( gif by ; -tzarrion )

━ CHAPTER FIFTEEN ...

' left behind '

The wind was howling loudly, as birds were cawing and making noises in a small town that was abandoned, and covered in snow from top to bottom. A long the snowy road, a trail of blood was leading towards one of the houses inside that town.

Inside the garage of the house, supplies, bags and weapons were dropped down inside, along with two horses who were making noises, and shaking the snow off their heads, as they waited patiently.

Further inside the house, a familiar male's voice was screaming out in pain, and in one of the lower rooms were the sisters, who had the wounded Joel laying on a matters.

(Y/N) had found some white cloth material, as she hastily rips some of it off, and lifts up Joel's shirt to see all the blood on him, and the stab.

She presses the cloth on the wound, as Joel winces badly and it made her gently shushing him with teary eyes, "I know, I know."

He grips her shirts sleeve tighty, as he clenches up in agony and tries not to yell out again, while she put pressure on the wound, "You gotta go, leave." He rasped lowly, as he turns his gaze to her teary one.

"No, no." She shakes her head frantically, biting down on her bottom lip as she keeps her gaze on his bloody side, while Ellie was trying to look for more material.

"Take the gun-" He tries again weakly, as his hand hovers over her arm, wanting to touch her but didn't knowing it would be harder to let go.

"Joel, shut up! We're not leaving!" She exclaims loudly over his words, as that wasn't even an option for her, and knew she could never leave him now.

However, no matter how weak Joel was, he reaches out his trembling hands and gips her jackets collars, pulling her down towards his face. She made a surprised noise at the sudden pull, and placed her hands on his wrists.

"You go. You two go north." He whispered forcefully, as he gently tugs on her collars for emphasis, "You got to Tommy, you go." His jaw wobbled a little bit, and he shoves her back away from him, as she lands on the floor with a lost expression.

(Y/N) stares at Joel with a disbelieving look, thinking he was insane that he was asking her to leave now, after everything that's happened. The two of them stared at each other, while Joel's breathing turned shallow, and the girl finally stood up from the floor.

Ellie gives her sister a confused look, as she stood up beside her, and went to touch her arm, but (Y/N) moved towards Joel's bed, and pulled up his brown coat to cover his body, tucking it gently under his chin.

He dark eyes didn't move away from as this happened, and she looked up when she squatted down beside him, with a melancholy face, and a heavy heart.

She reached her hand up towards his face, one that wasn't covered in his blood and softly cupped the side of his face. She rubbed her thumb slowly over his cheek, as he somewhat went to lean into her touch with longing eyes gazing at her.

(Y/N)'s eyes filled with tears seeing this, letting the touch linger on him as Ellie came over to touch her shoulders, and the girl pulled back away from Joel with her head low, and didn't turn back around as she stormed up the stairs with her sister following.

Joel's heart throbbed as he watched them, her leave and a single, broken tears falls free from his eyes, as it runs down his cheek that she touched.

...

The girls had made it to the first floor of the house, as (Y/N) lingers in the doorway to where Joel was, and wipes away her tears under her eyelashes, as she pushes the door open to upstairs, already knowing what she was about to do.

Like hell she was going to leave him.

...

( BEFORE )

Inside a buildings gym which was a massive hall, a group of teens were running around in circles, all wearing the same thing as Ellie was one of these teens.

She wore a gym suit, as she had her sisters music walker playing with the headphones on, as the tune filled her ears as she ran.

She was going well with running and keeping up, until someone had came behind her and stole the headphones off her head, causing the music to stop.

"Give 'em back!" Ellie yelled angrily at the teen in front of her, seeing it was the bully named Bethany.

"Then pick up your pace." Bethany hisses back to her, and moves to stand in front of Ellie, "I'm not running doubles again because of your shitty attitude."

Ellie rolls her eyes at the girl, looking across the room to spot the guards, and sighs, "I don't wanna fight about it."

"Fight about it? You don't fight." Bethany smugly smirks, a confident look on her face as she squares Ellie up, "Your sister and friend fights. Your sister's not here right now, and your friend's not here anymore."

"Yeah, think again bitch."

A pissed off, familiar voice suddenly talks behind Bethany, which has her spinning around and eyes going wide spotting (Y/N) there, who tilted her head and went to aim a punch directly to her face.

