Inspired by the HBO Adaptation of The Last of Us
1 – A Head Injury
A friend sat in front of me. Cold, hard ground above and below. Dripping faucet, creaking chairs, eerie motion blurring from all sides.
“Maya,” she called; her voice firm yet hushed.
“It’s not gone.” I’m so cool, so aloof. Stupid.
“Breathe ju-.” Her hand drifts to my knee.
“Don’t touch,” I snap.
Everything is gross, and my sister is dead. I need something, but I don’t know what. It’s all restlessness; horrid, foul heartbeats. And for what? Why does it all keep going?
“Maya. Please tell us you’re okay.”
Marlene means well. I’ve looked up to her for so long, I feel every motion before she makes it. I know her like a sister. Like the one she took.
“How’s your head?” She asks.
I fell down the stairs trying to kill her. She shot my sister, and my body jumped at her before I could think. I almost don’t regret it. Yet, I hate the blurred vision and killer headache that’s been here for what seems like forever.
“I’ll be fine…physically.”
Marlene looks down, a quiet gesture of recognition and compliance. She stands. I’m okay, so she can go back to work; do her duty, slay dragons.
“Where’s Ellie?” I ask.
“Stevie’s got her. She’s okay.”
“She’s traumatized.”
“Yeah, and so are the rest of us.”
“Mhm.”
The room spins again as I try to get up. The flight of stairs I ate doesn’t want me to forget my poor coordination. However, I have a funeral to prepare and a kid to raise.
“Why don’t you go relax.” Marlene turns. “Grif, help Maya to Stevie, please.”
“Yes, Grif. Carry me there and get me a strawberry daiquiri while you’re at it. So kind, so kind.” My eyes squint at the floor, trying to find balance.
Grif sighs himself up from the putrid couch, “You’re about as close to an idiot as a bear in a beehive.”
“Think of that one yourself?”
2 – A Family
Stevie is like Marlene: powerful, clever, quick-minded, loyal. But she has softer edges and warmer hugs than Marlene. We were fated to be best friends. With Anna and Marlene so close, it only made sense that their younger sisters would click. Before the outbreak, I didn’t mind her, but she was too soft for me. I thought it was her weakness, and I felt better than her because I flinched less. I didn’t really flinch less though; I just internalized it. She felt things openly. She spoke and listened. Now, after everything, she makes me feel guilty. What she’s done so beautifully, I don’t know how to do, and I feel trapped inside myself; like a shell of strength that I must appease.
Grif didn’t carry me, but he let me lean on him as we walked up the stairs to where Stevie was feeding and caring for Ellie. Grif was a giant – not literally – but he more or less could count as one. He looked like a biker from a movie: buff, tan, covered in tattoos with graying hair and fading jeans. He always held a pistol on his side and kept a greasy bandana in his pocket. What a man.
“She’s doing well. Sleeping now.”
Stevie welcomed us with this good news as we entered the dusty room that served as our common space and bedroom. Pale light streamed through the plastic covering the window, making it seem dream-like. Stevie’s smile immediately relaxed me, making me feel at home.
“Are you okay, Maya? You look-”
“Yeah, I’m good. Just took a tumble…as I do.”
“She went off on Marlene when she found out,” Grif clarified.
“Oh.” Stevie looked down in the same way Marlene had – a silent recognition. A condolence.
“Obviously, I didn’t succeed. But it’d take a madman to get her.” I shrugged. So awkward. What a gem I am.
“Come sit and rest. You can meet your niece.”
There she goes, resolving tension like a pro. I sit down and bid Grif a sarcastic adieu. He saunters off in his typical chill yet overlording fashion. Ellie sleeps in Stevie’s arms. Just four days ago, she was inside my sister, and my sister was here talking to me. She sat here where Stevie is, telling me she wants her kid – if a girl – to be named Ellie. A burning sensation blooms in my throat. I distract myself by admiring Ellie’s little hands, little feet, little everything. She’s small and she seems to glow.
“Her skin is so perfect,” I blurt out.
Stevie chuckles, “Yeah it is.”
I hate all this. My eyes start to hurt as I try not to cry or yell or scream. I hate how Ellie makes me think of Anna and how that makes me feel anxious, because now I can’t brush off death. I’m not free to die. I have Ellie.
“I don’t know what to do.” I can’t believe I said it.
Stevie doesn’t bring her gaze up from Ellie (neither do I). “No one expects you to know. But the good thing is, you don’t have to figure it out by yourself. We’re all here to protect each other, and Ellie falls right into what we’ve built.”
“But it won’t last. I was going to die. Like, I was probably going to die soon, but now I can’t.” I pause, my chest fills up like a balloon, “I can’t believe Anna just…like…left me here to do all this. Like, come on! I have to take care of her frickin’ spawn. So rude.”
Apparently, humor is my way of coping.
Stevie just smiles faintly, and says, “I think you have a lot of good reasons to feel how you’re feeling; to be overwhelmed. I’m sorry, Maya.”
