbye forever...

"No, wait!--"

—

"Wake-y, wake-y."

Ellie was rudely awoken the next morning, manhandled roughly by James, who dragged her from her cell kicking and squirming as she fought against him.

"Come on,"

Grabbing at the chains with cold hands, Ellie struggled against him, "Let go!" Digging into the spot, she spotted David out of the corner of her eye approaching them.

"Get—"

James shoved Ellie forced, causing to fall directly into David, and so she took a chance at fighting back. Her teeth sunk into David's hand when he grabbed her. He shouted in pain, and pulled back his hand, when she didn't relent he kicked her right between her thighs, knocking the wind out of her. The two of them dragged her onto the chopping table, slamming her down roughly holding her in place.

"I warned you," David said, as he brandished a butcher knife and prepared to swing and cut her up, just like he promised—

"I'm infected!" Ellie pleaded out, shaking as the man stalled his strike, "I'm infected!"

David, for the first time, looked baffled, "Really?"

Huffing, Ellie stared directly into his eyes, her gaze unwavering, "...and so are you." He scoffed at her, disbelief on his face. "Right there. Roll up my sleeve. Look at it!"

"I'll play along."

Ellie flinched when the blade was stabbed into the table an inch before her face. He pulled her sleeve up and thus revealed the infected bite on her arm. The two men stepped back in shock, unable to truly believe it.

"What'd you say?" Ellie kept her face calm, while inside her heart was beating faster and faster. "Everything happens for a reason, right?"

James was confused, angry, scared, all of them. He pointed at the wound, "What the Hell is that?"

"She would've turned by now." David reassured him, "It can't be real."

"Looks pretty fucking real to me!"

Ellie edged her hand close to the butcher knife when David turned to examine his hand, distracted and off guard, She grabbed the knife and leaped upwards, stabbing the large blade into Jame's chest, and killing him.

Quickly she rolled off the table to James' dying body, as David pulled his revolver and fired towards her, the bullets ricocheting and splintering into the wooden table she had just been lying on.

Picking herself up, she ran, with David shooting after her as she shoved past a hanging meat that she didn't even need to guess was human, and rushed to cover behind a concrete wall, pressing her back to it.

Ellie turned to her right, and couldn't believe her luck. She grabbed her pocket knife from the shelf, pulling it out of the wood. "Okay." Her eyes met the open window before her, bringing in the cold winter wind.

A storm was brewing...

Immediately she dashed to the window and climbed out, shoes sinking into the snow she breathed in, calming herself.

"Shit. Oh man." Ellie held a hand up to her face, shielding her sight, "What the fuck is wrong with these people?"

"Where ya going, Ellie?" Gunshots landing next to her, Ellie sprinted ahead into the storm through the alleyway until she made it to a door that was unlocked. "This is my town!"

Stepping inside, she closed the door behind her and greeted the room with an air of cautiousness. Cages, used for animals she guessed, were stacked high, and a medical stretcher blocked her only way out.

"I need a gun." Ellie murmured as she grabbed the stretcher and began pulling it out of the way, "Okay, I can do this." Once it was clear she crouched past the wooden boards covering the door and into the next room she was. "Just need to find Y/N... and get out of here."

The room she found herself in was a store of some kind, empty shelves and glass tinted windows covered the place. Outside, she could see the storm raging hard, and soon enough, the hurried and distorted voices.

"Infected!"

Ellie moved beside a window, peering out carefully, David and a couple of his buddies were shitting themselves out in the cold.

"What?"

"The girl. She's infected, and she got out."

Another spoke up, this time a woman, "This is bad, David."

"Alright, I need you to round up everyone that isn't armed, and get 'em clear out of here." David ordered, pacing back and forth. "We're gonna find that girl, and we're gonna kill her."

Moving out of the store, Ellie vaulted through another open window, and found it covered by a gate. Cursing, she snuck into the next building, as David and his group members pushed on by her in a hurry.

"Oh my God. I'll take the kids to the shelter."

