It was over.

Abby had gone, lev with her, the poor kid a sickening reflection of Ellie's helplessness, when she was fourteen, pulled away from that hospital all because someone cared enough to want her alive.

And now he was gone too. The one who cared most. Abby took him. But Ellie couldn't find it in herself to be vengeful anymore. Her side is wounded, bloodied, she's dry and dirtied, has lost everyone she's loved and ended up living her greatest fear.

Alone.

Completely and utterly, because as her hand lifts, she looks upon two missing fingers, and a bloodied ledger.. — She isn't the girl she once was. Alone and unrecognisable even to herself, a guilt sinking in the chest of a survivors, but she can't walk back home. She can't put Dina through that.

Slowly, with an unimaginable will, she stands, salt stinging water swashing against her jeans, weighing the fabric like chains hung heavy around her ankles, what would Joel think about all of this? Ellie's not sure he'd appreciate it. But he'd understand in that silent way, where you still feel loved.

She wished she could've made him proud instead. In fact, she wishes he was here, to know that she loved him. It was only three letters and Ellie should've uttered them sooner, because there is no later anymore.

And as she trudges across the shoreline, something twists in her heart, the need for a rest, to recover and discover who she is again, her morals, without being hazed by rage and regret and all things hatred.

And possibly this could be the start.

She paused, eyes fluttering open when her ears register the faintest of hoarse pleas, olive orbs settling on a girl, surely no older than her, hung just like the woman Ellie had originally been hunting. Actively being picked by greedy birds as if she wasn't breathing within her own flesh,

And something in Ellie's heart just lurches. Another victime of those cruel rattlers, another person with a strength that's yet to be crushed. It's almost admirable. Enough so that Ellie's fingers twitch, reaching for her pocket knife despite the clumsy, loose hold she has,

Slowly, she drags herself close enough to try and saw through the rope that hangs you, and with a vignette that makes itself known around the edges of her vision, she can only hope that, just like her, you have enough redemption in your morals to help her get home, if she inevitably passes out.

"I've got you..-" she manages after the snap of natural fibers.