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Dina was gutted.
Sitting across from sleeping Ellie, she couldn’t help but try to come to terms with their situation. It was so fucking unfair. The way the world repeatedly gave just a little, enough to leave her wanting, hungry, only to rip away all that she had had in the first place.
“I’m immune,” Ellie had said. Dina wanted so badly to believe her. She wanted to have any shred of hope that Ellie would wake up on that chair, safe and uninfected.
But it simply couldn’t happen. She knew better than to hope for that. Ellie would soon wake, twitching and chattering, and Dina would have to deliver the finishing blow to any future they might have had together. Then, she would have to escape Seattle alone, and travel back to Jackson with Shimmer, one person lighter.
She would have to tell Maria and Tommy what had happened, how Ellie’s and Dina’s impulsive actions had resulted in exactly the thing they had warned the two about. How they hadn’t been invincible, despite their bravado.
Leaving the town, there had been no worry in her mind that their journey might end this way. They had gotten so far, only for it to be cut short so quickly, just before they had made it to safety. It's so unfair.
Dina watched Ellie’s peaceful face, dim in the moonlight from the windows. She examined it, just as she had so many times all these nights and days away from Jackson, whenever Ellie didn’t notice, many times when she was asleep. Dina would imagine their future together, a future so clear it seemed inevitable.
Now, instead of a future, Ellie would be in her past. She already was; there was no evading it.
Ellie was gone.
She sobbed quietly, though never taking her eyes away from that face she was committing to memory.
Twitch
Dina’s hands flew to her flashlight and her gun. She had to make it quick; she knew that the longer she waited, the harder this impossible task would become. She refused to accept that her last moments with Ellie would be stolen by the infection. It had to end before it got too far.
Ellie jolted up, shaking her head and rubbing her face with her palms. Dina braced herself, knowing it was time. She opened her mouth to say her final words to the creature that was once Ellie, but-
“I-it’s just water! Rain fell on my face, that’s all!”
What?