rule #1

[scaler]

[Molly has found the journal.

'Calm' is not a good word for it. Neither is 'relaxed,' or 'adjusted,' or 'accepting,' but she is very good at putting on all four. Keeping her head is what keeps her alive.

She's gotten acquainted with the important bits: the magic, the wishes, the losses, the indefinite stay, the familiar faces. Also the really important bit: walkers. That is, lack thereof. Allegedly.

None of it seems real -- but then, options are limited.

She presses a crease into the corner of the journal's page with her thumbnail. The first thing it picks up is a mutter half to herself.]

Feet first, I guess.

[Then, louder:]

So, hey. Ain't I supposed to get a gift basket? That's what luxury places like this do, right? What kind of welcome wagon is this?

Comments

[threeweeksago]

They're pretty cool people. And it's nice to know that there are people here who have been through similar shit, y'know?

[Speaking of...]

How does that whole undead thing even work anyway? Where I come from, people have to be alive before they turn into monsters.

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[Maybe. She hasn't decided. It's at least better than being surrounded by people who still worry about whether they should have one cookie or two after dinner.]

Don't know, don't care. If you're smart, it's shoot first, ask questions later.

[If you're even smarter you don't shoot at all, but that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

Still, though. She's curious enough about these alternate universe monsters that she'll keep the conversation topic going.]

One day the dead stayed dead, and the next day they didn't. There wasn't a lot of time for scientific inquiry.

[threeweeksago]

If that wasn't the first rule of fighting any kind of monster, I'd be pretty worried.

[Huh...]

Oh, right. Ben said it was only four months for you guys? Makes sense that there wouldn't really be any kind of information. [Even though she knew jack shit aside from what little she was able to gather hanging around military-types before setting out on her journey, that was only because the military was stupid enough to limit the damned information.] For my world, it's been twenty years since the outbreak.

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Jesus.

[Twenty years. She doesn't think about how long she might live anymore, less because it's depressing and more because it just isn't useful, but twenty years feels like an impossible length of time, now.

It's not that she thought they might recover by then, but that she thought they'd be wiped out.

It also becomes very, very obvious that Ellie doesn't sound a day over 15.]

Does that mean there's treatments? Containment?

["How the fuck did you guys stay alive so long?"]

[threeweeksago]

No treatment, no. [Ellie's surprised with herself that she managed to keep her voice even. There were times where she could go a whole day or two not thinking about Salt Lake City, and other times it was always on her mind. Since arriving in the castle, that was actually one of the last things on her mind. Until now, that is.

... She can't let herself think about it now. Not here, god knows how many worlds away from the ruins of her home, where absolutely nothing could be done.]

And "containment" was pretty much just building walls around cities, herding everyone inside of them, and shooting anyone who scanned positive for the infection. [Yeeeeeah nothin' says "warm welcome" to a new city like seeing a dude get shot right in the street.] Living in them was shit though, and I guess most of them fell apart because of the people rioting. Seems to be what happened to all the ones we passed through. As far as I know, only Boston's still running.

[scaler]

[And there's her explanation.

She'd meant containment in the sense of containing the infected; it hadn't occurred to her that the rules of infection might be different. No wonder it'd taken them down faster.]

Nice to hear that your government was about as useful as ours was.

[That is to say, not.]

[threeweeksago]

Oh yeah, they were totally useful. Had a system for everything. Losing soldiers fast? That's cool, there's enough orphanages in the city. Once a kid turns sixteen we'll throw a gun in their hands and wish 'em luck.

[Hard to believe that was going to be her fate. Life probably would've been a lot simpler then, but a hell of a lot more boring compared to the shit she went through. So maybe getting attacked by a pack of runners turned out to be a good thing in some fucked up way?]

Can't say I was too choked up over leaving that place.

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Better than not giving them one. Geeks don't give you a pass for being under eighteen.

[There's a nine year old with a gun in their group. They don't fuck around.]

[threeweeksago]

Yeah, no kidding. Only fourteen and I've had to fight more than my fair share of those freaks.

["Geeks"...? Now that's a new one.]

But it wouldn't really be so bad if they'd been able to... you know. Show everyone how to properly use a fucking gun.

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[Fourteen, shit.

That hits a long-buried nerve -- and honestly the longer Ellie talks the angrier about it Molly gets. These sound like people who had a chance, who threw it away for bullshit and dragged everyone else down with them.]

No offense, but your-- [she stumbles on the phrasing, still strange] world sounds like a piece of shit. And coming from me, that's saying something.

[threeweeksago]

[Ellie snorts.]

No offense taken. All that shit is the only kind of world I ever knew before coming here, but even then, I wasn't stupid enough to not realize it's total shit.

[Okay, well... that's not entirely true.]

At least... everything run by the military was total shit. The place I was in before getting dragged here, run by actual people and not military dickheads or crazy hunters... that wasn't so bad. It was actually kind of nice.

[scaler]

[A pause.]

You got lucky, kid. Decent groups are hard to find, military or not.

[threeweeksago]

You can say that again. I barely need both my hands to count the amount of people I've met who are actually good.

[There's a pause, and her voice loses a bit of its edge.] And a lot of them are dead now.

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Yeah. [It comes out on an exhale, a laugh fallen flat.] Sounds about right.

[threeweeksago]

And the most fucked up thing about that is... no matter how many people you lose, you can't stop caring. Right?

[After losing the people she did in the ways that happened, Ellie should be a total social recluse at this point. But here she is, marching on and attempting to make friends regardless.]

With the shit that goes down in worlds like ours, if you find someone you can trust, feels kinda hard to not latch onto 'em.

[scaler]

[A pause.]

Wouldn't know. I've been on my own for a while.

[threeweeksago]

... Oh.

[Crap, Ellie feels bad now.] Shit, I'm sorry.

[scaler]

Don't be. Turns out I do pretty well when it's just me I gotta worry about.

[threeweeksago]

Still... better off or not...

[She thought she was better off alone, before she met Riley. Before she started out on her adventure with Joel.]

Loneliness can still such major ass sometimes.

[scaler]

[Talking about loneliness makes her a little uncomfortable. She isn't, not really, but she can't deny that it was nice to be around people who could actually talk back for once.

She could have had a place in Lee's group, maybe, but she gave that up for a reason. One that she's not about to hit Ellie with now.]

Well, going by all the pages in this thing, there's plenty of people around now.

[threeweeksago]

Plenty of people, plenty of headaches trying to understand just what the hell is going on when they talk about their "worlds". [She doesn't say that in a bad way, though. She sounds amused, if anything.]

I gotta say, it's pretty interesting hearing about places where those freaks don't exist at all.

[scaler]

Yeah, still deciding how I feel on that one. Definitely going to take some getting used to.

[threeweeksago]

It does have some perks though, if you wanna look at the bright side. Probably won't be boring at all here, with all the weirdos running around.

[scaler]

You got me there. This place isn't shy about cranking up the weird factor.

[threeweeksago]

No kidding. So what's the weirdest thing you've run into so far? I'm still stuck between "thousand year old elf" and Ben claiming that he's seen a talking dog.