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paradisa2013-08-24 11:36 pm
focusrighthere) wrote in paradisa2013-08-24 11:36 pm
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[Immediately after he woke up, he began to panic. This was the wrong place to be. He was alone and some piece of shit took his watch -- his watch, Jesus Christ, why? It was broken, it wasn't worth anything to anyone but him. He swears under his breath and envisions a slow death for the party responsible while he moves through the giant castle like an angry shadow.
Normally he knows how not to be seen, but with the confusing events clouding over his judgment he's moving a bit too fast. It's huge in here. He's nowhere near Tommy's camp anymore, that's for sure. What he needs to do is push forward and search every area for Ellie, just keep searching until he finds the little girl he's lost somewhere along the way. Again.
If you are unfortunate enough to bump into Joel first, he's got a backpack full of weapons and explosives and a hell of a lot of snap judgments to make about anyone he might run into. It might not look like the start of a friendly encounter.
But he has no idea to expect magic from anyone or anything. You're all normal, fallible civilians, right?]
Normally he knows how not to be seen, but with the confusing events clouding over his judgment he's moving a bit too fast. It's huge in here. He's nowhere near Tommy's camp anymore, that's for sure. What he needs to do is push forward and search every area for Ellie, just keep searching until he finds the little girl he's lost somewhere along the way. Again.
If you are unfortunate enough to bump into Joel first, he's got a backpack full of weapons and explosives and a hell of a lot of snap judgments to make about anyone he might run into. It might not look like the start of a friendly encounter.
But he has no idea to expect magic from anyone or anything. You're all normal, fallible civilians, right?]
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Utter fucking relief.
And god she just wants to let herself drown in that emotion but she can't because the longer she beats around the bush, the longer it's going to take to calm Joel down, and she'd rather not worry about him shooting the next person that turns the corner on pure instinct.]
Look, I know this is going to sound really fucking crazy and I won't blame you at all if you look at me like I grew another head or some shit like that. Because seriously, that's how I was looking at everyone when I first woke up here. It's how I still look at people half the time, actually.
[There's a pause, because she needs to prepare herself for his reaction just as much as he's sure to need her to take things slow.]
I've been here for two weeks now. I don't know how or even why, but we're stuck in this weird-ass castle that apparently impossible to escape from.
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So he searches her eyes and he waits. He waits when she throws up a disclaimer about how crazy this is gonna sound, shaking his head a little at it because he trusts her. He trusts her more than anyone in the fucking world. So when he tells her that they're stuck in a castle and it's impossible to escape, he-- okay, that was weird.
Joel blinks at her and straightens up. He keeps one hand on her shoulder, keeps contact like he's worried she might disappear again if he doesn't, and slowly processes what he's being told.]
Two weeks? [In the end, this is what he decides to focus on. She's been here for two weeks without him. Nothing was making any sense at all, but he has no choice but to believe her and that part felt like a knife to the heart.] I've been missing for two weeks?
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[She takes another breath, shaking her head like she can't believe it all either. And she can't, really. Even seeing the magic of this place first-hand, it's still so above anything else she's ever encountered.]
This place isn't normal. At all. And I know that's totally stating the obvious, but there's just... [Ugggh she can't even describe this without being horribly blunt. Now she kind of feels bad for all the people she had been questioning when she first showed up.]
There's magic here, Joel. Fuck if I know how it works, but it's true, I swear. [She recalled what that one guy - Alvin, was it? - had told her. About how there was a years-long gap between when his girlfriend showed up in the castle and when he had shown up, and it was like she was never even gone from their world.]
It... fucks up with time somehow. That's why I was never gone from Tommy's place.
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Just-- just what the hell? Joel takes a step back and pinches at the bridge of his nose, crosses an arm over his chest. He needs a breather now. This didn't feel like a weird dream, but it sure sounded like one.]
This is crazy. You're sure about all this? [He refocuses on her and speaks the next part quietly, a very slight tremble in his voice:] Ellie, what about infected? Or hunters? If it's impossible to escape, that means we're trapped with all them too.
[Because there was no way to be trapped and be safe at the same time. At least at Tommy's, he knew they could run away if the place ever went to hell. They could always run away and try to start over somewhere new. A magic time-warping castle sounded more like a prison than paradise. 'Paradisa.'
Jesus Christ. Maybe in another minute he'd wake up and all this weirdness would vanish.]
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[She's still not sure how exactly she should be handling the revelation that magic is real. She's still trying to wrap her head around it and every time she thinks about it too much, she starts getting a headache.]
... The Infected aren't here. I've seen enough of this castle in the past two weeks and I haven't seen a single one. Nobody else I've talked to even knows what the Infected are.
[She sounds shocked really, and for good reason. For someone like her, who was born after the fungal virus broke out and was quickly razing humanity to the ground, the thought that people didn't know what the Infected were, that there were people who were born in a world without those monsters... it's almost incomprehensible.]
