Chapter Text
Fire. Red, hot, raging fire.
Everywhere Alec looked there were flames, they engulfed his home, the neighborhood he lived in, everything as far as the eye could see was burning to the ground, turning what would have been a cool, serene night into an absolute hellscape. But the fire wasn’t Alec’s priority, or his wife’s priority, it was their son. Although.. Alec could hardly focus on him, on anything really. It was all a blur.
“It’s okay baby, it’s okay! Mama’s here! Mama’s here! Just hold on!”
The ringing in Alec’s ears didn’t subside a bit.
“Alec, help me! We need to get him to a hospital!”
He didn’t register her screaming.
“Alec!”
Not until she grabbed him, and he finally snapped back to reality. He was covered in dirt and soot, just sitting on the ground, he didn’t know what else to do. Looking down, he could see what his wife was screaming about, it was their son.. some version of their son. He barely even recognized the boy, not when he’d been mauled so severely, most of his organs spilling out of his stomach.
It was the first time in Alec’s entire adult life that he cried.
“I have to admit..”
Ellie began, looking up and down the old, long abandoned house, a home that had been in the middle of the forest, and was adjacent to a small shack.
“As great as it is to have cover, you sure you wanna be staying here? This place is creepy, just imagine it during night.”
Gabby sighed, opening the door.
“I don’t like it either, but we have to.”
Ellie nodded.
“You’re right, and at least it’s hidden we won’t have to worry about being attacked by any raiders or slavers or whatever, those bastards are insane, but not stupid enough to go hunting for people out in the middle of nowhere.”
Gabby paused, before walking inside.
“I hope this is the right place.”
Ellie blinked as they walked into the abandoned home, or rather, abandoned house. She found it odd there was no mailbox, no driveway, no path leaving the inhabitants to civilization, but inside was even more strange. It was empty.
No furniture, save for cheap looking curtains with a floral pattern, no proper floor, literally just the forest’s dirt and overgrowth, and there weren’t any halls or stairs or anything. It was just one large, empty box, disguised as a house.
“What the fuck…?”
Ellie mumbled, looking around, trying to reason with herself any possibility for why this’ house’ was just a glorified cube with a door and windows. Perhaps it was abandoned during construction? But, that didn’t make sense, the windows had glass and curtains. Why would they bother putting curtains before actual rooms? Ellie was torn from her thoughts as she heard strained groans of effort. Looking to her side, she could see Gabby tearing at weeds and overgrowth, clawing them out of the dirt with her hands.
“What are you doing, Gabs?”
Gabby gave no response, but Ellie could see the outline of something wooden beneath the torn plants and the Earth that clung to them. Was it a basement? Curious, Ellie walked up, and kneeled down, taking out the machete she and Gabby shared as a weapon, and sliding through the overgrowth like butter.
“Probably could have done this quicker if you just asked to borrow it.”
Gabby looked away bashfully, the two staring at wooden trap door before them.
“Think there’s anything useful down there?”
Gabby shrugged, pulling a kerosene lamp from her bag, and lighting it, opening the trap door that led to a set of metal stairs, descending down first, Ellie following close after. They were in a corridor, the walls made of metal, as was the floor and ceiling, at the end of this metal rectangle, however, was a large door that looked like the entrance to some kind of a vault. It was made of smooth metal, and hung wide open. Lying in the doorway and on the floor were corpses, rotting corpses, all had seemingly been fleeing from this bunker and to the stairs, none had made it. She turned to look at Gabby, who clamped a hand over her mouth, letting out a pathetic and muffled scream. The sight was bad enough, but the stench was unbearable, Ellie’s eyes and nose stung, and confusion ebbed into her as Gabby continued on.
“This is the right place.”
She mumbled.
“Gabs..? What is this?”
Ellie prodded, following closely behind.
Gabby sighed, walking over the corpses, and into the large metal door, the bunker inside barely illuminated by a their lamp.
“Back when the outbreak was still new, governments reused the bunkers they had lying around in case of nuclear war, and used them to be safe havens, away from the infected. Some are different than others, some were last minute, and they just ushered every person they saw inside, but this one was one of the special ones. This bunker was inhabited by scientists, and they were down here experimenting on captured infected, trying to find a cure. But…”
Gabby trailed, looking over her shoulder at the corpses and cringing before she continued.
“It didn’t end well..”
Ellie arched a brow suspiciously.
“Gabs.. how do you know all this?”
Gabby gave no response.
“Gabs!”
Ellie put a hand on Gabby’s shoulder, halting her, before she froze, hearing a low growl. Gabby set the lamp down on a table next to her, and looked around the darkness
“Shit…!”