“Yeah, well. Thanks.” I say, trying to make my tone sincere, because I do mean it. I just can’t imagine how it will be all right. I can’t see a way forward.
3 – A Funeral
I smell like a farm, braiding long blades of grass into a small nest. I collected a couple of pebbles and a ribbon of Anna’s for the nest. I place them in a dried piece of bark; perfect for a little boat.
“We don’t have time for this, Maya. Are you really going to go out into danger for-”
“For my dead sister? Yes, Marlene, I am.”
“There. Perfect.” I hold up the little vessel to Ellie, in Stevie’s arms.
Ellie gazes at the boat with sparkling baby eyes. Stevie smiles softly, gently rocking my niece in her arms.
“Pure brilliance of aquatic machinery, huh?” I smile at Ellie. This feels dumb and useless. But the act of something stupid and wholesome is just…nice. I haven’t done useless stuff in so long.
“Let’s do it quickly, please.”
Marlene tries her best to hide her anxiety with an encouraging tone. She’s like a mom who’s late for work, watching her kid tie his shoes painfully slowly.
I jump up. “Let’s bounce!”
The outside fashions a snow-less winter: grey, damp, cold. My feet and fingers feel numb. The wooded expanse around our safehouse probably looked pretty in the summertime and when infected weren’t browsing the foliage. A stream lay to the right, not too deep into the woods. Stevie and I guilted everyone into taking a quick trip to it for Anna. This little boat will take the place of the sendoff I couldn’t get. This is the closing act, the thing that will heal me. I will be sad, sure. But, after this, I don’t need to worry about grief getting in the way. Things can’t get in the way. You die if they do.
The brisk air and deadness really create the best funeral ambiance. Marlene keeps a hand on her gun and Grif looks around like a dog sniffing the breeze, like he can sense infected from a mile away. Stevie still carries Ellie, but as we approach, I look over to her.
“Can I take her?”
“Of course.” Stevie gently places Ellie into my arms, helping me keep the boat intact.
I can feel my breath in my head and my heart beating, a dull and haunting sensation. Ellie’s little hands hold onto my arms, and I lay the boat into her lap.
“Alrighty, Ellie.” I lean down to the stream’s edge. “You knew your mom like none of us ever did. We knew her out here, in this stupid, messed up world. She was the best sister, and I know she would have been the best mom. She was hurt, but excited. You were her blessing.”
I adjust my footing, sniffling. I refuse to cry. I must finish this and send Anna off properly.
“I bet she’s watching over you, Ellie. That’s what people say. And…you know, she didn’t lose her mind. She’s still out there, kicking butt and taking names, ya’ know.”
Ellie fiddles with the boat, intrigued by the ribbon. The ribbon from her mother’s dress. She doesn’t even know it.
“Well, Ellie. We have decency here. So, we need to send her off and let her rest. Then, her memory can exist peacefully within us.”
“Okay, Maya. Finish it up.”
“Right, hear that, Ellie? Marlene knows best, mhm.”
I can feel Marlene’s eyes roll behind my back, but I know she will grieve later…on her own. However, the thing that does slightly unease me is Grif’s shifting stance.
“Okay.” I breath. “Goodbye, Anna.”
I set the boat on the water and take Ellie’s hand to push it out to the current. We watch it go. It drifts, bouncing from side to side, sailing pleasantly down the stream.
Time to go, time to watch, time to live, time to sail, time to kill. All this, yet time will never heal. I already know that.
4 – A Meeting
I feel blurry, but Grif’s gravelly voice rumbles amid the white noise. It’s like I’m in a glass box and am scared it will break.
“Maya, let’s go.”
I feel Stevie take Ellie from my arms, Marlene’s retreating footsteps, the sunlight falling between the crevices of the trees, and Grif’s large boots shifting in the sod. He lays a hand on my shoulder. I’m watching the boat dance in the reflections on the water, now just a tiny dot in the distance.
“Let’s go, kid. Marlene’s got business.”
“Grif.”
“Hm?”
“Will I live long enough to not feel like this?”
“Time doesn’t heal smack.” His voice is sincere. I know he’s as acquainted with loss as the rest of us. Loss is a spec on all our timelines in this world. It’s a broken leg, a car accident, a lost wallet.
“Then, I don’t want any more time.”
He’s silent, his hand still on my shoulder. The feeling allows me some balance as I stand. My knees tingle with cold, mud soaked through my jeans. Grif walks slowly beside me back through the wood. Somehow, he’s still warm after his loss. He still has life in him, and he seems to want it.
We make it back to the safehouse where we eat and prepare for the night-watch. Stevie stays with me in the second-story common room. Now, the moonlight fades into the space like a milky haze. It’s cold, always cold. We decide to both take the one mattress, keeping Ellie warm between us. I hate being so close to other people, but I would honestly sob myself sick if left alone. So, I try to sleep. I try.