Ellie covered by another shelf unit, breathing out hard, "These fucking monsters have kids?"

"What about the other one? The boy?" Her eyes widened and ears followed, listening intently.

"Kill him," David told the last guy as the lady ran off in a hurry, "He's too much of a hassle to be left alive. Once he's taken care of I want you to join the rest, find this girl and put a stop to her."

The man nodded and left, and David moved out. Only his other cronies left who fanned out in all directions, intending on finding Ellie for good and putting her down.

"Oh fuck." Taking her approach slow and steady, Ellie made it to the backroom and climbed out of the window, back into the storm as the raiders pushed on into the store she had been in. "Y/N, where are you..." She looked around, the place was an absolute maze, visibility was down and the cold didn't help. "Fuck."

With no choice but to traverse the storm, Ellie snuck on through the alleyway until she was right in front of the store. Bypassing the ones inside, her steps took her ahead past a school bus, and so she stopped to rest.

She couldn't make out much, some buildings surrounding her, abandoned vehicles, and the stray outlines of raiders marching through the storm.

If she couldn't hear them, they couldn't hear her.

She had a chance.

Looking up, she eyed a final building further into town, only visible by the light inside that caught her eye, clearly painting a beacon of light through the storm.

A way forward...

'That's as good a place as any to search...'

Hand gripping tight at her switchblade, Ellie gradually sneaked through the storm.

Crouched and moving nimble, her legs bent ever low as she passed by numerous of David's people. All of them searching for her, and calling out to each other, their intent clear by the fear in their voices.

They were damn right to be afraid...

"Fuck, I don't see her!"

"Keep looking! She's gotta be here somewhere!"

Ellie stopped by a wrecked car, her heavy breathing matched only by the roaring of the wind. There was a guy in her way, metal pipe in hand, and another that peeled off, heading west.

She needed to get there, fast.

Approaching the man from behind, she lunged forward and jumped on his back, stabbing her knife into his neck, followed by another, until he was no longer alive. Dead on the ground, Ellie wiped away the blood on her jeans and moved on ahead, quicker this time.

It didn't take her long to sneak by the rest, making it to the building she spotted the light burning from inside through the window more clearly this time. Turning to her life, she eyed the open window and took to it, climbing the dumpster that was left below it.

Vaulting into the building as fast as she could, Ellie breathed in, already feeling the approaching warmth from the shelter of the storm. The room she found herself in, it was an office, of a much larger restaurant. Carefully she walked through, clutching at her knife as her gaze wandered the place.

It was larger, larger than any room she'd seen at all in this town. Candles and lanterns lit the place, providing a source against the cold darkness. But other than that, she didn't see Y/N.

In fact, she saw nobody.

It was empty.

"Shit."

Ellie shoved her disappointment down and rushed to an exit, a simple door covered in window panes, dusty and old.

She'd search this whole town if she had.

Reaching out, she grabbed the handle and opened the door, stepping out into the winter storm once more—

"You're easy to track."

Suddenly she was grabbed, David appeared before her, leaping out from the outside and shoving her in. Hands roughly grabbing at her own, he threw her aside before she could stab him. Knocking her to the ground alongside a lit lantern that smashed upon the carpet that began to spew out flames.

"How did you do it?" Either oblivious, or simply not caring, David ignored the spreading fire. Instead he focused on Ellie as she backed and hid behind a set of leather chairs. "That's alright. There's nowhere to go."

Cursing, Ellie rounded the great array of leather seats that seemed to spread far and wide between the restaurant. Using it as cover, she held her knife and sneaked around, as David taunted her constantly.

"You can't hide, Ellie. I'll find you eventually."

Gulping, she snuck around as fast and quiet as she could, mindfully avoiding the broken glass in her way, until she was right behind him. Acting fast, Ellie attacked him by jumping on his back, only for him to struggle. She missed her mark and instead stabbed him in the shoulder.

He groaned in pain, throwing her off him and sent her crashing to the floor. She quickly scampered off, narrowly avoiding the shots as he fired the last of his revolver's round at her cover.

