A/N: Mentions and acts of suicide are present here because I love to torture my OCs.

You have been warned!

You don't know what it's like to walk a mile in my shoes - Unknown

Life was like a steam roller that never stopped moving, a roller coaster of events that just seemed to keep on going no matter what happened next.

Because that was life, and what a shit life it certainly turned out to be.

Panting hard, he ran behind his parents, the two of them facing their own tiredness of exhaustion that was not at all connected to the lack of sleep, but the waking paranoia that something was going to kill you at any moment.

That, and well, the large group of infected that was chasing them right behind.

So, either one really.

"Come on, let's go!" His father shouted, the one leading their retreat further through the hallway, as infected runners and clickers preyed on their behinds.

It had all happened so quickly. One moment they were idly chatting about their day, and then the quarantine city was overrun by raiders and infected both.

So, in the face of everything, Y/N's father and mother had shoved them inside the first building they could. An observation post just beside the towering metal walls and guard towers that were aflame.

Running between them, his mother just behind him, Y/N put all his energy into his legs, overdriving his body's need for rest, and pushing himself to the brink as they outran the death that followed.

And it seemed their luck was about to prove them victorious.

"Here!" His father shouted, his finger pointed towards an open door leading into a supply room. They immediately made a beeline towards it and pushed through whatever stood in their way.

His father was the first in, pushing open the door with great desperation and speed that would have crippled any man. Next, Y/N barrelled on through, panting hard as made it through, and already his father was hoisting himself up onto a stack of crates and to a little perch that housed a small window.

Except, the mother, her luck had run out.

He always viewed his mother as a strong, capable person. Someone who got things done, and could face death in the eyes and say: "Screw you." But, today, that day four years ago.

It seemed Death was doing the screwing.

As his mother reached the door, her hand just barely clutching the frame of the entrance, and immediately an infected jumped from the corner and took her down.

What Y/N saw, he could only describe as pure terror as his mother was broken into, as her forearm was chewed on, defiled as an infected bit through the flesh and bone of her arm.

Her cries, and screams of agony would remain with him till the day he died.

Y/N was lost in that moment, he was unaware of what was happening, as his father screamed in his ear as he dragged him up and pulled him through the now opened window.

His mother seemed determined to see it through though, as she lifted her revolver to the infected head in time and blew its brains out, and pushed inside the room. Shutting the door behind her and bracing herself against it, fear in her eyes as the bite on her arm began to set in.

In both desperation and frightening fear, she pulled her eyes away and looked up to the end of the room. Away, to see the Y/N look down at her, his eyes glistened with tears as his father began to drag him back, as Y/N's fists pounded on the window that his father had shut. Almost as if he had forgotten his wife, or just decided to leave her to her fate.

"Don't leave me!"

Y/N would never forget her screaming for them, to help her, to come back. Begging for her husband and son to save her, as her eyes leaked fresh tears, and mentally begged for him. But the man had simply grabbed his son harshly by the arm and dragged him away and through the burning city.

"MOM!"

"Y/N!"

As far away he got, her shrills only intensified and Y/N had wanted nothing more than to go back for her. As his sobs filled the air as he father was running on autopilot, his face as if he had seen the devil himself, bewitched in what could only be described as complete, pure and utter fear.

It hadn't taken them long to escape. As they made it out of the city that had served Y/N since he was born. His mother's words still rung in his head as his father was ahead of him, not even taking the time to even look at his son or acknowledge his presence.

When they finally came to a stop, they both collapsed. Y/N to the fall as he stiffed with tears, and his father to his knees as he stared wide-eyed as his home was set aflame, burning to the ground as everything he had ever loved was destroyed.

Something had triggered in his father that day, and Y/N didn't know what, but he knew how. The man had cradled the gun in his hand, shaking and trembling, not even daring to take his eyes away from the city.

And did something Y/N would have never believed.

He shot himself...

Blood and brain matter spewed everything. The man's body collapsed to the very street below them. Blood splattered back, and hit Y/N's cheeks as his already frizzled heart began to pump adrenaline faster than he thought possible.