And at that, chaos erupted.

...

(Y/N) sighs to herself as she was leaning her head back in the chair, she sat in and had a black eye from the fight that just happened. She wasn't planning on getting into a fight, but she had enough of Ellie getting picked on.

She lifted her head up from the position, and glanced around the room she was in, which was a office that belonged to Captain Kwong.

The sound of the door opening caught her attention, as the same male walks into the room and takes a seat at the chair behind the desk. He places his folded hands in front of him, and gave the girl a knowing look.

"What's goin' on?" Kwong questioned her seriously, "You've never been not-well behaved, but the last few weeks?"

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, as she folded her arms cover the grey jumper she wore, "Bethany was picking on Ellie, she started it."

"Well, Bethany's in the infirmary with 17 stitches." He informs her quietly.

"Good," She mumbles with a slight prideful smirk, as Kwong leans up more in his chair with his eyebrows raised, "Just put me in the bloody hole."

"I put in the hole three times, it doesn't work." He reminds her, "So I'm gonna try something new." Kwong hears her make a confused sound, and he tells her, "I'm gonna tell you the truth. You're smart, (Y/N). You're so smart, but can be so stupid when it comes to Ellie."

She just stares at him unbothered, and raises her nose in the air, while folding her shoe over the other one.

"You can't see where this is going? Let me help you out." He continues on seeing her bored look, "Two paths ahead of you." He grabs his mug and places it next to his pencil holder, "First path. You keep acting like a grunt, so you get the life of a grunt. Up at dawn. Walk the streets, walk the wall. Ya eat shit food, ya do shit jobs, ya take shit orders from your patrol leader, who'll probably be Bethany. And that'll be your life from now until ya catch a bullet from a Firefly, or fall drunk off a roof, or get your hair caught in a moving tank tread."

(Y/N) hums at his long explaining rant, and raises her eyebrows unimpressed at first path option. She only ever got into trouble for her sister, or their best friend, who wasn't here right now. But, it seemed Ellie was a trouble chaser and the older girl would take the fallout.

"There's the other path." Kwong places his keys on the desk, as he points to it on the papers, "You swallow this protective side of yours. You follow the rules. You become an officer. You get your own room. You get a nice bed. We eat well. We don't go on patrol. We're cool in the summer. We're warm in the winter. And best of all, when you're an officer, you get to tell the Bethany's of the world exactly where to shove it."

She ponders on his honest words, fiddling with her jumpers material as she tilts her head, and frowns, "Why do you even care?"

He stares at her for a few seconds, before glancing out of the window to outside, "I care because no matter what anyone out there says or thinks...we're the only thing holding this all together. If we go down, the people in the zone will starve or murder each other. That much I know." He turns back to look at the quiet girl, "There's a leader in you. And one day, it could be your turn... Or not."

(Y/N)'s eyes flickered back to his, giving him a narrowed stare as she clenches her jaw, already knowing this leader thing wasn't for her.

"So which way?"

...

Later that same day, it was now thundering and raining heavily outside as Ellie was inside her and (Y/N)'s room currently waiting for her older sister to get back.

The younger girl felt guilty that (Y/N) had to get into trouble again, because she was only defending her. However, Ellie knew that her sister wouldn't want her to blame herself for what happened, and decided to read the comic book they had been reading together.

She was peacefully reading it in their double bed, as the sound of the rain outside helped smoothed her worries away. Though, the dorm guard yelling lights out interrupted the peacefulness.

Ellie hesitated whether to turn them off, as the side of the bed where (Y/N) would normally was empty, and she still wasn't back from her job. She only reaches for the lamp when the dorm guard bangs on the door, "Turn 'em off!"

She sighs with slumped shoulders, pulling the sheets over her as she flicks off the light swtich, hoping her sister would be back soon before sunlight.

As Ellie falls asleep in the double bed, a shadow of a figure comes up to the rooms window, and slides it open as they hope inside the sisters bedroom, quietly.

The figure approaches the sleeping Ellie, and places their hand over her mouth, which has her waking up and struggling against the hold. She pushes the person away with a grunt, causing the figure to land on the ground, grunting also.