"That was good, kid." David dropped his empty gun, and pulled out a machete from his back sheethe. "It's gonna be alright."

Neither of them paid attention to the fire that was beginning to rapidly grow out of control. Not as their cat and mouse game continued, Ellie ducking her head as she ran to the kitchen, vaulting through the serving hatch.

"You won't get far, Ellie." David taunted. "Sooner or later, life will always catch up to you."

'God will you ever shut the fuck up.'

Ellie grabbed an empty glass bottle from the kitchen counter and snuck through the open door to her right.

David wasn't far from her, coming her way with a look of pure uncontested and vilified determination.

Glass bottle in hand, Ellie leaped out of cover and aimed for David, the man about to speak but was suddenly thrown off, as the bottle shattered across his face, stunning him.

Quickly, Ellie rushed him and jumped, her knife stabbing right through into his upper torso, causing him to scream out in real pain. He thrashed about wildly, knocking her into a countertop that had her losing her grip.

David, with all his might, grabbed her and threw her forward. Knocking the both of them to the ground and into a state of unconsciousness.

As the fire around them reached its critical point of no return...

—

Ten Minutes Earlier...

Y/N had never felt so powerless, so helpless, in all his years alone.

Ever since he had joined Joel and Ellie on their adventure, their journey to the Fireflies. He had known nothing but the cold and everlasting embrace of pain, fear, doubt, and guilt.

And yet, a small part of him had relished in it

Before Ellie, before Joel, before all that came before, he had been surviving endlessly. In a sea of death and destruction without a boat. A creak of shit without a paddle. And skydiving without a parachute.

Except now, Ellie and Joel, they had become a beacon of light for him in a storm. They had become the boat, the paddle, the parachute. All of them that held him tight in a world led astray by the cruelties of man.

And here he was, hanging from the ceiling upside down, his hands held together by zip ties, left to rot in a storage room that smelled of blood and death.

Literally.

He looked up from the ground, his blurry right eye working as best as it could given his other was blocked, and eyed the string of corpses long since dead. Men, women, perhaps even children. All strung up on hooks waiting to be cut up into meals.

And he was next...

They took their survival seriously, he gathered. Too seriously. He remembered what it was like to be hungry, to starve. It drove people to the edge. He had been at that edge many times. Wallowing away, broken down by the darkness of the world.

Yet he was here, trapped and baited, waiting to be slaughtered like cattle. That was all he was to them. Food. Nothing more, nothing less. It made him angry, boiling over with rage. To be viewed as property. Pain coursing through him only proved to double it.

Lowering his gaze to the floor, he shivered. Storage room was on ice, preserving the meat. Preserving him. The numbing of the cold did little to hide his pain. His face burned and ached, the taste of copper in his mouth. While his body fought against itself, begging him to move. And his left hand, swelled and bruised, his index finger broken completely.

Y/N couldn't see a way out.

Not now.

Not ever.

Failure leaking into his aching heart, he stiffed and trembled, a piece of him dying as he accepted the reality of the situation. He recalled Sam asking him once before, back at the radio tower all those months ago. He asked what he was afraid of.

Of course, he had given him a bullshit answer. How he had been afraid of death. Of dying. Leaving this world behind for something better or worse.

That had been a lie. One he had told himself many times. But as he hung in defeat, shackled to the ceiling that held him up. He confessed, death did not scare him.

What did, was his absence of fear for Death itself...

Time and time again, he had tried to embrace death, each time prolonging at the edge, awaiting a release that never came. One thing or another had held him back. His need for control, his vanity for his own way out.

Ellie and Joel who guided him from the ledge, there were markers in his story book, his drawings that carried him forward. They did not allow him to meet the end of the chapter, the end of a fruitful, and yet, tiresome labour that led to nothing but self destruction and crippling despair.

They, the ones that had come to know him, to regard him as a friend and an ally, did not wish to see him go so soon...

Death should scare him.

It should frighten him, it should terrify him, and most of all, it should push him back from the edge of the abyss.