So much that he didn't have time to process anything as growls of infected enemies were heard behind him. Muffing his cries with his hand, he reached down and grabbed his knife at his side pocket and ran.

It wasn't until days later that everything had sunk in, and Y/N had never felt so agonisingly lost, and disbelieved from the very life that he lived.

Until he would later end it, or try, before an angel would save him.

As life was reborn from the fire and ashes of death, as everything he knew was forever changed.

Leaving behind everything.

His mother, his dead father, his burning home.

And everything he had ever loved.

—

"Hey, grumpy. Wake up."

Y/N shot up fast, his hand reaching out for his knife, but suddenly stopped as he soon realised where he was, and who, was there right in front of him.

"Oh, it's you." Y/N huffed as he pulled his hand back to look at the teenage girl, Ellie.
She gazed, watching him closely, before nodding her head over him.

Y/N reached up and looked back, to find Joel, Henry and Sam getting ready. "Oh, I was hoping it was all a dream." He muttered to himself before getting up and stretching out any knots he had.

"What?" Ellie asked, her cute smile appearing. "That we have to get past a bridge full of armed assholes, or the fact that the world is such a shitty place?"

"Both." Y/N huffed, picking up his bag and hoisting it over his shoulder as he checked over himself.

"You ready?" Y/N looked up to meet the girl who asked, and stared back at her. Meeting her nervous eyes with his calm ones.

"As ready as I'll ever. be" Y/N said, finished and now walking over to the others as Ellie tagged with him. He looked at them, before turning to Ellie and sighed. "What about you? You nervous?"

"Me?" Ellie questioned, shaking her head as she folded her arms over, "I guess."

There was a little doubt in her words, and Y/N soon found himself reassuring her despite his better judgment.

"You'll be fine." Y/N told her, as he watched her fidget with her hands before letting them drop to her side. "Look at it this way, you can't do any worse than you already are."

Ellie scowled as they met up with the other three, as she voiced her own opinion on the matter.

"...Think I liked you better when you had that stick up your ass."

—

"All right y'all, stay close, okay?"

Following behind Henry as he lead them through the office building, Y/N couldn't help the sense of anxiety that ran through him. Not about what they were going to pull off, no, he was completely confident in getting past the bridge and the bandits.

What he was worried about was heading in under someone else's directive. For so long Y/N had been on his own, following his own rules, his own thoughts of intrusion.

Now he had to put his faith, and trust in someone he barely knew, to trust them to
get themselves all out.

He knew, he just knew that this was going to end badly.

'It always does.'

For everyone.

"You tried this before?" Joel asked, his skepticism was greatly founded, and despite his lack of trust for the group (not personal) Y/N respected his way of life, and how he handled it.

Likewise, the faith in the new group members.

"Uh, yeah" Henry didn't sound confident.

"That's comforting." Joel muttered.

"We're going to die." Y/N deadpanned with a shake of his head.

"Don't be so dramatic." Ellie came up beside him and rolled her eyes at him as the adults continued leading them ahead. "It doesn't suit you." She gave him a sarcastic smile. "You're more of the cynical type."

"And you're an optimist." Y/N replied as they moved forward to an open stairwell "That's a good way of getting yourself killed." He faintly saw Joel look in his direction before proceeding ahead.

"Well, I've survived so far, right?"

"So far." Y/N muttered under his breath before raising his voice slightly louder for her. "It's luck, and it'll run out sooner or later."

"Must be pretty lucky then." Ellie sighed as they got to the bottom of the stairs, and into another section of the building. The ground floor which was covered with glass windows and a centre area with a barrel burning.

And their awaiting guests. Three of them.

"Okay, let's try to take them out quietly." Henry advised as he crouched forward and Joel followed ahead. "I'll follow your lead."

Joel went ahead first, and came up behind his, and choked him out. Henry was next, who grabbed his in a choke hold and stabbed him with a homemade shank.

Y/N was last as he moved past Henry and kicked his guy in the leg, knocking him over and stunning him. Before he plunged his knife into his neck, killing him. Gurgling of blood left the man as Y/N slowly removed his knife, and the man fell to the floor, blood spilling to the floor.

