This is Not the Last of Us

Chapter 35

Ellie climbed the stairs first and pulled the door open for her girlfriend. The two stepped inside the building. Just as they were entering the building, a group of soldiers walked past their door.

"Boat's away. Word is we're almost wrapped up here." One of them said optimistically.

"Good. My daughter's waiting for me back at the FOB."

Ellie saw her girlfriend visibly tense up and Ellie rubbed her knee as they were crouched. Everyone had family, even in the apocalypse. Ellie would do what she had to, but she knew her girlfriend would hesitate.

Ellie saw them as obstacles, her girlfriend saw them as people. Hearing about their lives and their struggles brought a significant amount of pain to the kills. They both knew they didn't have time to think about this.

Ellie and her girlfriend grabbed both of them, and Ellie had grabbed the woman. Her girlfriend wouldn't kill the man she'd grabbed. He struggled against her and she shared a look of terror with Ellie.

Ellie glanced around and gave her girlfriend a look. They didn't have time for this. Ellie knew it, and so did her girlfriend. The man tried to break free again. Ellie's girlfriend sharply exhaled and sliced his throat.

She was shaking when she dropped his body, but she didn't say anything. They continued on and away from his body. The two took down the surrounding soldiers as quickly and quietly as they could.

One of the few men left piped up, "Am I crazy or are we a few soldiers light right now?"

"Whitney's probably hiding away with that game thing of hers."

"No, I figured that much. I meant, this is taking all day. Didn't we have two other units assigned here to help?"

"I heard that India is inbound. They probably ran into a dust-up in the park. A previous group ran into a couple of scars there."

Ellie shot down the guy on the sniper's nest and directed her attention to the two men on the floor.

Those two went down easy enough, and the girls quickly let themselves into the hospital. There were a lot more soldiers on the first floor, but a little stealth and some quick kills kept the girls moving at a steady pace. They wiped out the current area and found a door that led further into the hospital.

Ellie used her full weight to push the door open. There was something blocking the door, but Ellie managed to get it open. They both slid through, and Ellie forced the box back into place. They both thought about cutting out the generator, but opted out. That would run the risk of making Nora flee. They needed her here.

The first floor was almost fully empty. Stripped clean of even the scraps. They found a checklist of items the soldiers were looking for, and a few warnings to avoid the lower floors because of infected and spores.

Instead of going for the door, the two girls thought about approaching it differently. way. Nora may be expecting them and they would need any advantage they could get. The two girls decided to climb into a nearby vent and started to crawl through.

It only took a few minutes for them to catch sight of Nora. It wasn't hard to recognize her from the picture.

"Maybe if you posted some more guards, Abby would still be in her cell." She scolded bitterly.

Ellie offered a tight lipped response and thought about how they missed Abby.

"I'm not stupid," a man spat at Nora, "You're going to tell us where she went, Nora. When Isaac talks to us about this... I'm going to say what most likely happened."