Instead, all it did was remind him of those he lost, and those he still had yet to lose...

Ellie and Joel had wormed their way into his cold, stone-like heart. They had smashed it to pieces, lit it afire, and cast a one way mirror to what had once laid on the other side.

Happiness, friendship, love. All had been shunned from his heart the day the fire destroyed what was left. Now leaving a heart half open, one foot in the light and the other in the dark.

They had made him care...

And this was how he repaid them. His eye once again settled upon the room he was captured in.

Surrounded by ghosts and death itself.

Y/N barely wheezed out a chuckle, humour gone from his body, as fear settled in, and scared him true...

He had never felt...

So defeated.

So alone.

So powerless.

Since the day he lost them all...

"It's not the end, you know?"

Y/N lifted his head at the voice, his blurred vision catching a dark shadow out of the corner of his eye.

"Not here, not now. Not ever."

The upside down figure came into the light, it was a woman, her voice rich and full of life.

"The Y/N I knew wouldn't lay down and die in a meat locker."

She circled around him, dancing almost as her eyes pierced into his soul.

"Not without a goddamn fight."

Breathing in a gulp of air, Y/N's working eye began to tear up. Rachel stared right back at him.

He hadn't seen her in weeks.

Nightmares, flashbacks, they had avoided her like the plague. Only Joel and Ellie had graced his sleepless nights, worry and doubt in their eyes as he fought to stay alive, to keep them alive.

And now, here she was, her face staring up at him, her familiar earthly scent that he'd never forget.

He knew she wasn't real, not really. A trick of the wind, a figment of his imagination and the trauma deep within him. She'd told him of such, back at the school, what it meant to be scarred deep down in the soul.

And despite all of that, despite his rationality and his logic.

He didn't give a damn.

"Rachel," Y/N murmured, slowly raising his eye to her. "What are you — doing h-here?"

Rachel rolled her eyes, "I'm here to knock some sense into you, idiot." She leant against the countertop of the room, "Cuz, it seems like somebody's giving up."

Y/N irked his nose at her, dread in his gut, "I'm not..." he looked away, his eyes burning. "...I'm not giving up."

"No?" Rachel asked, an eyebrow raised. She gestured to the room they were in, the bodies, and lastly him hanging upside down. "The fuck do you call this?"

"It's called: bite me." Y/N glared.

He wanted to get out. He really did. But what could he do? He was useless.

"Ooh, I'm so scared." Rachel cackled, putting on a voice for him. "God, you really haven't changed. Not a bit." She circled around him again. "I remember when you first got to the school, you were so timid and scared."

He felt something crack inside him at that, something that began to boil over.

"The others wouldn't so much as look at you, never mind talk to you." Rachel carried on, fuelling a pit of rage inside him. "I remember how it made you feel, you told me so. You remember what you said?"

Y/N closed his working eye, his breaths coming faster now.

Of course, he remembered.

He'd never forget...

"It pissed me off."

Smiling, Rachel stopped and walked up to him, cupping a gentle callous hand at his cheek. He could almost feel it if he imagined...

"It made you vulnerable, it made you sad, it made you angry, and most of all, it made you... weak." She didn't miss the way his eye glared. "So. Darn. Weak."

Y/N felt his hands shake, his vision blurring as all he saw was red, "I'm not... weak."

"You're not, Y/N." Rachel removed her hand from his cheek. "I know you're not." She lowered her gaze, "Do you? Do your friends? How about Joel? Or Ellie? How do you think she looks at you?"

He was silent as she spoke.

"Does she look at you and see a weak boy? Small? Afraid? Broken?" Each one was like a stab in the heart as her voice rose higher with each word. "Someone that people can push around like a little fucking bitch!?—"

"No!" Y/N rasped out, struggling in his shackles, left to rot, left to die. "They don't... I know they don't." He stared at her, his working eye widened. "They would've... left me behind months — ago."

