Rewritten: January-June 2025

"We're going down?" Maeve scrunched her face as she gazed into the seemingly endless depths of the building. The lower levels had been consumed by the earth, collapsed into the dark shadows. Light was scarce, only the natural gloom from the glowing rain clouds outside managed to filter through the shattered walls or reflect off the small, cascading waterfalls.

She had thought they were meant to escape the building, not delve deeper into it.

"It's the only way out," TJ grunted from beside her. "Down and out."

"I don't feel comfortable with this." Meave complained as they continued their descent.

"Well, by all means, feel free to stay here with the infected," TJ shot back, ducking under a fallen beam.

"That was rhetorical!" Maeve retorted, following his lead and ducking under the beam as well.

"Didn't sound rhetorical to me," Ellie interjected, glancing at her. "We're almost out. We have to trust them."

"But, it's so hard..." the older girl sighed, yet she kept following their guides downward.

"Who knows, maybe after all this, we can have a chance to unwind when we get there–even if it's for a few minutes." Ellie suggested with a shrug.

"Yeah, that's still not motivating."

"Do you ever stop whining?" TJ muttered.

"Hey, that's rude! I don't always whine," Maeve said, crossing her arms defensively. "I could start yodeling."

"Please do not."

On top of that, there was the nagging fear that the building might cave in, trapping them all beneath the debris. And no one would even know they were buried under a massive structure. Dead. There'd be little chance of them surviving something like that.

"You want to take it easy?" Joel's incredulous tone caught Maeve's ear.

She didn't care about what adults did unless she happened to be involved, but she didn't have anything else to do besides complain. So, eavesdropping was the second best thing to entertainment.

"Well, I won't this time," Tess replied softly to Joel.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

As Maeve trudged through a massive puddle that flowed over rubble and loose debris, she gazed down the path with hesitation. She'd prefer to eat salt! The ground was extremely unstable, completely loose, and prone to causing falls.

"Are you coming down?" Ellie asked, having already navigated her way down with careful steps.

"Uh...sure I guess...eek!" Maeve accidentally misstepped, triggering a small landslide of debris and rubble. It sent her tumbling on her backside, sliding to the bottom of the slope. "Oof!"

Ellie laughed heartily, jumping to the solid part of the ground. "That was awesome."

"That's what you get for being so whiny." TJ commented as he joined that at the bottom.

"Oh, screw you!" Maeve flipped him off and stood up. "Stupid building!" She angrily muttered, humiliated noticing her backside and rear of her jeans were soaked from the tumble.

How lovely. Note the sarcasm.

"Come on." Ellie tugged her through a sideways double door opening, which, ironically, was doorless. The frame dangled awkwardly from one of the floors that had given away.

"Hey, Joel, Tess, over here!" TJ called for the adults as the three of them navigated across a concrete wall that had collapsed in the subway below.

"How convenient." Maeve said, jumping down to a lower piece of wall, with Ellie right behind her. "A makeshift staircase!"

TJ switched on his flashlight, sweeping the beam around to take in their surroundings. They mostly saw benches lining the walls, old payphones, and broken vending machines.

"Alright, Captain Obvious." Ellie rolled her eyes.

"You're pretty mean for a fourteen-year-old, anyone tell you that?" Maeve folded her arms over her chest.

"Yes. Quite frequently." The younger girl grinned.

"Yikes...this guy had a day..." The teens noticed a figure sprawled out near one of the benches. Clearly deceased.

Joel and Tess arrived and examined the body.

"Check out his sleeve. Firefly."

"Looks like these guys aren't doing well in or out of the city." TJ remarked.

"Let's hope there's someone alive waiting for us at the drop-off."

"Oh!" Maeve picked up a bottle that'd been lying next to the body. "I've got something that could help us! Sorry, mister, you won't be needing this anymore!"

"What are you doin'?" Joel gave her a strange look, especially as she started pulling items from her bag.

Maeve quickly poured the alcohol she'd found in the office lounge into the empty bottle Ellie found, along with the newly found alcohol. Making Molotovs was straightforward, but given the scarcity of resources, what she made would have to suffice for now. Although the bottle wasn't completely full, the amount of alcohol was still efficient. She stuffed a cloth into the neck of the bottle and shook it a couple of times to help the rag absorb the liquid faster.