Ellie fumbles for the lightswitch, and reaches for her sisters knife, flipping it open with heavy breathing. She holds up the weapon to the person, who held a hand out with a groan.

"Ow." The person winces, and this was none other than Riley, the sisters best friend who's been gone for a while now.

"Riley! Where have you been?" Ellie exclaimed loudly, as the said girl shushes her frantically, "What the fuck is wrong with you, sneaking up on me like that?"

"It was a joke, okay?" Riley brushes off her complaining, as she grumbles with disappointment, "I thought it would work better. In my mind, you loved it." She goes to stand up from the ground, and realises that the older sister was missing, which worried her, "Where's your sister?"

"She's still doing a job, but other than that I don't know." Ellie mumbles to her, also deeply concerned about her sibling, but knew she could take care of herself. Ellie now glares a little at Riley, "We thought you were dead. You've been gone for three weeks." She whispered yelled, and held up the knife, "I should fuckin' stab you."

"No, I appreciate your mercy." Riley holds out her hands a little in surrender, as Ellie places the knife back on the side table, and gives her a disbelieving look, "I'm fine, I just ran away for a bit, that's all."

"If you're going through some shit, you're supposed to, I don't know," Ellie's voice lowers into a gritting one, and shrugs her shoulders, "talk to your best friends about it?"

Riley tight lipped smiled at her, as she took a step forward towards Ellie, "I came back."

Ellie scoffs a little bit, and shakes her head, "Where were you?" She questioned firmly.

Riley sighes to herself, before grabbing her backpack on her shoulders and turned around to face Ellie, "I joined the Fireflies."

"Oh, fuck you." Ellie snorts sarcastically as she didn't believe her, but then saw Riley's serious face, "I'm not in the mood for this, Riley."

Riley lifted up her shirt a little, and showed off the gun placed in her belt, which caused Ellie's eyes to go wide, "You're a Firefly!?"

"Jesus!" Riley exclaimed at her loudness, holding her hands out to signal calm down, "I told you, and your sister I'd fuckin' do it."

"Talking about 'liberating the QZ' is not the same as-" Ellie pauses her words with a frustrated noise, "Where did you even-"

"Slow down, slow down." Riley smoothly says to the stressed girl, "I was planning on telling you, and (Y/N), but she's not here right now, so I'll tell you. But first, you have to promise me something. Sort of crazy, and you're gonna say no, but then you have to say yes."

Ellie gives her a weird look, while nervously playing with her sisters bracelets on her wrists, as she waited for her friend to continue.

"Come with me for a few hours, and have the best night of your life." Riley calmly told her, as she emphasises 'best night', and adds on quickly, "I'll also leave a note for, (Y/N/N), so she can join when she's back."

Ellie automatically shook her head strictly, and turned away from Riley, "No."

"Okay, now say yes."

"I'm not going anywhere with you." Ellie snaps with a grumble, and looks at the clock on the bedside table, "It's great- It's 2:00 am. And in a few hours, I have drills where we learn to kill Fireflies."

Riley simply shrugs her shoulders, and grabs the jumper on the ground, throwing it to Ellie who caught it, "Get dressed."

Ellie was hesitant to do so, knowing her sister would be told where they were going by Riley, but still didn't feel comfortable going without her, "This is so stuipd." She mutters as she starts to get dressed into her casual clothes.

While she was changing, Riley had found a piece of paper and started to write something only (Y/N) would understand on it. Once she had finished, she placed it under one of the music tapes, and walked towards the window, sliding it open to look out.

"Guards?" Ellie questioned suspiciously as she ties up her hair in a ponytail.

"No, 'cause FEDRA's fucking stupid." Riley replied to her, as she head nods at Ellie, "Ready?"

"This better be good." The Williams girl whispered yelled, as she grabs her ready packed backpack, giving one last look over at the bedroom and followed Riley outside the window, hoping (Y/N) would find them soon.

Not knowing what would come to happen.

...

Speaking of where the (H/C) haired girl currently was, she was now walking back to the bedroom with a loud yawn, and groans as she rubs her sore shoulders.

She had just finished training with her bow and arrows, as she this was her so called punishment, even though she was already secretly learning it.

(Y/N) gives the dorm guard walking past her a small smile, and wave, as she gained nothing back, making her wince, and continue walking, "Well, that wasn't very nice."