Rachel smiled brightly, "Or you would've left them." She pointed at him. "But that's not who you are, is it? Not anymore. You've gotten too close, like you always said. And now, you're trapped. Isolated. Lost. Away from your friends." His rage was replaced by calamity. "They've taken them from you. Took her from you. Are you really gonna let them get away with it?"

"No." Y/N said, as loud as he could muster. "I won't... I can't." He felt his heart cool, and his fear was replaced with hard determination. "I won't lose... a second family. Never again."

"I thought so." Rachel smirked, her hand at his face one last time, "Now..." she knelt down at his side, staring him deep in the eyes, before turning to his limp hand, and broken finger, "What the fuck are you going to do about it?"

Sighing out of his nose, Y/N was filled with a new sense of courage that hadn't been there before. A new purpose, something that melted away and revealed a stretch of his own beating heart.

He wasn't going to die here. He wasn't going to let Death have him, and he certainly wasn't going to lose his fucking friends again.

Forcing himself to move his left hand, it immediately caused him to screech out in pain.

"F-fuck!"

And instead of relenting, he pushed further. With his broken finger, they had loosened his zip ties, leaving a little room to wiggle out, but it wouldn't be enough. He pressed forward, body swinging back and forth, grinding his teeth as the pain coursed through him further.

With whatever strength and momentum he had left, he reached out with his tied hands and grabbed the top of the ceiling where his feet were shackled by the same zips. He breathed out, body bent upwards as he held on, staying in place.

"Okay," Y/N pushed his middle finger into the zips that were wrapped around a meat hook. "No pain, no gain." He closed his eyes, and dug in, his middle finger against the hook.

And twisted it.

"F-fuuuuc-ck!"

His middle finger dislocated on impact, snapping backwards as he applied the necessary force needed to break free. It sent him arching back down, the pain too much. But he churned through it, finally allowing himself to pull his hand free from his binds.

With one step closer, he turned his attention to his right hand, and grabbed it with his left. His movement freed he simply snapped it, the binds dropping to the floor.

Breathing in, he gulped for as much air as he could, before he performed his earlier task and reached his shackled feet once again.

Thud!

Y/N dropped to the ground, his back groaning and body aching as he did. His legs like jelly, he dragged himself over to the counter, and used it to steady and uproot himself. He could see the door, not far from him now.

Once the counter ended, he forced himself to walk the rest of the way, a couple metres between him and escape. Legs numb, bruised and aches, he fell again. Groaning face first on the floor. He crawled and crawled, shame and dignity out the window, until he stopped at the door.

"Fuck," Y/N pulled himself up, hands steadying himself on the wall. "If Ellie ever —" he coughed, "— ever finds out about this. I'll never hear the end of it." Bracing himself, he went to reach for the handle, when he noticed it began to turn. "Fuck."

"Guess it's your lucky day, kid." The raider stepped in from the cold, rubbing at his hands as he closed the door behind him. "David says you gotta kick the..." he stopped, having turned to face the room. "What the fuck—"

He lashed out immediately, grabbing the man from behind even as his legs began to drop from pressure. Arms wrapped around his neck, the man thrashed in his grip.

Y/N squeezed as hard as he could, his left hand burning with pain, but was soon elbowed in his ribs. It caused him to let go, the flaring of his ribs sent him kneeling to the floor.

The raider followed him, coughing and wheezing for air, on his knees and hands at the cold ground. He pulled his revolver from his pocket and tried to fire, the shot going wide as Y/N lunged at him. Hands at the man's gun, he fought for it, thrashing back and forth, until he managed to get it as far as he could, and fire.

Bang!

Whimpering on the ground, the raider was knocked back and a hand to his shoulder, blood pooling out of the wound. Y/N dropped the empty gun, and his eyes lowered to the man's belt.

A hunting knife.

His knife.

Reaching for it, the man tried to stop him by grabbing his hands but it was too late. Y/N pulled it from the belt and guided it down right into the man's kneecap, and twisted it violently.

He screamed out in agony, a blood curdling scream and a sobbing that only sent Y/N further over the edge.