"I added something a little extra, so be careful when lighting it! I shouldn't have to go over the safety precautions for flammable liquid with you — should I?" She narrowed her eyes at Joel and carefully handed him the Molotov.

Joel grabbed the arsenal item, "You do not."

"Awesome, 'cuz I didn't want to anyway." Maeve zipped her bag and put it back on.

"You're somethin' else," Tess said, amused. Maeve took that as a compliment.

"You're all over the place, ya know that?" TJ grunted.

"It's called ADHD." Maeve stood.

"I doubt you even know what that means."

In reaction to his jerk behavior, Maeve blew a raspberry at him but opted to disregard his comments. Of course she knew what ADHD was. She wasn't stupid. In fact, her mind was sharp. She absorbed information like a sponge, although at times, it felt more challenging. But that was the nature of the disorder.

"They're from the quarantine zone." Joel's voice brought Maeve back to the present. He crouched over the body from which she had taken the alcohol. He held a piece of paper, likely discovered during his search for anything to give them clues.

Tess sighed in relief. "See? They're not our guys."

"That's sort of a relief..." Ellie whispered beside Maeve. "In a morbid kind of way."

No one really responded to that, but they all silently concurred with the young girl. They seemed to find dead Fireflies at every turn. It was kind of dismal.

As they explored further, the group slipped into another second of the subway. The silence and shadows made the area incredibly eerie. Sure, they had their flashlights, but Maeve couldn't shake the fear of running into more infected.

They were bound to, after all. It was dark, damp, and an utterly terrifying pit in the ground. It was an ideal breeding ground for infected to wander into. And after facing all those clickers and runners, there had to be more lurking around, just waiting for the chance to leap and devour them like delicious steaks.

Click.

The deformed silhouette of a clicker appeared in Maeve's vision and her heart took a leap for her throat. Its body awkwardly lurched nearby, moving forward as it emitted more unsettling clicks.

"Holy–"

A hand swiftly clamped over her mouth, while an arm encircled her waist, pulling her tightly against a solid chest. She was completely pinned against someone. Thankfully, the hand muffled her just in time, as the clicker perked up slightly at the sound of her squeak.

"Shut up."

The clicker continued to wander aimlessly. Its head twisted awkwardly, making unsettling clicking noises. It tilted its head in the air before deciding to move on.

Once it was a safe distance away, the hand released her.

"Did you learn nothing from the upper floors, or did you want us to be Clicker food?" TJ whispered sharply into her ear.

Maeve exhaled shakily, shook her head, and fell onto her backside. Holy hell, that was intense... She swallowed hard and crawled away from TJ's crouched position, biting her lip in guilt.

"Sorry..."

"Just keep quiet and follow us."

Strike one. It hurt; Maeve winced. She was reprimanded for a harmless mistake. A mistake that could've killed them all.

They crept past the alarming number of clickers, which turned out to be more laborious than Maeve anticipated. The hearing of these infected was acute—well, somewhat acute. She held her breath, terrified that her breathing would draw the clickers' attention. Even the ones that were standing still, as if they were asleep, would click and groan at the faintest noise.

"Mother of–!" Tess ducked behind a broken turnstile, glaring at a stationary clicker that obstructed the exit. "God, we're almost out..."

"I'll take care of it." Joel said quietly and pulled out a sharp dagger-like object from seemingly out of nowhere. He crept up to the clicker and quickly grabbed it, thrusting the sharp object into its throat before it called for its infected pals. It gurgled for a second before the man discarded the body to the side as quietly as he could.

"Damn it, the door's jammed!" TJ muttered under his breath, struggling to open the gates.

"We could use that ladder," Maeve spotted the said ladder jutting out halfway into the air.

"Joel, give me a boost." Tess requested, and he complied.

In an instant, the ladder was seized. It fell, but TJ managed to catched it to prevent it from clattering and causing a ruckus. Once the ladder was securely positioned, they ascended it one by one.