She walks for a few more seconds, glancing around at the line up of rooms down the quiet hallway, which had all the doors closed. She arrived at her shared bedroom, reaching a hand up to twist the doorknob quietly and slipped into the room, trying not to wake Ellie up.

(Y/N) closes the door behind her softly, leaning her back against it with a heavy sigh, and stands back up to glance over the room, as her eyes land on Ellie's bed.

Her (E/C) eyes go wide with panic seeing her younger sister not there, as well as her backpack gone with the window wide open, "Oh, shit." She curses as she rushes across the room, frantically searching for any sign as to where she went.

As she looks around, something white peeking out from under one of her music tapes caught her attention. She went up to it, brushing her hair behind her ear, as she lifts the tape, and pulls out the piece of paper underneath, frowning confused as she reads it.

GONE TO THE PLACE
WE TALKED ABOUT WITH ELLIE,
COME FIND US WHEN YOU'RE BACK.
- R

"Oh god, no way she brought Ellie there." (Y/N) whispered yelled to herself, as she grips her hair with her spare hand, stressed beyond belief, "Fuck, fuck."

The girl knew where Riley had taken her sister, and also knew how dangerous it was, even if people said there was no infected inside. She didn't believe that though, understanding there was infected everywhere, even in the safest places.

(Y/N) scrunches up the paper in her hand with a low hiss, pushing it into her pants pocket as she bits down harshly on her lower lip. She knew she had to go find them, even if the risk of getting caught and never coming back was high.

She shakes her head, looking down at herself and pointed to where she was looking, "This is a bad idea, but Ellie's out there, so I have to go." She moves towards the cupboard in the room, grabbing her hidden bow inside with her backpack filled with supplies.

She places them all around her shoulders, grunting as she tightens everything around her, and ties her hair in a low ponytail.

Her black boots make tapping sound as she goes over to the window, placing a foot out as she gulps and looks back at the room, having a feeling this would be the last time she'd be back.

So she swallows down all her hesitation, her focus on finding Ellie, and pulled up her jackets hoodie to hide her face, as she jumped out of the window.

...

After many time of hiding and barely escaping the view of the FEDRA guards patrolling, as well as going the way Riley once showed her, (Y/N) had made it to the edge a building, that had the way down to the mall.

She pants out of breath from all the running, and jumping she did to get here, as she uses her sleeve to wipe away the seat, "Jesus, I'm out of shape." She grumbles.

She leans back up from her slouched position, taking a deep breath in as she pulls her back straps more, and kicks down the ladder on the side of the roof, as it slides open for her.

Once she reached the ground with a grunt, she kept low and sneaked around to the opening in the hole towards the mall, praying to god that Ellie and Riley were safe.

(Y/N) holds the edges of the hole, as she squats down and jumps inside of it, landing on the metal cupboards with a bang, and sits on it as she hopes off it to the floor.

She cringes when the slimy water splashed onto her clothes, and flicks it away with a gag, "That's so gross."

She then shines her flashlight around the inside, spotting how some of the power switches were flicked upwards on the electrical grids, which indicated the teens did come through here.

The girl quickly makes her way up the small stairs, using her shoulder to open the door there, and heard loud noises coming from down the hallway.

This made her curse quietly, and rushed towards the noise, as she opened the next door forcefully and came to face the lite up mall.

"Oh, crap."

...

Somewhere in the mall inside one of the shops, which was the halloween dress up one, Ellie and Riley were having the time of their life's.

The two girls chucked away their face masks, as music played from the walkman and they danced together on top of the glass counters, not even aware of the threat that had woken up.

They both jumped around, hands holding each others as their happy laughter filled the air. Right after their loving kiss, they were back and dancing with no care in the world, as the song slowly comes to a stop.

"Ellie! Riley!"

At the sound of a familiar voice, who called their names frantically and loudly, the two pause what they were doing, and turned to see a heavily breathing (Y/N) inside the shop.

"(Y/N)? What's-" Ellie went to question her older sister concerned, but was quickly shut down when she came rushing up to them, and was about to grab the teens, and run.

Though the noise of clanking is now heard in front of them all, as (Y/N) pauses mid grab, and they all snap their heads towards a rack in the shop.