Ellie whisper shouted, pulling out her machete.
“The infected.. they never left, they killed all of the people down here, that’s what the corpses were! They tried to get out! Oh, what do we do? What do we do?”
Ellie fell even deeper into panic, seeing the stress of the situation was triggering Gabby.
“Quiet, we have to be-“
Ellie was cut off an an infected ran towards her, it was large, monstrous, even, it wasn’t hard to believe this thing had killed so many people. Ellie raised her machete in defense.
“Gabby! Run!”
She swung when it was close enough, she slashed it’s face pretty deep, but the creature was undeterred. Shrieking, Ellie’s head ached with dull pain as she was thrown harshly down onto the floor like a rag doll. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for an attack, for pain, anything.
But it did not come.
She opened her eyes again after a few moments, to see Gabby standing protectively in front of her, wielding a machete, and having a stand off with the infected, which, for whatever reason, did not attack her. After a few moments of tense silence, Gabby lunged forward, but the infected remained still, just glaring at her. She raised the machete, hacking through the amalgamation until it was a bloody heap lying on the floor.
“Gabby.. why didn’t it attack you?”
Once again, Ellie received no answer, she stood up, and stormed towards Gabby.
“Gabby! Answer me!”
“I- I don’t know..”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Gabby! I’m starting to get really sick of you constantly lying to me about everything! You know more than you’re telling me!”
“What do you-“
“You led us out to the middle of nowhere knowing what this place was when there wasn’t any logical reason for you to know, infected have never attacked you before, what is going on?! Just tell me the god damn truth!”
“You don’t want to know! You’d- you’d hate me if you knew!”
“Gabby, nothing you say will ever make me hate you! I love you! And I would have thought you loved me enough to tell the truth! Why won’t you just tell me the truth?! What could possibly be so bad you think I’d hate you?! WHAT AREN’T YOU TELLING ME?!”
“I was the one who caused the virus!”
That was the last thing Ellie had expected to hear.
“What….?
Gabby choked back a guilty sob.
“I’m the one who caused the virus. That’s why infected never attack me, how I know about places like this, it’s because I’m the one who started it.”
Ellie’s mind reeled in shock and horror, she felt as of the Earth beneath her would crumble into nothing, releasing her into the void. That fate would have been preferable over what she was being told right now.
“It was an accident! It was! If I’d known what would happen I never would have done what I did! I’m sorry Ellie! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for this to happen! Please don’t hate me! Please don’t go! I’m sorry! I am!”
Ellie couldn’t bring herself to speak, this was too much for her to process. Gabby, the woman she’d known for years, the woman she loved more than anything, the woman she planned to make her wife one day was the cause of the virus? Gabby, her perfect, sweet Gabby, she was the one who caused the outbreak? The end of the world? The deaths of millions of innocent people as well as the complete collapse of civilization, most of it anyway, it was all HER fault?
“Y- you…. This- this is…. Your lying! There’s no way! It’s not true! Gabby, tell me it’s not true!”
Gabby said nothing, just stared at Ellie with guilt and sorrow. Ellie could feel tears pricking her eyes and blurring her vision.
“Oh God…”
And at the worst moment possible, the worst moment in Ellie’s entire life, another infected revealed itself from the shadow. If there really was a God, he was laughing in her face right now, no doubt about it. Before she could shout a warning to Gabby, futile as doing so would have been given the fact infected couldn’t attack her, someone else had gotten to it first. At the dull thud of someone hitting the infected, Gabby turned around, the pair watching as a man with glasses beat the infected’s skull in with a metal baseball bat. Before they could get a word out, a second figure scurried towards the man, holding a flashlight, Ellie’s confusion peaked when she saw it was a little girl.
“Is that the last one?”
The man nodded to the girl.
“I think so.”
He turned to look at Ellie and Gabby, who stated in shock.
“Sorry for interrupting your, uh… private conversation.”
Ellie’s confusion took over again, she had no clue who these two were, or why they were here, the child especially, but more than that, he’d heard everything.
Alec and Fiore, those were their names. The four had made quick work of the bunker, astonished that after a few hours of tinkering they were able to restore electricity, which, according to Gabby, every one of these bunkers had. According to her, they were all connected, which made some sense. More shocking than that, running water that was actually drinkable, which Ellie had assumed came from some kind of purifier, but she wasn’t exactly sure, she was far from an expert on these things. It had taken hours for the adults to clear out corpses, rotting food, and other junk, in the meantime they left Fiore to the cleaning, and the child had done a decent job, even going through the hassle of finding every potentially useful item or snippets on information, and setting them on the tables in the bunker’s cafeteria to be sorted through later, everything else was stuffed and organized into random drawers just in case they would somehow, someday, be of use. Gabby and Ellie didn’t speak a word to each other throughout, and Alec didn’t particularly care to break the awkward silence, so for the hours that they worked, no words were exchanged. Not until they’d finished all they could in a single day, now they sat on a table in the bunker’s cafeteria, combing through items and information.