"Let's go." Joel urged them as they moved up, Ellie going up beside Y/N as she gave him a nod, which he returned. As Henry and Sam stuck together.

The five of them proceeded outside.

Y/N immediately became aware of the lights in front of them. Among the wrecked cars that they could use as cover. Spot lights the bandits were using on a walkway above the entrance.

The group started moving up slowly, taking their time as they made sure not to be seen.

Luckily for them, the bandits were distracted as the sound of a clicker breached the air, as their enemies searched for it, the group moved up, now closer to the gate, ready to strike.

"Got it!" One bandit up from the walkway, called out to his buddies as he took a shot, and instantly killed the clicker.

Eyeing the bandits, a few in sight, Y/N clasped his rifle in his hands closely and prepared himself for a fight, as the others got into position.

"Now." Joel whispered, and that was all that was needed for him, and them all.

The group immediately opened fire, Y/N using his rifle to snipe the guys up on the walkway, as Ellie took shots at the guys on the ground, followed by Henry and Joel.

Each of them scored their own kills.

Y/N took one down, then another, and then his last as the bandit tried to spot him, but unfortunately for him, Y/N had him in his crosshairs already.

Bang!

The bandit's head turned to paste as soon as the bullet hit him. Sighing, Y/N pulled the bolt of his rifle back and reloaded, adding the rounds into the gun.

"Think that's all of them." Henry said as he came out of hiding with Sam in tow.

"Looks like." Joel said as he reloaded his shotgun before placing it back on his back. The older man turned to look at Ellie. "Good job." She looked ecstatic. "You too." Y/N hid his surprise well, but Joel still saw the widening of his eyes.

"Thanks." Y/N mumbled back, scratching at the back of his neck as Ellie looked his way, causing himself to look elsewhere. Praise wasn't something he ever accepted too easily.

Checking around the place, they looted the bodies of any gear they had and all met up at the gate leading to the bridge. Full steel cased and with it's own lock, a metal beam in place.

"Henry, gimme a hand with this." Joel said as he moved up to the gate. "You ready?" The man nodded, and the two huffed, pulling up the metal beam with all their strength, until finally they lifted it off.

Now, just one step closer to freedom.

The two began to push it open, but like everything else in life, it wasn't going to be easy as pie. The lights of a jeep came into view from the right-side of the gate.

Y/N spotted them himself, and his eyes widened at the familiar armoured monster.
Cursing to himself, he ran over and grabbed Ellie by her hand, not even noticing the stuttering look on her face as he moved her forward as Sam followed.

"Hurry the fuck up!" Y/N shouted as the armoured truck came driving through, smashing past the wrecked cars.

Joel and Henry let out their own strings of curses and pushed harder, finally pushing open the gate. "C'mon let's go!" Joel called as they moved in, the last being Y/N and Elle as they moved in, hand in hand.

Immediately they pushed the gate shut, and they all breathed easier.

Y/N shook his head, and breathed, before he realised what he was holding, or rather who. He looked down to see his hand interlocked with Ellie's. He looked up to her and saw her gaze, watching him intently.

Weirdly, she didn't pull away in disgust, or even in a flick of a bad reaction. Her hand was warm, clampy, but warm to the touch, and soft. It felt enamouring, as if electricity was passing through their very souls.

Ellie felt it too, as she looked down at their hands interlocked, she moved her mouth as if to say something but was cut off by the sounds of a vehicle crashing against steel.

Flinching, they unbuckled their hands and felt slightly disappointed at the loss but had no time to think on what had transpired as they saw that the jeep had begun to smash into the gate.

Cursing, Y/N ran after with the others, making their way to a truck with a ladder. As bandits came over it, Henry took them down with a couple shots of his pistol.

"Alright, check it out." Joel urged as he placed himself under the truck ladder that was unfortunately broken, and started giving them all a boast up. First up was Henry, followed by Sam and then Y/N.

