6th Arrow [written]

[threeweeksago]

[Ellie hasn't been seen much in the past week. After news of the bloater began to drift about, she'd holed up in her room for a few days. Bloaters were bad news, and it was hard to believe there was only one Infected roaming the castle's halls, so she wasn't taking any chances.

... But a week passed, and there wasn't any more panicking, so Ellie supposed it was time to start socializing again.]

Y'know, I get that the damn castle can be pretty dickish sometimes. I've been here long enough to understand that, and it'd be really fucking stupid to not be wary of this place just because you've been here for a while.

But randomly releasing Infected into the halls? And a fucking bloater? What the fuck is wrong with this place?

Comments

Dictated forever

[indirectcause]

[Oh, hey Ellie. Guess who's hoping Joel DIDN'T tell you about his lucky escape. Yep. This guy.]

I don't envy you at all, if you have to deal with that shit back home.

[dictated]

[threeweeksago]

[There is a pause before Ellie responds. A long pause. A pause long enough that Ben will probably start sweating nervously while waiting for an answer.]

Ben. Where are you right now?

[There's a strange tone in her voice when she asks that. It's not a very good tone.]

[dictated]

[indirectcause]

[Nothing good can ever come from a tone like that. He is so doomed.]

Uh. In my room?

THAT THREAD WE TALKED ABOUT B)

[dog_eat_dog]

[And that evening, Tess is going to lose her patience with the teenager living in her midst.

As much as Tess likes to see Joel cheerful –– or as cheerful as he gets, anyway –– as he plucks away at a guitar and teaches Ellie the finer points of doing the same, there comes a time where she just can't hear it anymore. Generally she just shoos them or glares at them from over the edge of her book until they get the hint and go to the music room or somewhere else, but not today. Today it's just Ellie noodling away, and today it's getting on Tess's nerves in a way that is slowly driving her mental.

Today she has heard the opening chords of Smoke on the Water or whatever it's called one too many times.

So Tess snaps.]

Ellie, I swear to god, if you play that song just one more time, I am going to use your guitar for kindling.

AW YIS

[threeweeksago]

[Sorry, Tess, Ellie doesn't stop. At all. She merely rolls her eyes at Tess's order for her to stop, but she scowls when she threatens the guitar. YOU'LL HAVE TO PRY IT FROM HER COLD DEAD HANDS, TESS.]

Why? It's a good song?

Re: AW YIS

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess's eyes narrow. God fucking damnit. She puts down the pot she's drying and faces Ellie fully.]

It was good the first time, and when Joel played it. It is extremely annoying after the millionth time.

Last warning.

[willrememberthat]

[Definitely not mentioning any rescuing by Joel, lalala.]

The name is fitting.

[threeweeksago]

[Ellie should probably be mad at Clem too. She was with Ben too, after all. But from what she heard, at least Clem didn't do anything too stupid, so... she gets a break. It certainly helps that she's not, yanno. Dating Clem.]

Yeah, "Infected" may be kind of a stupidly boring name, but at least all the specific names are pretty good.

[willrememberthat]

There are different ones?

[originalcopy]

That fucked up lump of yuck was from your world... wow, sucks to be you.

[threeweeksago]

Tell me about it. Those things are pretty fucking rare compared to other Infected though, so I guess it doesn't completely suck.

[originalcopy]

Nice to know. Remind me to not go on vacation wherever it is you live.

[focusrighthere]

Question of the year.

[threeweeksago]

A question that will probably go forever unanswered, ugh.

[delincuente]

Okay, I didn't even see this thing, but that name makes me not look at food for a decade. Gross.

[She makes a small noise at the phrasing.]

"Infected"? You one of our Zombie Survivors Fun Club?

[threeweeksago]

Damn, you're lucky. I mean, all the other Infected are pretty fucked up to look at with shit growing out of their faces and heads, but bloaters have the whole rotten body thing going on. It's totally disgusting.

... Yeah, I guess. They're not really zombies, though, 'cause the Infected are all alive, and can be killed in mostly normal ways.

[delincuente]

So they didn't, like, rise from their grave all Thriller-style? 'Cause those are the only kinds of zombies I've ever heard of. Some of them crashed my prom one year. They didn't have stuff growing off their faces, I'm pretty sure.

permawritten;

[threeweeksago]

[Ah, it's been a while since Ellie felt jealous of people who didn't know what Infected were...]

No, by "infected" I mean "Infected". Capital I. Crazy monsters that used to be people who were taken over by some creepy-ass mutant fungus shit. And a bloater is the strongest and deadliest kind of Infected, and a huge pain in the ass to take down.

[batteriesarehard]

Cute name for it.

[Her tone suggests that fuck that Ellie what the hell is wrong with your universe.]

We just call ours walkers. Guess going for the descriptive names is something our groups have in common.

[threeweeksago]

Right?

[Oh, she knows that tone well. She's pretty sure she sounded like that the first time she saw a bloater, too.]

Well it's not like they can think up some weird super-scientific name for those fuckers. That would probably involve trying to study them, and fuck if anyone's stupid enough to try that.

[batteriesarehard]

[Well that's... not something she expected to hear.]

Someone has to be studying them somewhere, though. There's no cure now, but there has to be one eventually.

dictated

[rightchoices]

Jesus, Ellie. I knew your kind were different, but I didn't picture it like that.

[threeweeksago]

Yeah, pretty fucked up, isn't it? But apparently it takes a really long time for 'em to get like that, so it's not like there are a bunch of those things running around all over the place.

So... you know. It's not as completely fucking awful as it could be.