"Kick the ladder, Joel. " Tess told the man before she dropped out of the exit.

"Can do." A loud, metallic band echoed throughout the subway area, and screams erupted from the shadows.

Maeve dropped down onto the top of a bus, grunting out. The sounds made her think of demons crawling through hell. She slipped off the bus and into the train wreck. Water that had been collecting from the rain pooled shallowly as they walked through it.

"Holy fudge sticks," Ellie exhaled. "We actually made it!"

"Yeah," Maeve replied, placing a hand over her rapidly beating heart. "For a second there, I thought we were done for!"

"We would've been if I hadn't shut you up in time," TJ said with a disapproving tone and look.

"Haha..." the older girl laughed nervously, her flushed cheeks reddening with embarrassment. "I'm sorry about that. We've never had to deal with clickers before."

"Clearly."

"Is everyone alright?" Joel asked, scanning the group to see if anyone was injured.

"Yes," Tess answered. "Let's keep moving."

"Hey, your guys are pretty good at this stuff!" Ellie praised as they made their way toward the damaged road and climbed out of the subway into downtown.

The rain had finally stopped. Thank goodness.

"It's called luck, and it is gonna run out," Joel said as he climbed the broken piece of pavement. "Which way are we goin', Tess?"

"Uh..." Tess surveyed the area, glancing at the buildings before turning to the east, where the sun shone brightly as it rose. "The Capitol Building is that way."

Maeve carefully crossed the cracked intersection, her eyes on the old museum and the truck blocking the road nearby. She inhaled the warm morning air; despite the muddy smell, it was far more invigorating than the stench of decaying infected bodies.

"How are we getting past this truck?" Tess grunted as she approached the trailer.

"Maybe we can boost each other up?" Maeve proposed, glancing at the top of the truck's trailer.

"Ehh..." TJ looked at the trailer. "Yeah, no."

"I mean, it's an idea, right?" She shot him a glare.

"A terrible one."

"You know what–!" She glared at him, poised to unleash a torrent of curses when Joel rolled a dumpster out from the old museum. "Oh — well, that works too, I guess."

The dumpster thudded against the trailer, as steady as Joel could manage, she figured.

"Up and over, I guess..." Maeve muttered to no one in particular, feeling the weight of the day pressing down on her as she climbed onto the dumpster and then the trailer.

One by one, they dropped to the other side of the truck. The street was abandoned with other cars. It was quiet and empty. A startling contrast to the depths of the hell-like subway and the leaning building.

"Maybe we can cut through here," Tj suggested, pointing at a garage door secured with a chain.

"Maybe." Joel agreed and grabbed the chain. The gears and mechanisms of the levy screeched against the rust and friction.

"Right, that turned out awesome last time–" Ellie was nudged by Maeve. "Sorry. Just saying."

A scream echoed in the distance, audible to everyone except Joel, as he was busy with the squealing-geared chain.

"Sh-shh..." Tess stopped Joel for a second.

"What? I can't hear anything," he replied, puzzled.

As if the scream multiplied, dozens filled the air. Wails and cries.

"Hurry up!"

"Son of a...!" Joel hastily pulled the chain, the garage door barely lifted enough for the others to slip beneath and inside.

"Oh-they're coming!"

"I KNOW!"

As if conjured, several infected emerged and started to scale the truck. Maeve yelped, and Tess urged her to duck under the door with Ellie and TJ.

"Alright, that's enough! That's enough!" With Tess and TJ, Maeve held the door open for Joel to crawl beneath as the infected drew nearer, their screams piercing the air.

"Let it go!" Joel rushed underneath.

SLAM!

The door fell just as a Runner thrust her arm beneath it. Everyone recoiled, while the infected hammered the metal without mercy. With every hit, Maeve flinched. Their cries were overwhelming.

"Damn..." she murmured, stepping further back.

"You've got something on your shoe," Ellie suddenly said to Joel.

There was a hand, or rather, an entire arm clinging to Joel's boot. The infected had succeeded in grabbing him before the door severed its limb.

He kicked the arm away in revulsion.

"Gross."