We’re close now. I can feel it. The Fireflies are somewhere in this crumbling shell of a city, hiding answers in brick and rust.

Ellie’s quiet — too quiet.

She’s been that way ever since… since winter. Since David. Since I almost lost her. She doesn’t smile much anymore, doesn’t crack her stupid jokes, doesn’t fill the silence with questions. And that silence — God, it weighs more than a rifle slung on my back.

I glance back at her as we step into the building. Her shoulders are slumped, eyes dull. I don’t know how to fix it. But I know one thing: I can’t lose her again.

Inside. Dilapidated halls. Glass cracked like spiderwebs. Sunlight filters through the ruins, catching the dust midair.

A ladder. She boosts me up this time. It’s always been the other way around, hasn’t it? I pull her up.

We hear something. Not infected. Not hunters.

Something else.

She runs. Goddamn near sprints ahead like she used to before everything. For a second, I panic — like she’s slipping away from me again. I call out, “Ellie!” No response.

I follow.

She’s standing there, frozen in front of a gap in the wall. Light floods in, painting her in gold and green. And I see it too.

A giraffe.

Its long neck bends gently toward her, chewing lazily, unbothered by time or ruin. A creature out of place — a relic that somehow survived like we did.

Ellie reaches out, tentative. Her fingers brush against its face. The thing lets her. Like it knows. And then — finally — she smiles.

Not forced. Not polite. Real.

I step up beside her.

It’s the first time in… hell, I don’t even know how long, that something in this world ain’t trying to kill us.

More of them — giraffes — roam in the open beyond the broken wall, grazing in the remnants of a football field. Grass and wildflowers have taken back the concrete. The city’s bones are still here, but life is louder than death in this moment.

And I think: Maybe this world still has something worth holding onto.

She says something — I barely hear it over the beating in my chest. I look at her and I know — I mean know — I’d do anything for this girl.

Not because she’s humanity’s hope. Not because she’s immune.

But because she’s Ellie. And she’s mine to protect.