“So…”
Gabby began, her eyes glued intently to the floor, as if the dusty tile held the secrets of the universe.
“What are you two doing down here?”
“Same thing as you two, trying to find a cure.”
Alec answered, not looking away from the old files lying on the table before him.
“But.. how did you know about this place?”
“For the past few months Fiore and I have been finding whatever information we could, going through hospitals and government buildings and the such, we found some files regarding the different bunkers and followed the coordinated to this one, hoping to find people down here still working and researching, but we were only met with corpses. I think we only got here a few hours before you two. I must say, convenient timing.”
“That can’t be right, there was too many roots and dirt on the trap door in the house for someone to have used it today, it looked like it hadn’t been open in years.”
“There was a trap door on the house? We checked and all we found was dirt and weeds.”
“If you didn’t come in through the house, then how’d you two get in?”
“Through the shack.”
‘Multiple entrances, huh?’
Ellie thought, chin resting in her hand, still being the only one of the four who hadn’t spoken yet.
“So, you mentioned being the ‘cause’ of the virus. Care to elaborate?”
“You both are… much calmer about this than I expected you to be?”
Alec gave a sigh.
“While the virus has caused both of us suffering and was the reason we lost our loved ones,”
Gabby flinched slightly at this, but Alec continued on, undeterred.
“It wouldn’t do us any good to be aggressive towards for it, considering it was accidental. And we are trying to find a cure, or at least find out more about the virus. We have a potential answer to all of our questions right in front of us, it wouldn’t be wise to throw that away over our own anger. So, mind explaining how you caused the virus?”
Gabby was silent a few moments.
“It was accidental, it really was. You see, I’ve always loved nature, more than anything.”
Gabby glanced over at Ellie, who did not meet her gaze.
“Well, except for her.”
She paused, taking a breath.
“But, things were going bad. So much pollution, the extinction and endangerment of all sorts of species, overpopulation, and no one else seemed to care in the slightest! I just.. I couldn’t stand around and humans destroy everything. So, I tried fixing it.. myself.”
Alec raised an eyebrow.
“Go on.”
Gabby sighed.
“Well, I uhm.. summoned something. I know it sounds far fetched, but it’s true. I summuned something so that it could help me in my goal, protecting nature from humans, stopping all of the pollution and death that we cause. In a sense.. I got what I asked for, but not in the way I wanted. It gave me some things to plant, these black seeds, mushrooms, and saplings. I think those are what started the infection. I don’t really know what I summoned, but it still talks to me, it tells me stuff. It told me about this place, and what it was for.”
She fiddled with her braids, sighing.
“I know you probably don’t believe me, I wouldn’t either, but it’s the truth! I didn’t mean for this to happen, I never would have done it if I knew what it would lead to, I swear!”
Alec and Fiore considered her at length, Fiore opened her mouth, likely to say something bratty or rude, but it only took a sharp stare from Alec to stop her, and she remained silent.
“Well, you said infected can’t attack you? I’m assuming that’s because you caused the virus, does that also make you immune?”
Gabby nodded.
“I tested that out myself, I ate one of those black mushrooms and nothing happened.”
“I’m sorry, you what?!”
All eyes turned to Ellie.
“Why on Earth would you-”
“Let’s stay focused.”
Alec interjected, still strangely calm.
“Well, since infected can’t attack you, that means you could capture them without risk? Perhaps then we could bring them down here and use them to try and find a cure?”
“How do we know that would work?”
“Well, we have plenty of supplies down here, these files could have useful information, a safe way to get infected inside, and much more knowledge on the virus now than these scientists did. Judging by the amount of overgrowth you described on the trap door I’m guessing they went down here at the beginning of the virus and stayed isolated for months, perhaps even longer. They didn’t know the first thing about it given how new it was, but we have much more information to go off of now than they did back then.”
Gabby thought for a few moments.
“Ellie? What do you think?”
Ellie just glared, prompting Gabby to decide for her.
“Alright, let’s get to planning then.”
WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO:
The redesigns for Yul, Ellie, and Gabby are done! Not sure when James, Jake, and Tom’s redesigns will be done though.
Yul, Ellie, and Gabby: https://www.tiktok.com/@murderous._.pineapple/photo/7369410703091862827?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7369039071823775263
Feedback and opinions would be much appreciated! <3