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All across the land, the world stood still. Abandoned cars littered the streets, and the only sounds the broke the intense silence were the heavy raindrops that hit the concrete and the harsh cry of the wind. In fact, if somebody were to gaze upon this place they'd believe that nobody was here at all. But we knew better.
Leaves and debris covered the ground, the buildings tattered and swarming with growth. The sky was pitch black, the only source of light coming from the bolts of lightning that occasionally lit up the surrounding area. There were shattered street lamps collapsed onto the rubble and no sign of life for miles. Everything was long forgotten by humanity, Mother Nature filling the cracks of what was now absent to man’s touch. It was calm. It was quiet. It was a lie.
A tall, broken down hospital soon amongst the wreckage. It's windows were dirty and broken, and vines twisted across its exterior. Pieces of what was once a sign now covered the ground, the letters that still hung doing so only barely. It was a moment before any sign of life was revealed.
A girl stepped out of the shadows in front of the hospital; fourteen, or maybe fifteen, she wasn't quite sure at this point. Her red-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and a heavy backpack cluttered with tools and weapons swung from her shoulders. A half-healed and fading bite wound was embedded into her right arm, which she promptly covered with her hoodie sleeve. Smears of blood painted her face, some of which was hers, some that wasn't.
The girl carefully pulled a shiny switchblade from her back pocket as she approached the building. As a crack of thunder rolled across the sky, an all too familiar clicking noise emerged from one of the upper floors. She furrowed her eyebrows, weapon at the ready.
The entrance of the hospital was fairly empty, the room dark and the reflection of rain dancing across the walls. The girl pressed herself against a wall, squinting her eyes and listening. Sure enough, danger was just beyond this door, taking the form of a flesh-eating monster.
She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The clicker stood at the end of the room, years of infection obscuring its face completely. The girl approached it cautiously, an opened switchblade in her hand. As she stepped across the floor, her foot landed on a shard of broken glass, emitting a sharp sound that alerted the hungry infected.
Before it had time to react, the girl threw her arm upwards and dug the blade into its head, waiting for it to stop flailing its arms before tossing its mangled corpse onto the filthy ground. She breathed in deeply before proceeding.
In the next room, she noticed a cluster of runners grouped around a fallen vending machine. Walking in circles, they simply twitched and would every so often grasp their head in a fit of insanity, as if desperately trying to rid themselves of the disease that has taken over their lives. The girl carefully knelt down in front of a broken table and reached down next to her, grasping a bottle. She opened her backpack and within a few minutes had crafted an item capable of destroying entire armies of men and yet small enough to be held in her hand.
After tossing the burnt match to the side and seeing the golden flames lick the inside of the bottle, she sat up and threw the Molotov as hard as she could over her head. The girl watched as the bottle shattered, engulfing the group in fire. The burning infected screamed horribly and did an agonizing dance before collapsing onto the ground in a crumpled heap. She sighed.
Nevertheless the girl went on, climbing up the stairs and entering a grim-looking hallway. At the end of the hallway was a room that was completely packed with enemies. She noticed the air was now filled with spores, turning the atmosphere a cloudy green. In her field of vision she was able to make out the faint silhouettes of clickers, stalkers, and runners, all gasping and searching for their next meal.
The girl tilted her head, weighing her options. A hunting rifle was strapped tightly to her backpack, while a crowbar hung next to her. Slowly she pulled her pistol out and aimed it as best as she could, grimacing slightly as if she knew this idea would backfire. She turned a deep breath, squinted her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
The first bullet hit a clicker directly in the head, leaving a gruesome splatter of fresh blood in the wall behind it. It also happened to alert the rest of the crowd, causing several of them to begin running at her.
The girl continued shooting, watching as they fell one by one with bullet holes directly through their foreheads. Over and over they charged forward, until the bodies stopped falling, and the absence of the shooting noise was evident, replaced by a rather unsettling one.
Click, click, click.
The girl watched helplessly as the now useless weapon displayed it's ineffectiveness with sharp clicking noises that made her stomach turn. She tossed it to the side, frustrated. Although many corpses littered the hallway, more infected were now piling into the room and making their way towards her. As quickly as she could, the girl reached into her backpack and pulled out her final solution. To the naked eye, it was a can with what appeared to be nails sticking out of the sides in different directions. She stood up straight and positioned it over her head.
“Hey, assholes!” She screamed, as if they didn't already have her attention. Then she threw it.
Immediately she sat down with her back against the wall next to her and covered her ears as tightly as she could. After a few moments the explosion went off, shaking the floor and causing pieces of debris to fly over her head. When the smoke cleared away, she stood up, observing the destruction. Bodies were strewn everywhere, along with blood and other body parts. Although, it didn't bother her. She was used to things like this.
She walked down the stairs and exited the hospital, being greeted by the cool night air. She strode down the street casually and approached the building next to it, which was a rather run down apartment building.
It was a few moments before she noticed any sign of a struggle. Dust billowed from the edges of the second floor, along with the sounds of multiple guns going off. The girl rushed into the building and climbed up the stairs, throwing open the door of one of the rooms.
A man in his late forties was battling with another man that had the logo of a firefly on his uniform. In a split second the man kicked the other one off of him and swung a board over his head, causing blood to spray on the wall behind them and the now dead Firefly to collapse onto the floor.
The girl entered the room, gazing at the carnage. “Joel.”
He looked up, seeing her standing in the doorway. “There you are, Ellie.”
“You found Fireflies? You think there'll be more of them?”
“Yes. And I don't know. That's why we need to get the hell out of here, now.”
Ellie watched as Joel quickly looted the body, pocketing some ammo and making his way towards the exit. He turned back to her, still observing the aftermath of the fight surrounding her.
“You coming?”
“In a minute,” she assured him, waiting until he left the room and climbed down the creaky stairs.
Ellie took a few minutes to scavenge the place more thoroughly, gathering food, ammo, and tools in the process. She even managed to find a comic book behind one of the beds, which made her smile. Before she left she once again looked over the dead bodies, some still bleeding out on the wooden floor, some draped over beds and couches. It was a gruesome sight that made her stomach churn. If any Fireflies stumbled upon the area, they'd get the message.
With the aching desire to abandon the scene tugging at her mind, and a desperate urge for some fresh air, she closed the door behind her and followed Joel into the night.