You play as Ellie in the Last of us 2 Au.

The air stank of blood and salt. The sound of waves crashing against the beach mixed with the groans of dying men behind her. Ellie staggered forward, every step heavy, her ribs screaming, her arms slick with wounds that refused to stop bleeding.

The pillars loomed ahead. Corpses swayed like broken marionettes, skin pale, lips cracked, eyes long gone to dust. Her heart clenched as her eyes caught movement.

There.

Abby.

She was barely recognizable—her body thin, starved, her hair hacked short, face sunken and hollow. But those eyes—those same eyes Ellie had burned into her memory—lifted weakly, and recognition flashed through them.

“Ellie…” Abby rasped as Ellie cut her down. She collapsed to her knees, breath rattling.

Nearby, Lev hung limp on another pillar. Ellie’s chest knotted as she pulled him down, only to find stillness in his tiny frame. No rise of breath. No fight left.

Abby dragged herself to him, her hands trembling as she pressed to his chest, as if willing him back. But the truth lay heavy in the silence.

“No…” Abby’s voice cracked, raw grief spilling into the night. She cradled him, rocking slightly, her lips pressed to his forehead. For the first time, Ellie saw her not as the monster who had taken Joel, but as a girl broken in half by loss.

Abby’s eyes, rimmed red, finally turned to her. “There’s boats,” she whispered, her voice gone hollow. “We can… leave.”

They walked together in silence to the shore, dragging their pain behind them like anchors. Abby laid Lev gently in one boat, brushing his hair back, then stood frozen, her hand still gripping the wood.

Ellie set her backpack in the other. Her chest heaved. Her throat burned. Joel’s face flickered in her mind—his laugh, his guitar, the warmth of his voice. Then the memory shattered into the spray of his blood on the floor, Abby’s golf club raised.

Her jaw clenched. “Fight me,” she demanded, her voice shaking.

Abby stared at her, exhausted, broken. “I’m done.”

Ellie’s switchblade flashed, trembling in her grip. She pressed it dangerously close to Lev’s still form. “Then I’ll make you.”

Abby’s scream ripped through the night as she lunged. The fight was savage, desperate—Ellie slashing, Abby striking, both too drained to stop, too consumed by fury to let go.

Water churned around them as the blade slipped from Ellie’s hand, swallowed by the tide. They fell into fists, into teeth, into bone and blood. Abby’s fist cracked across her jaw. Ellie’s nails raked down her face. They were animals, dragging each other down into the surf.

Ellie forced Abby’s head beneath the water, the ocean swallowing her thrashing limbs. But Abby’s teeth sank deep into her hand—Ellie screamed as flesh tore, two fingers severed. Pain flared white-hot, but still she shoved harder, holding Abby under.

Her muscles trembled with effort, the weight of vengeance pressing down on her. Abby’s struggles weakened. The bubbles slowed.

And then—Joel.

Not his death. Not the blood. But him on the porch, fingers strumming a song on that damn guitar. A smile tugging at his lips. A moment she thought she’d never wanted, but realized she had needed all along.

Ellie’s grip broke. She yanked Abby up from the water, both of them gasping, sobbing, broken.

“Go,” Ellie choked out, tears streaming down her face. “Take him. Just… go.”

Abby staggered toward Lev’s boat, her legs weak. She pushed it into the tide, her trembling hands lingering on the boy’s body. But then—she stopped.

Instead of climbing in, Abby shoved the boat out alone, watching it drift into the night like a funeral pyre on the waves. She turned back and walked to Ellie, collapsing into the water beside her.

The two of them sat in the surf, their bodies trembling, their eyes hollow. Neither spoke. They didn’t need to.

Ellie’s tears mingled with the ocean as she whispered to herself, “I can’t carry it anymore.”

Beside her, Abby leaned back against the sand, her gaze on the endless horizon. “Then don’t.”