The Last of Us

Chapter 8: A Loss of Humanity

The metal handle of my gun chilled the skin on my lower back and raised goosebumps on it while a shiver ran up my spine. Her eyes felt as though they were piercing my own and I tried to swallow but my throat was too dry. "Bobby?" she said as sweat dripped down her temples and over her cheeks. She took a step forward but kept her gun raised.

"How do you know my name?" I asked and my hand slowly drifted behind me towards the gun. I glanced at Linda who saw my hand moving towards my gun, we then looked into each other's eyes but I quickly turned away and looked back at the blonde girl ahead of us who held us at gun point. We outnumbered her and had much more fire power than she did, but we had all put our guns away when she opened the door for us, not expecting her to be a psycho.

"We went to school together Bobby, your bitch of a mom didn't let you come to my party because she thought I was a slut... though I have to admit I wasnt behaving very well at that party." She said, But after her comment about my mother I had lost all reasoning power in my mind.

I was seeing red, and any compassion or sympathy for anything or anybody had completely left my mind and even my soul for that matter. The rage inside me built as my eyes scanned her for an opportunity. I felt as though my humanity was slipping away, and a robotic, mechanical killer was taking over.

I scratched and clawed to the outermost edges of my now morphing mind, and I realized that my point of view on humanity itself had utterly changed. I watched her eyes look down for the slightest of moments, and I took this short hesitation as the opportunity I needed. I drew my revolver and in that same fluid motion I cocked it back. She only had begun to glance up at me after noticing my movement, but the trigger had already been pulled.

As the .45 caliber bullet exploded out of the barrel of the gun, it swiftly found its way through her eye socket and into the concrete wall behind her. I noticed that the trigger felt more like a hairpin this time rather than the Excalibur sword stuck in a rock.

I watched unmoved, as her limp and lifeless body dropped to the floor, with a quiet thud. Around me I could hear faint screams and questions as to why I had just done what I did. Jack shook me, trying to get an answer out of me, or maybe trying to shake me out of this robotic state I was in. Linda cried into her mother's arms as Jerry, Hank and Thomas ran to the girl to check her pulse uselessly.

I coldly turned away from the chaotic scene to look out over the roof, at an even more chaotic scene. Samantha watched me with a confused look on her face, but I ignored it as I looked down at the streets filled with the undead, and dying.

A young woman and a small child ran across the street away from too goons, and I watched them unemotionally as they were halted by another goon who grasped them in too large arms. The rest was gruesome, but I had detached myself from any human-like feeling or emotion. I deemed it useless in the grand scheme of things these days, especially when trying to survive in this horrid world that we now were forced to call home.

Samantha now stood next to me, looking down at the same thing I was and tears feel down her cheeks as she covered her mouth trying to hold in any sounds as to not attract attention.

I pulled the band out of my hair, letting it fall down to my shoulders and back, and I used the elastic band to create a makeshift holster for two guns on my belt. I placed my revolver in there and I walked away from Samantha and over to the girl I had just killed. Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and watched me closely. I knelt down by her side, and looked her pale face. The bullet hole seemed to be the only blemish on her once perfect skin. I shut her other eye, and picked up her gun.

I checked inside to make sure it was loaded, and sure enough there wasn't a single round inside the chamber. I pulled the magazine out to find that it was empty. I heard as people gasped and Linda sobbed harder, as they realized I had painted the concrete wall before me with the brain and blood of an unarmed girl.

I should have felt terrible, for me in particular, I should have been suicidal but I felt nothing. No shame, no sadness, no sympathy, just coldness. My mind raced, like a whirlwind trying to find an answer to this. But I found nothing, just hatred for everything and everyone that had ever crossed me or done me wrong. Even things that had happened many years ago, things that I had already forgiven, I now realized I never forgot and never actually forgave.

My mind was filled with hate, my body pulsing with cold blood and ached for another chance to kill. My soul just a hideous shell of what it use to be. It was nothing but blackness now, and the blackness took over my entire being. My eyes looked out at the city again, and as the buildings continued to burn and people continued to die, I continued to feel nothing. But it didn't bother me, not in the slightest.