The boy placed his foot securely on Joel's hands and readied himself. Joel followed suit, and boasted him up, but as Y/N hands reached the rail of the ladder, it collapsed and Y/N let out a startled gasp. Falling, and heights in general scared him, and now, he truly shit himself.

"Fuck!" Y/N cursed and felt himself slip, but not before Henry reached out and grabbed his hand, and pulled him up.

"Gotcha."

"Thanks," Y/N panted, almost out of breath, before he looked down at Joe and Ellie. Seeing as ladder was a no go, he looked for a way to get them up, the thought of leaving them behind noever reached him, and he would
never pick it anyway.

Y/N was many things, but he wasn't heartless, nor was he willing to leave people behind that helped him.

At least, this version of him now.

"We gotta get them up." Y/N said immediately as he looked over at the gate, his heart rising as the bandit jeep kept ramming the gate.

"Ah...." Henry looked genuinely upset. "I'm sorry. We're leaving." And suddenly he took off running, dragging behind his younger brother, and Y/N wasn't one bit surprised. But as a split millisecond past, he couldn't help but be reminded by his nightmare.

"Henry? Get back here — Motherfucker!" Y/N cursed more than he had ever done in his life.

"What the fuck Henry!?" Ellie shouted (Joel using his own collection of curses) up at the man as he left, and she looked to Y/N, her
eyes wide.

The boy himself locked gazes with her, and then to Joel before looking back at Ellie's pleading face...

"Argh! Fuck it!" Y/N exclaimed as he climbed down and made his mind up.

"What are you doing?" Ellie asked, despite her happiness, she half expected him to take off with Henry and Sam.

Suddenly, the bandit jeep crashed through the gate and began firing at them. In result, the three of them took cover behind a car

Y/N sighed, and looked at her. "Helping you." He simply offered as Joel turned and rushed at a metal shutter and began yanking it's chain, followed by the two teens, "Or I'll never forgive myself."

"C'mon into the building!" Joel said as the gate lifted up enough for them to crawl under, deciding it best, they went under and got up.

Immediately they held it up so Joel could get through, and cursed as it dropped securing them against the bandit truck.

Except now, they were still stuck.

"Fuck!" Ellie cursed as she looked around the storage room they had entered into. "Argh, how the fuck do we get outta here?"

"Here." Y/N said as he moved ahead, and through a door leading to what looked like a bar, or a store front, "Shit."

More bandits flooded into the building.

They quickly took them down, and made their way to the entrance of the building covered by more glass windows and doors. Joel was the first to the double doors, moving a trolley out of the way, and hoisting back the metal chains that held the door in place.

"Alright, let's get under it." Ellie was first, followed by Y/N and then Joel.

Soon as they were outside, they were greeted by the giant view of the bridge leading out of the city.

One step closer, and not a step back.

BANG!

The three of them flinched at the loud noise, and looked to their left where Henry and Sam had left them above the truck. The bandit jeep was now clashing against another metal gate just like before.

Without one flicker of hesitation, the three of them took off running towards the bridge, only to be stunned by the jeep crashing through.

Shaking his head, Y/N took off running, as Joel and Ellie were ahead of them.

Vaulting across signs and cars, they made it halfway before something struck Y/N in the leg, and he collapsed just in front of a car.

Crying out in pain, he dragged himself in front of the car.

Looking back, Ellie and Joel saw Y/N go down, and they rushed over to him.

"We gotta go!" Joel shouted as he grabbed the boy by his shoulder and tried to pull him to his feet, only for him to scream in anguish.

"Fuck!" Y/N cried, and looked down to see a small gaping hole in his left leg, just barely missing his kneecap, luckily, it looked as if the bullet had passed through, he hoped. "Son of a bitch." He breathed hard, as the sounds of the bandit's jeep's engine sounded in the distance.

"Shit. You gonna be okay?" Ellie asked as she rushed up next to him.

"The fuck do you think?" Y/N raged as he
tried to put pressure on his leg but just found himself falling back down as the sound of the truck getting near reached his near, making him panic.

"You gotta carry me."

He hated sounding so defeated, but he was in pain, a lot, and he needed help. He looked up at them with wide eyes, that were once calm and distinctive, now pleading and scared.