Y/N pulled it out, and plunged it into his gut, and then again, and again. Savagely gutting the man like a fish until there was nothing to hear but his own laboured breathing...

"Fuck. Me..." Y/N pulled his knife free, and collapsed on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He eagerly climbed to his feet and went to the door, falling as he clutched onto the handle.

Opening up the door, he fell forward into the snow, face numbing as the cold smothered him. He looked up, and spotted a building on fire. A huge inferno of smoke and brimstone.

His mind raced, heart and body aching, it reminded him of the school in all its trauma. His hands began to sweat and clam up, an anxiety attack pumping through him as his trauma set off. And yet, as Y/N climbed to his feet and his face set into a firm expression of resolve, he pushed on.

He did not run, he did not cower, and he certainly did not fucking stand by and watch.

Y/N rushed into Hell itself...

—

Ellie woke up from unconsciousness with a crushing headache. And the first thing she noticed was the fire. She looked to her right, and saw David, barely coming to.

Coughing, she turned her gaze, and spotted the machete not far off from, lodged under table and chairs just ahead of her.

If she could reach it...

Struggling, she crawled on her stomach, dragging her legs as she made her across the red carpet. Until suddenly she was kicked in the stomach, she grimaced and let out a pained shout.

David stood over her, red in his eyes.

"I knew you had heart," He stared her down, the fire blazing behind him. "Y'know, it's okay to give up. Ain't no shame in it."

Ellie ignored him, and pushed forward.

"I guess not," David kicked her again, "Just ain't your style, is it?" He grabbed her from behind, his voice at her ear as he slammed her face into the hard floor. "You can try beggin'."

Ellie squirmed, "Fuck you." His weight trapping her down, his oily voice and breathing on her neck, it sent a fear she had never known through her body.

David gripped her, throwing her around until she faced him, "You think you know me? Huh?" She struggled to breathe as his hands wrapped around her neck. Her eyes glossed over, her body shaking and fear running. "Well, let me tell you somethin'. You have no idea what I'm capable of."

Hand reaching out desperately, Ellie cupped at the machete's handle and pulled it free. In a staggered motion, she swung hard, and David's arm caught in the way, the blade sinking into his flesh.

The man screamed, screamed out in pain for help or mercy, and Ellie offered him absolutely nothing but death.

He rolled over onto his back, as Ellie swung again, the blade sinking into his face, killing him. But she swung a second time, and a third, and another, until his voice would leave her head. Controlled by fear and pain, and desperation, she screamed and shouted them all out for no one but herself.

She did not stop.

Swing after swing, she couldn't stop.

She wouldn't...

"Ellie!"

Even as the cold and brittled arms wrapped around her from behind, she thrashed in their grip, unwavering.

"Stop! Stop!"

"No!" Ellie screamed, her eyes full of tears and blood covering her head to toe. "Don't fucking touch me!"

"It's me, it's me. Ellie, it's me."

Ellie fought back, "No!—"

Y/N gently turned her to him, the bruised and blackened face lit up in the fire, as a tear-stricken and bloodied Ellie stared back at him.

"Look. Look," Y/N's eyes were wide, his hands wrapped around her as she stared back in shock and disbelief, sniffing a cry. She thought he was gone... "It's me."

Ellie collapsed into him, shakened up and exhausted, "He tried to — Y/N, he—"

She couldn't get it out, the thought too unbearable to voice, even as Y/N pulled her in, tightening so she'd never let go.

"Oh, — E-ellie." Y/N's voice broke, his own hands shaking as he cradled her in a hug, comforting with the full force of his body.

"Y/N..." Ellie pressed herself into his jacket, cheek against his rapid heartbeat, a sob leaving her lips.

"You're gonna be okay." Y/N calmed her, guiding to her feet. "Shh." As the fire above them got out of control, to the door they made it, and as they stepped outside, Joel came rushing towards them.

"Y/N! Ellie!"

The older man wrapped his arms around them, looking between their bloodied and injured states, as the fire from the building sent it burning down, leaving behind the Hell on Earth...

"Oh — kiddos..."

A/N:...