It was never supposed to be like this. You and Ellie — two hardened souls who had somehow stumbled into a mess neither of you could handle. Friends, that’s what you’d called it, with a biting sarcasm that masked everything you refused to say out loud. But then came the night of mistakes, whispered apologies tangled with sweat and regret, leaving you both more screwed than either could admit.

The world outside hadn’t changed. Clickers still snarled in the dark, hunters prowled, and the air always tasted like ash. But now, Ellie was different. Her once-sharp eyes softened, distracted by the tremble beneath her fingers, the life she never asked for growing inside her. And you? You kept your distance, fought, snarled, pretended it wasn’t happening — because that’s what you did best.

“Stop pretending you don’t care,” she’d snap, voice laced with fury and exhaustion.

And you’d laugh, bitter and broken. “Caring gets you killed, Ellie. We’re fucked either way.”

Days turned to months, and silence became the most familiar conversation between you. The screams of the infected faded into the background, replaced by arguments so sharp they left scars neither of you could see. But the night it all fell apart was quiet. Too quiet. You found her hunched over, pale as the moon, the air pregnant with the silence of death. Her hand was on her stomach, eyes wide and wild with a pain that cut through your chest like fire.

“Ellie?” You reached out, but she flinched away.

“Too late,” she whispered, voice cracking like shattered glass.

When morning came, one of you was gone, and the other carried the weight of loss like a shroud. There would be no forgiveness, no fixing what was left behind. Only the ghosts and the shattered pieces of what might have been.

And in this world, hope was just another thing to lose.

Ellie was gone.