The thought of him being left behind terrified him, that's why he had gone back for Ellie, and for Joel, of course.

Fortunately for him, they weren't going to leave him behind.

"I got you." Ellie said as she gently lifted him and held her arm around him, and just in time as the bandit jeep came driving through.

Having finally smashed through and over the array of rusted vehicles.

"C'mon!" Joel ran forward, as Ellie supported Y/N and moved him forward. Dragging him no matter how much his leg bleed and protested and his gasps and grunts of pain filled Ellie's ears that made her cringe for him.

"Almost there," Ellie told him as she supported him, hefting him across the bridge as Y/N held his weight as he could with his working right leg, with Ellie supporting him on his left.

The three of them maneuvered past a bus and made it to the end of the line, which turned out to be a forty foot drop into the water below. The bridge was destroyed, there was no way out but down.

"Oh shit." Ellie parted in a groan as she struggled to keep Y/N upright. "Oh fuck!"

They were screwed.

"How many bullets do you have left?" Joel asked them, looking back to where the jeep was coming from, and then to them.

"Not enough." Y/N replied, gritting his teeth at the pain that coursed through his leg, as blood dripped onto the ancient concrete. "Shit." He felt his head began to daze, as he shook his head to clear his vision.

"They're gonna kill us." Ellie said with a frantic wave of her free arm.

'I was right. We are going to die.' Y/N thought as he looked back at where the armoured jeep was coming from, and then to the open water below. 'Fuck!'

"What other choice do we have?" Joel angrily snapped.

"We jump!" Ellie reasoned as she steadied Y/N in her arms.

"What?" Y/N exclaimed.

The fear of jumping off the bridge, and swimming in his condition frightening him (mostly the heights) more than anything in his life.

"No it's too high. You can't swim and Y/N's leg won't help." Joel argued. "I'll boast you up, you run past 'em."

To make matters worse, the bandit jeep finally made its presence known as it came driving up past the bus and into a nearby car, causing the car to fall off the edge of the bridge, and into the water.

Y/N turned to look at her, and Ellie had never seen so much fear in his eyes before.

"I can't, Ellie. Please... don't." Y/N begged, not even betraying how vulnerable he sounded, as his eyes widened with terror as she looked at him, before looking down at the rushing water.

Ellie shook her head sadly, as if to say 'Sorry' and looked over at Joel with a determined look. "You'll keep us afloat--"

"Ellie—" The two males protested.

"—No time to argue." Ellie immediately pushed forward with Y/N and took a leap
into the water below, with the screams and curses of Y/N that followed as they hit the water, as Joel soon went after them.

Y/N felt the rush of water reach his ears as Ellie's hold on him slipped, and he pushed himself up as best as he could against the tide of the water. Gasping when his head breached the air, and panic filled him as his leg began to pull him down, and blood escaped into the rushing water below.

"Y/N! Joel!"

Trying his best to keep his head above the water as he tried his best to stay conscious, Y/N battled against the tide, he looked to the voice and saw Ellie close to him struggling to stay up.

Instantly, a strange trance of fear for her life began to filter through him, the thought of losing someone he had gotten to know just a little bitt, and despite how he wanted nothing more than to move on, he still didn't want to lose her. Or else he wouldn't forgive himself for letting someone die if he could help.

And that he did, he rushed over, his arms doing most of the work against the current, as he swam.

"I got you!" Finally, he reached her despite his injury and grabbed at her arms and held her close as Joel was upon them. "Don't... let go..."

His head felt like mush as his vision began to cloud up, and the effect of the blood lose, and not having secured it with a bandage began to make him suffer.

"Hold on!" He faintly heard Joel say as he felt pressure on his arms tighten, and in turn, gripped Ellie's harder.

"Y/N!" Ellie's voice reached his ears, but as his head fell below the water. "Stay with me!" He felt her hands shake considerable against his, as his vision turned dark, his body gave out, and ultimately, he passed out.

"Y/N!"

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this one! Sorry for not updating in a while. Life has been hectic as hell. See you in the next one!