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TWO YEARS EARLIER
Saint Mary's Hospital. Nighttime. Ellie wandered the dark corridors of the abandoned hospital, her footsteps echoing through the hollow, crumbling walls. Ellie walked slowly, dragging her fingers along the chipped paint and cold metal railings.
The air was stale, filled with dust and the weight of something left unfinished. The hospital felt haunted by memories, both of the past and her own.
She's been avoiding the truth for a long time now, but tonight feels different. There's a kind of electricity in the air, and her heart pounded with an unsettling sense of dread.
"What is this? Left a lot of stuff behind..." she said entering inside one of the rooms "Oh."
She spotted something on the floor ahead of her - a recorder, dusty but intact. She crouched down, picked it up, and with a hesitant breath, tapped the play button. Ellie listened to the firefly on the recording as she took a seat outside the hospital, near the small fire she made.
"Most people have left already. I don't know which group I'm going to join... I was one of the ones that wanted to go after the smuggler and the girls. They said... Even if we found her, or by some miracle found someone else that's immune, it'd make no difference. 'Cause the only person who could develop a vaccine is dead. "
Ellie's face tightened. She tapped the rewind button, her pulse rising.
"...by some miracle found someone else that's immune, it'd make no difference. " she tensed up and tapped the button again
"...miracle found someone else that's immune, it'd make no difference. 'Cause the only person"
The sound of footsteps interrupted her. Ellie's head snapped up, eyes widening as she heard someone approaching fast. Joel bursted into view, panic on his face.
"Ellie! Come here." He pulled her into a tight hug, his voice edged with anger and relief. "The hell were you thinkin'? Running off in the middle of the night like that. You talk to me. You don't just leave me a goddamn note-"
Ellie's body went rigid in his arms, her hands pressed against his chest as she pushed him away with sudden force.
"Tell me... what happened here." Her voice shook with something deeper than anger, a wound that's been festering for years. "If you lie to me one more time, I'm gone. You will never see me again. But if you tell me the truth... I'll go back to Jackson. No matter what it is. Just say it, Joel."
There was a long silence. Joel's face softened, the weight of years of secrets hanging heavy in the air between them. His eyes dropped, filled with regret, but this time, he couldn't hide behind the lies.
Joel looked down and murmured quietly, almost defeated "Making a vaccine... would have killed you. So we stopped them." Ellie's knees buckled, and she collapsed onto an iron box behind her. The truth, finally spoken aloud, felt like a punch to her gut. Tears welled up, and she can't stop them. "Blake too?" She quietly asked and Joel looked down, nodding his head.
"Oh my god." She let out a strangled sob, covering her face with her hands. Joel tried to grab her hand but Ellie jumped away "Don't you fucking touch me!" Joel stepped back, his face falling as the distance between them grew. The girl who had once trusted him with her life is slipping away. He couldn't say anything to fix it this time.
The same second they returned to Jackson Ellie found herself standing outside Blake's house. Ellie stood in front, her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets, her eyes puffy from crying.
Blake had always been the one person Ellie could talk to after Joel, after everything. They shared something real, something raw - or at least, Ellie had thought they had. Now, every moment they'd spent together feels like a lie. The betrayal sat heavy in Ellie's chest like a stone she can't swallow.
She discovered the truth not only from Joel, but from Blake too - her girlfriend had known, for years now. Known and said nothing. Blake, who had sworn she'd never keep secrets from Ellie.
The door creaked open. Blake, dressed in a worn-out hoodie, hair messy from patrol she just recently returned from, blinked in the dim light. Her face softened as she saw Ellie standing there, but she could already sense that something's wrong.
"Hey... babe, what's-" Ellie cut her off, her voice thick with frustration and sadness "You knew."
Blake's face froze, her breath caught in her throat. She didn't ask for clarification. She knew exactly what Ellie's talking about.
"Ellie, I-" Ellie scoffed, her voice rising, shaking "You fucking knew, Blake! All this time, you knew what happened , what they did to me, and you didn't tell me?" Blake stepped forward, reaching for her, but Ellie flinched back, the space between them growing wider by the second. The pain in Ellie's eyes was unbearable.
"I couldn't tell you-" Ellie cut the other girl once again "Bullshit! You should've told me! You should've let me decide!" Blake's eyes filled with tears, her voice cracked as she tried to explain herself, but the guilt was too much, the truth too heavy.
"We were trying to protect you. I didn't want you to feel like-like you were just a-sacrifice. I didn't want you to hate me. To hate Joel. We thought we were doing the right thing-"
Ellie shook her head, her chest heaving with sobs she could barely hold back. The betrayal, from both Joel and Blake, felt like a knife twisting in her heart. She thought she could trust Blake, that she was the one person left who wouldn't lie to her. But now, everything feels shattered.
"You don't get to make that decision for me! Do you even know what this has done to me? How long I've felt like I was fucking worthless because of this?!" Blake tried to step closer, her voice soft and pleading. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I'm so, so sorry. Please, just-"
"No." Her voice hardened, her face wet with tears. "We're done. I can't... I can't trust you anymore." Blake's face crumpled as the reality of the moment sinked in. She tried to reach for Ellie one last time, but Ellie stepped back, her eyes burning with pain.
