Survivor [The Last of Us]

3.

IT WAS WRONG to think that just because she got rid of a clicker and two hostile guys that she would be safe to venture in and out of the city.

Needless to say, she was dead wrong.

Valerie really detested Pittsburgh.

The city was a walking trap. Every corner was filled with those hostile guys. She was lucky she was good at stealth, managing to hide just in time from being spotted.

She saw what happened when someone was spotted and to say she didn't want to end in the same predicament was an understatement.

Her ears still rang with vile laughter as hostile men shot and taunted their victims.

Not to mention their stupid truck. She was not a fast runner so she had to rely on the city's ruins of the past to safeguard her future.

Everything with her ran with luck that day. She was lucky the hostiles seemed to be preoccupied with hunting someone else. They nicknamed him 'the fucking tourist'. Yeah, how original.

Apparently this guy had been doing a lot of damage in just a couple of hours into the city. She hid and waited to move through buildings making good practice on eavesdropping and to say she was impressed by this tourist was to say the least.

She had come across a few of his work, then after seeing the pile of dead bodies, she decided to follow his trail of bodies.

Maybe, if there was a way to leave this hell in earth would be by following this guy's steps.

It meant not taking any more lives of her own. Three were enough.

~8~

Knowing what this 'tourist' these guys were angry at looked like would have been a nice thing. Clearly, neither of them thought necessary to describe the man enough for her to recognize him.

However, his reputation was enough to put the fear of God in them that got them scared into not noticing the small teenage girl sneaking past their posts.

At least a dozen of hostiles roamed around, too much risk to her life to pass through that gate where every one of them could see her.

Guess her luck had to run out at some point, now she just needed a window of opportunity to leave that plaza, taking a few moments to catch her breath as she tried to think for a plan, until a bang rattled her bones and startled a shriek out of her, immediately covering her mouth as she shrank behind the desk where she could hear the wood creaking from the last guy she sneaked out from.

A breathing, two passed when the creaking faded. The hostile guy running towards the commotion. Valerie feared even taking a glance to see what was going on.

The gunshots resonated through the space she was every couple of minutes as well as the violent shrieks of the hostiles, wincing at every war cry, until everything went quiet.

Valerie imagined she was safe enough to crawl out from her hiding place and to check if the coast was clear, keeping herself on the low, close to the ground as she neared a window, rising herself just enough to glimpse at the plaza, covering her mouth in shock as she noticed the bodies of all the hostiles scattered through the ground, blood oozing of their recent wounds. She leaned back down as she considered this new change. That tourist must be close by.

She had lost sight of his trail an hour or so ago, she must have taken a different route when tracking him down, mistaking these hostiles' trail of blood as the tourist's.

Anyway, he did clear her path though.

Very impressive, she may add.

Valerie made sure to be out of their sight as she began her climb out of the window, keeping watch on where the man could be, dropping back down to the ground inside when she caught sight of a girl walking to the middle of the plaza, watching her approach a man who gave her a gun. The man looked tired yet still stood strong, some part of his arms bloodied and it took her a second to realize this was the tourist the hostiles were running like headless chicken from. If not for his appearance then the girl's presence gave him away.