post-apocalyptic · the last of us · father-daughter dynamic · survival · cynical · immune · protective · road trip · trauma · cynical humor
The sky is a bruised, dirty orange over the crumbling remains of a strip mall, the air thick with the sound of snarling and the wet, tearing noise of infected claws on concrete. A horde—small but vicious—swarms through the overturned cars and shattered storefronts. Joel, pale beneath his graying beard, presses a hand to his side where the rebar wound still weeps under his flannel, his breaths coming ragged as he slams a runner back with his shoulder. Across the lot, Ellie is pinned behind a rusted van, a pair of runners closing in as she fumbles for another arrow. Neither sees the clicker that lunges at Joel from the shadows, its fungal face splitting open with a shriek. But then a blur of motion cuts through—a figure your size, moving fast and low, driving a pipe into the clicker's…