Morning comes like a silent dream interrupted by hushed voices and shuffling feet. Grif coughs his morning coughs. Marlene writes and plans. But I hear something different, I hear more voices. I guess this business Grif mentioned arrived, but Marlene never holds meetings at this safehouse. I turn to hear better and see Stevie and Ellie still asleep. The sun streams into the room quite thinly, so it must still be early.
“Yeah, this guy somehow gets through them.”
“Oh yeah, he stocks up the guards for sure.”
“Or just shoots their heads off.”
“What a sicko.”
“What luck to catch him, though. He almost got killed.”
“I’d hate to be in debt to her.”
“And it ain’t just cause she’s sober.”
Men laugh. Strange men. They’re outside our door that sits slightly ajar due to a busted door handle. I hate their laughs.
“Embodying gentlemanliness, I see?”
It’s Marlene’s voice. She’s not my favorite, but I love her way of shutting down a man’s audacity, cold water to a match.
“It’ll be good to have more bodies in the QZ.”
Grif says this. I could hear his weight make the floorboards squeak on his way up the stairs.
“We’re ready.”
“Thanks, Grif. Alright, we need you two down here. They’ll be fine. Just stand by the stairs. There’s no other way up.”
The men follow Marlene and Grif downstairs.
Someone’s in debt to Marlene. I bet she’s in a good mood. Part of me feels repulsed by the idea of lurking down to gawk at a bunch of gross men with big guns. Another part of me hates how close they were to us, to Ellie. Why is Marlene acting so carelessly? What debt?
I give in to curiosity quite quickly. A new record.
The stairs turn a corner, blocking the first half from the lower. I sneak down to listen in on the gathering in the living room area just below. I hear the voices of strange men, familiar men (ones who regular the safehouse), and Marlene and Grif. They settle down and Marlene speaks.
“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what you do? I know you already told these men and Grif. But I don’t need hearsay.”
A man’s voice I don’t recognize replies, “I do a lot of things.” He sounds tired, almost sad. “I typically run jobs for people in the QZ. Sometimes that takes me outside and sometimes it doesn’t.”
“But you’re familiar with the immediate area. You obviously were not just prancing about the QZ’s border.”
“Yeah, I’m fairly familiar with it.”
“And does that familiarity come with some help?”
“How so?”
“We know some guards don’t always follow, you could say, procedure.”
“Don’t be ambiguous with me, ma’am.”
“You have something they like, something that will help you evade persecution at the border.”
“Mhm. Right.”
His voice is deep and rich, but with a scratchy film over it from the typical QZ smuggler life. Brutal. Marlene goes on,
“I hope you understand. After my friend Grif here saved your behind, we’ll need a little help from you in return.”
“You wanna deal with FEDRA trash?”
I could hear a slight smirk in his voice. What an idiot.
“Do you want your routes compromised by lawful FEDRA guards?”
Aw snap, she’s deep in cold-shoulder Marlene mode now. I can only imagine Grif’s smug little face (and by little I mean big…he’s huge).
“Wow, a terrorist tipping off FEDRA to get back at a rat like me? You hold grudges for people who cut in lines you’re not even in, lady.”
He’s got a point. Why would Marlene be so dead set on getting compensation from a smuggler? So much so that she’d tip off FEDRA to do it.
“Who do you deal to?”
Grif breaks the brief silence. I can tell Marlene is thinking, brewing.
“Anyone with, as you say, compensation,” replies the unknown man.
Marlene cuts in. “This guy is so low on the totem pole, Grif, he’s useless to us. The dealers above him probably don’t even know what they carry.”
I hear her take out her pistol. I feel my heartbeat quicken. She’s gonna wake up Ellie.
“I heard guards aren’t even taking it anymore. That stuff will kill ya’. Just another kill for cash.”
It’s a bit. Grif plays around, but not with people he intends to kill or allow someone else to kill. He’s not sadistic. They know how to get him, and Marlene is bluffing her way out. She must take this guy as regretful.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
The man smirks, but he’s not at ease.
“Get him out of here,” says Marlene.
I hear Grif’s gun click.
“You want drugs or something? I can get you them, jeez!”
The man’s panicked voice comes through.
Marlene’s reply, smooth and bitter, makes my skin tingle. “No, thank you. I just need someone to stop killing people with dirty drugs, so we can take back our lives from FEDRA.”
I can only imagine her face. Her eyes piercing into his like icepicks. The rage in her voice is sincere, too. It’s backed by all the loss we’ve dealt with at the hands of FEDRA.
“I don’t want to kill people! I’m just making money, surviving. I don’t know what happens to them after. I can’t take responsibility for the stupid stuff they do when they’re out of their mind high!” He almost yells this.
They really found the most traumatized smuggler to interrogate.
“Tommy,” her voice becomes tender. “I might know how you can start saving people.”
Maya’s story will return this summer.
Written By: Kayla Harper
Image Credit:
Owl Things Considered 