Fanfic Bootcamp Entries

If Only, if Only...

"You can't save her, Joel! She's the key to a cure!" Marlene pleads with me, while I buck and bite at the guard she's holding me down with.

"Horse shit! She's coming with me! You can't do this!" I snarl, trying to break free until Marlene cocks her pistol. She aims it square between my eyes.

"Don't you fucking dare!" Her voice breaks, audibly gulping. "I've known Ellie since she was born! I promised her mother I'd protect her!" Her words come out as hardly a whimper, as her shoulders slump. "There is no other choice here."

Her onslaught of tears just fuel my rage.

How dare she! No other choice?

I spit in her direction, teeth bared, preparing for my kill. "Yeah ... you keep telling yourself that bullshit."

How can she possibly convince herself that this is the right thing to do. The way she'd explained Ellie's surgery was so heartless, so critical. They want to remove the cordyceps fungus that has weaved itself around her brain, to make a vaccine.

I had moved mountains. We have gone to hell and back to make it here, and now they want to kill her for their bullshit pipe dream?

As I stood up, the Queen of the Fireflies' face drops.

There you go. That's the Marlene I know, heartless bitch!

"March him out of here." She gestures to her guard, her mouth set in a hard line. "If he tries anything, shoot him."

She storms out of the room, while the beefcake guard shoves me out the door. He pokes the barrel of his pistol in between my shoulder blades. Making what I plan to do next, sit well with me.

"You heard her," the lapdog barks, pointing in the direction he wants me to go.

The dimly lit hallway of the hospital makes my heart sink. How am I supposed to find her? I knew the answer to that, as I listened to the guards metered steps behind me. Surely this guy would know where she's being prepped for surgery.

I pause next to the reception desk, eyeing off my backpack.

"What are you doin'? The asshole pokes that barrel between my shoulder blades once more and I twist my hand back, immobilising his wrist.

BANG!

A shot rings through the small space. The idiot shoots himself through the jugular. I won't have long now, all the guards will come to investigate. I've got to find Ellie.

The bow I'd found at the first Firefly site I'd come across with Ellie sticks out of the back pack. I pull it out and sling my bag over my shoulder, crouching behind the desk.

Now to find the stairs.

I make my way to the first flight, thankful that I'm only a few floors away. There's still time. There's still time! The first guard I came across is awarded with a arrow to the jugular, dark crimson painting the sterile-white walls. I'm lucky that he collapses on the larger part of the stairs. Every sound is amplified ten-fold and I can't get cornered here.

The seconds roll on as I creep through the almost barren hospital. I wonder if I should just go guns'a'blazing.

There's never enough time. You don't have enough time!

Bowing isn't gonna get shit done. So, I pull out my flamethrower, screwing a fresh canister of propane on it. Hell hath no fury, like a father protecting his daughter!

I creep through the double doors of the surgical wing before releasing hellfire down on Marlene's guards. All ten of them laying on the floor, writhing in pain, as if I'd feel pity on them. You're about to kill my Ellie, and you hold your hands together, praying that I'd let the pain stop, like I'd show you mercy.

I don't have time. I don't have time!

Their bodies sizzle as I place my flamethrower onto the hook on my bag. I can't risk hurting My baby girl.

"The 9mm will do," I whisper to myself as a I rack the slide, checking for any obstructions in the chamber, then load it up. There are only two people that are coming out of that room alive.

With a pounding heart and a loaded gun, I burst through the doors.

All I can hear is that high-pitched drone that machines give off when a heartbeat is absent.

When the patient is dead.

My Ellie lay there, with a shaved head. The sound of the buzz-saw whirring as a gowned-up surgeon eases it towards her head.

"Don't you fucking touch her!" I howl, my vision blurring with the wave of tears.

I'm too late. Much, much too late...

The surgeon and his two nurses jump, the saw-wielding doctor yells. "What the hell are you doing here. SECURITY!" He yells over my shoulder.

My hands are shaking, my world crumbling down around me. "What have you done to her?" I whimper, her complexion answering my question.

Mr Buzzsaw gets all brave, walking towards me. "You better get outta here! You're too late, she's gone, and I'll be damned if I don't get this vaccine!"

BANG!

The bullet flies between his eyes. He immediately collapses as the saw whirs beside his leg.

Hands are raised, and the nurses' faces set in fear, again, pleading for their lives. The short female's begging begins, her hands tremor as she eases them towards me. "Please sir! Just let us go!"

"You're too late." I shoot her, then her friend. "Much, much too late."

I drop the nine-millimetre and run toward my girl. "Ellie! Ellie!" I shake her. "Please, baby girl! Wake up!" She lay there, her body yields no response. Her eyes stay closed. Her jaw goes slack.

She's just resting. She's just resting!

"Come on, Ellie. I'm getting you out of here." I grab here lifeless body and sprint toward the exit. I somehow convince myself that speed will wake her up; speed will bring her back to me.

I run to the elevator, pressing the ground floor. I'm going to take her to Tommy's, and then everything will be okay...

~*~

"I could've saved her, if only I did..."

"I could've saved her, if only I did..."

"I could've saved her, if only I did..."

My thoughts run through my head, running, running, running into that day again.

They keep me away from the others, I can't stand the others. Can't stand their happiness, can't stand their families.

My mind snaps, my mind snaps, my mind snaps.

I...

I can't...

Ellie's here. She's right here ...

Nothing's gone. It stayed the same.

It stayed the same, and she's still here.

If only, if only.