I wake slowly, fighting my way back from the darkness. I'm on my side, and I can feel warm blankets on top of me. I freeze, trying to figure out what happened without letting whoever brought me here know I'm awake, but it's nearly impossible without being able to hear them. I cough violently, ruining my act of sleep. I feel someone step close to me, and a second later there's a touch on my arm. I bolt upright, grabbing the person and trying to throw them to the ground, but I'm still too weak. They thow their hands up in surrender, and I realize it's a girl. She looks slightly familiar, but I can't place her. A man appears, also familiar, and gently pulls her from my grip. After getting her a safe distance away, he moves to crouch a few feet in front of me. His gaze travels down my body inspecting me, and I pull the blanket up to my chest, realizing for the first time that my shirt is gone. It's been replaced by new, cleaner bandages. We study each other for a few moments.
He's wearing a tan coat, with some sort of rifle or something similar over his shoulder. His lips start moving, but I shake my head, shifting my grip on the blanket so I can hold one hand up, signalling for him to stop. He does so, looking slightly confused. I look around, spotting my pack, and I point to it, motioning for him to hand it to me. He stares at me, uncertain, trying to decide if he can trust me with my pack, but the girl moves to grab it, saying something to him with an exasperated expression as she hands it to me. Snatching it from her, I rifle through, making sure everything was still there. I grab my hearing aids from their case and pull them out of the bag. The mans' face dawns with understanding, but the girl looks confused. She doesn't know what they are. I see her ask the man about them as I put them in. I hear the little song as they turn on, and sigh with relief. If they'd been damaged in the fire, I wouldn't know what to do. I can't get a replacement for them, and it's pretty damn hard to fight the infected when you don't know they're there.
"Can you hear me now?" The mans' voice is surprisingly gentle, with a slight southern accent. I look up at him and nod, waiting for him to continue, but the girl interrupts.
"So you can't hear? Joel says those things you just put on help, but Sam didn't have those." There's a slight sadness in her voice as she mentions the name "Sam", but it disappears almost instantly. I stare at her, unsure of whether I should answer, but the man pushes her out of the way.
"Ellie," He says it as a warning. Instantly, I realize where I've seen them before. She was the one in the files I have, and he's the one who killed all those people. My eyes widden in recognition, and my hand slides to where my knife usually sits on my calf, but it's not there. As if realizing what I'm looking for, the man points to the girl, Ellie, and she pulls the knife out and tosses it to me. I catch it, and turn it around in my hands, inspecting it. The handle melted slightly from the fire, but it looks okay.
"My name is Joel and this is Ellie. We spotted the fire, and found you half dead in a stream next to it. Looks like some lightning hit a tree or something." So that's what happened. Stupid Gaea. What did I ever do to her? The man continues, his slight accent soothing.
"You got some pretty bad burns on your back, but we had some ointment that should help. Your hands burned slightly as well, but not bad enough for bandages."
"You can stay with us while you heal. It's going to take a few weeks, and it will be harder for you to put the ointment on yourself." This from Ellie, who looks eager at the thought. It's probably been a while since she was near anyone her age, I know it has for me.
Joel puts his arm out to stop her, an exasperated expression on his face.
"She's right, you can stay, but we won't force you. If you decide to leave, We'll give you some medicine to take with you." The girl starts to protest, but stops at his look. I wave for his attention, then gesture at myself, asking where my clothes are.
"Oh, right, we threw the shirt out, that thing wouldn't protect anything anymore. But the rest of your stuff is in your pack. We didn't touch you below the torso, so if you're hurt there, you'll need to tell us." I breathe a sigh of relief as he says that. They might have saved my life, but that doesn't mean I trust them with my body. Him at least, The kid doesn't look like she'd do anything over the sort. In fact, looking at her layered clothes, the way she hides her body, makes me think she's been though something like that.
'I'll go with you.' I sign after a moments consideration. Normally, I'd stay the fuck away from other humans, but I'll admit I'm intrigued by what the files said about the girl. I want to know more about them. Also, My back hurts like fuck right now, and they obviously know what they're doing with the medicine. The man tilts his head watching my hands with a confused expression. Right. He doesn't know asl. I'd write it down, but I don't have any paper, and I doubt they'd be able to read it anyway. My handwriting looks like shit. I sigh, then point to myself, waiting for him to get it.
"You?" I nod at his guestion, then hold both my hands up, pointing at the sky, then move my hands so the pointed finger and thumb of both hands are pointing straight out in front of me. When he doesn't get it, I repeat it again, slower, and then a third time. He shakes his head, not understanding, so I move my fingers like they're walking in front of me.
"Walk?" I shake my head and add my other hand, making it look like the first hand is following the other. "Follow?" I shake my head, getting frustrated, not sure how to show him what I mean.
"Go?" I whip my head up to look at the girl, who's been silently watching us.
"Do you mean "go"?" She asks again, tilting her head to look at me. I nod my head furiously, pointing at her in excitement. Her face lights up, proud of herself for getting it before the man did.
"You'll go with us?" I look back at the man, nodding in answer to his question.
"Well alright then. Now maybe Ellie can annoy you and leave me the fuck alone."
"Hey!" She shoves Joel, making him catch himself with a hand before face planting in the dirt. "At least I figured out what she meant, you'd be terrible at charades." She glowers at him, but I catch a glimpse of relief in his eyes as he picks himself up. Why would he be relieved that she's joking around?
"How do you even know what charades are?"
"I told you, I went to school."
"I believe your words were, "A really shitty school."" He quotes at her, as he stands and grabs his pack.
"It wasn't that shitty."