The older girl went to pull out her bow behind her back, but Riley stopped her, and shook her head as she pulled out her gun instead, "Get ready to run with Ellie."

Before she could protest the idea, a infected appeared in front of them with a fierce roar, as Riley fires her gun at it, hitting it in many times and in the leg, "Go! Go! Go!"

(Y/N) grabs her sisters hand in hers, as she helped her off the counters and run ahead with her, as Riley pushed some of the objects inside the shop to slow the infected down.

The older Williams pushes both of the teens girls in front of her, as they continued to flee but the infected appear from the other side of them, and knocked them all down onto the ground.

Riley had lost her gun, as she was somewhat knocked out with Ellie trying to reach for the gun with a dizzy head, while (Y/N) got up with a grunt, making sure to protect the two and gasped as the infected stood up also.

She frantically reaches for one of her arrows sticking out of her bag, and yells as she stabs it into the side of the infected charging at it. The infected had pushed her forcefully against the table, trapping her as it roars at her, and tries to snap its teeth into her arm.

She yells out again, trying to push back against the strong monster as she keeps an arm against its chest, and pulls her arrow out with her other hand, and continuously stabs it in its side, while pushing it back away from her.

(Y/N) kneed the monster away from her, gritting her teeth as she dodges its swipe at her, and gets free from its grasps, but yells panicked when it just tackled her into another rack full of clothes.

Her heart was racing as she swiggles out from underneath the falling clothes, fearful noises escaping her lips as she felt the infected try to grab her feet, "Get the hell off of me, you creep!"

The infected had stumbled her to the ground again, and she kicks the thing in the stomach with a shout. Riley and Ellie appear suddenly, both using their weapons to hit the monster across the face, leading it away from (Y/N).

"Stay away from my sister, fucker!" Ellie yells angrily at the infected, as she stabbed it in its stomach, but it snarled at her and knocked her away, making her stumble and fall over.

(Y/N) was gasping for air as she looks up from the ground, and saw this happened to her little sister. Her eyes go wide with anxiety seeing Riley backed up, and with the infected trying to snap its teeth at her.

She growled under her breath, stumbling her way up with a glare and charged at the infected, her arrow raised as she screams, and stabs it straight into its head, successfully killing it as it drops dead.

Everyone breathed heavily after what just happened, staring at the dead infected as they catch their breath. Ellie scrambles her way to (Y/N), placing a hand on her shoulder as she looks at the infected also, "Holy shit!" She laughs breathily, "You actually killed it!"

When she looked at (Y/N), and Riley for an reaction or agreement, she spotted them both staring with horror at her older sisters arm.

(Y/N) felt her stomach drop drastically as she spots the fresh bite mark on her arm, and hovers her trembling fingers over it, "No...No.."

"(Y/N).." Ellie breathed out with dread, angry tears building up as she grabs her sisters arms, and frantically wipes away the blood from the bite with anguished yells, "No! No! No!"

The (H/C) haired girl stopped her sisters desperate movements, touching her shoulder gently with tears of her own as she turned her gaze to Riley.

Riley had a scared expression on, as she shows them her hand which had a bite mark also, and tears start to fall down her face realising what it meant.

...

(Y/N) rushes up the stairs towards the bathroom in the house, the only thing on her mind was to save Joel as she searches through the cupboards for anything useful.

Ellie was inside the bathroom with her, as she looks also and throws things out when they weren't what they needed, as well as empty.

When nothing was inside the bathroom, they rushed towards the kitchen, and continued on their frantic searching.

"Come on, come on, come on." (Y/N) was mumbling to herself as she rummages through the kitchen, struggling to pull open a jammed in jaw, as she calls Ellie over to help.

...

"You motherfucker!" Ellie was raging badly as she screams, and uses a pole to break and destroy all the countertops inside the shop, "Fuck you! Fuck!"

(Y/N) was sitting on the ground with an arm wrapped around Riley's shoulder, as the younger one leans her head against her shoulder, both listening to Ellie's fury screams.

Both girls who were bit accepted what was going to happen, as they knew nothing could be done, and nothing could save them for their fate.

Ellie, who came down from her rage quit never felt more guilty as she knew (Y/N) only came down here to make sure she was safe. And for that, this is what she got in return. A sentence to death. Ellie couldn't lose her older sister, nor the girl she liked. She couldn't take that.