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No infected. [Again, if it wasn't Ellie telling him this he wouldn't believe it. He knows what life was like before 'em- what life was supposed to be like for everyone, but after living with runners and clickers for twenty-one years he can scarcely believe it.
He doesn't know if he buys it, even now. It's too good to be true.]
Do you reckon it took us back in time?
[It sounds completely insane and he can barely register the words coming out of his mouth, but given their messed up timelines he thinks that's the most likely explanation. And easier to believe than a whole different universe, somehow.]
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[Ellie sort of wonders if this is what going crazy feels like. Believing in shit like magic? And time travel? What's next, aliens? OH WAIT NO SHE MET SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER PLANET ALREADY fuck she's totally gone.]
But... I don't think that's what's going on. There are a couple of people I've talked to... it sounds like they've run into things similar to the Infected. But instead of a virus taking them over, they just... come back to life after they die.
[People that don't stay dead when they die... now that's a whole new nightmare that Ellie just knows is going to haunt her one night.]
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Sounded a lot like proper zombies, actually. Joel can barely remember the movies and television shows he watched back then, now that he's so used to his life being removed from that timeframe entirely, but the word trickles back to him now. Distant memories. Watching flicks with little brother after hours when they were supposed to be in bed.
Cracking jokes about how stupid the things looked.]
Are there any around here?
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No. Those guys were some of the people that were telling me this place is safe [which she doesn't completely believe] and if they went through similar shit that we did dealing with their monsters, I can't really see them lying about something that dangerous being here or not. So... I trust them when they say that.
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Who knows. This all feels pretty fucking unpredictable. [To say the least.] Alright, I'll bite. Most people gather here from different universes or somethin' and the castle runs on magic.
Does that about sum everything up?
[Especially for a natural skeptic and straight-talker like Joel, it's rather difficult to lay those words out seriously. And yet.]
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Shoot.
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It's all as simple as wishing for it. Just gotta say that I wish for... [nothing big nothing big] a pair of socks.
[Ta-daa! There is suddenly a nice clean pair of fluffy white socks in Ellie's hand.]
Pretty freaky, huh?
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His gaze shifts left and right. He takes a step in and peers at the socks uneasily.]
I'll be damned. [He promised he wouldn't freak out, but this is very freaky.] Works for anything at all?
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[He tries to pluck the socks right out of her hands, wanting to examine them over for authenticity. Repeats her choice of phrasing aloud:] Freaky.
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[A pause, then she grins a very mischievous grin.] The first time I did it, I was joking about wishing for a pair of boots to shove up some guy's ass. Still have the boots back in my room.
[Oh Ellie...]
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Then it clicks. He looks up.] Why? Did he do anything to you?
[Oh Joel.]
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[And he managed to set her off by telling her that one of his nicknames for kids in the tower translated to something only Joel would call her, but that had come after.]
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[He slowly shifts from concerned to somewhat less concerned. Somewhat. If he's being honest with himself, Ellie probably did.]
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All I did was doubt his claim that there was magic in this place. He was the first person I ran into, so of course I was gunna doubt the utter bullshit he was spewing. Then he had to mock me, so of course I was gunna say something back to him!
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[And that stranger shouldn't have made fun of her for it. He's having a hard time adjusting, but he can only imagine how much harder this would be without Ellie here. There'd probably be a trail of dead people behind him right now if he hadn't found her as quick as he did. The thought sobers him up and his next words a little soft.]
It had to be tough waking up here all on your own, kiddo.
[Sorry, he wants to say, but instead it skirts under the surface. Sorry I wasn't there.]
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[Ellie's shoulders slump, and her expression falls into a frown. It had only been two weeks (or thirteen days exactly) but it had felt so much longer. And waking up that first day...]
It sucks, waking up alone.
[All her life, she was never really alone when she woke. There were always plenty of kids in the orphanages she had lived in, and like them or not, they were still human presences surrounding her. Then there was the short time where she actually had a friend, and it was comforting knowing she was only a few bunks away. After that there was Joel, who was always within arm's length when they stopped for the night. Even during the harsh winter weeks when he was barely holding on, he was still there.
The only time she ever really woke up alone was when she woke up in David's cage. So yeah, it wasn't a very pleasant feeling.]
... I was worried. [And she would never admit this with anyone else, but...] And scared.
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Me too, babygirl.
[Much softer now. He can't put into words just how fucking terrified he was, waking up without her anywhere in sight. The look on his face tells a little of that story. It was bad enough in winter, but after what he'd been through with the Fireflies he didn't even want to think about two weeks stuck in this joint without any way to know that she was alright.
Hell. It would've been hell.]
But I'm here now. I ain't goin' anywhere.
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Good. [Her voice is slightly muffled by his shirt, but she keeps talking anyway.] If you do, I'll just hunt you down and kick your ass.
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