"There's more stuff over there you can break." Riley weakly tells Ellie, who came to sit down next to (Y/N) with a heaving chest.

"What are we gonna do?" Ellie goes to question hoarsely after a few second, as her older sister wraps her other arm around her shoulder, bringing back girls closer.

"Way I see it, we got two options." Riley starts to talk lowly, head motioning to the quietly sniffling (Y/N), "One...we take the easy way out. It's quick, painless."

(Y/N) shakes her head at Riley's words, gently prying the gun from her hands and placed it in front of them, "No, No...we're not doing that."

Riley sighs with a head nod, and swallows her need to scream, and cry, "Option two..we just keep going."

Ellie stars at Riley with a broken look, a tear falling down her face for the infected two and whimpers, "What are you talking about, Riley? It's over."

"It will be...but not yet." Riley told her firmly, blinking back her burning emotions and sniffles, "It ends this way for everyone sooner or later, right? Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don't quit."

She turns her head to the sisters, and grasped their hands in hers tightly, "Whether...it's two minutes..or two days...we don't give that up."

(Y/N) intertwined her fingers with the two beside her hands, as she squeezed them like a lifeline with tears dripping down her face. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. But, then again, this is what she gets for being reckless when it involves her sister.

"We can just be all poetic and shit and lose minds together." Riley cries out to them, as her tears now fall down also.

The (H/C) haired girl pulled both girl into her side, wrapping them in her arms with a comforting hug as the trio all start to cry and cling onto each other.

...

The sisters had pulled the draw free as they stagger back a little bit, and caught each other before they fall. When the draw fell to the ground, (Y/N) rushed towards it and searched it for anything to help Joel.

Her hands fly to her messy hair, and tug on it with a panicked face when there was nothing. However, she finds Ellie picking up a roll of string with a needle, and an idea pops into her head.

(Y/N) quickly took the needle and thread, forcefully pushing the door open to the basement as she ran downstairs with Ellie following her right behind.

They make it downstairs, and she was straight away by Joel's side as she heard his fast paced breathing. She pressed her hand on top of his, lacing her fingers in between his, as his fast paced breathing steadied out feeling her warm touch.

Her heart clenched seeing his wet cheek with dried tears, showing her that he cried when he thought they, she was leaving him. Joel peeks up at her through droopy eyes, as a relieved, soft expression takes over his feature.

(Y/N) gave him a wobbly, reassuring smile as she feel his fingers twitch underneath hers, and he weakly clenched them so they intertwined with hers properly.

She took this as a sign of trust, and push she needed to help him with his stab wound. She rubs her thumbs over his knuckles softly, while continuing to gaze into his eyes, before squeezing his hand and reluctantly let go feeling his hand trying to hold on tighter.

She looked towards her sister, who was knelt down beside her and watched the entire interaction with a warm grin, "Can you help me with this?"

Ellie nodded her head automatically at her question, and went to move on the other side of Joel, as her sister got to work.

(Y/N) carefully lifted Joel's shirt up to show off his wound, as she wasn't aware of how he continued to gaze at her, and she winced guilty pulling off the towel on the injury.

She gently, and tentatively dabbed the towel on his injury, trying to get rid of some of the blood around it so she could see it, "Hold his shirt up, Ellie."

The said girl does what she was told, as (Y/N) gulps with nervousness knowing the needle would hurt Joel badly, and starts to unwrap some of the thread.

She exhales shakily, giving Joel a sorrowful look as she leans forward, trying to be as gentle as possible and places the needle into his skin, which caused Joel to groan out in pain.

"I know, I know, M'sorry." She repetitively whispered cooed to Joel, who tightly gripped her jackets sleeve with a tensed neck from how painful it was, as she continued to stitch up his wound, his noises breaking her heart.

( gif by ;
sporadicstarsx )

AUTHORS NOTE;; god damn this chapter is so long, my bad guys 💀 ehhh so i added my own scenes in here, because i felt like this ep was special for ellie and i didn't wanna ruin that for her.

im also not excited to write the next chapter...which is david...yeah that should explain itself..

side note, i like very descriptive writing & im sorry if it seems like im taking scenes too far 😕😕😕😕