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[Action / Voice / TL;DR]
[voice/action tl;dr - action bit locked to Sam Yao]
[Waking up in the wild - alone, especially - was the most dangerous thing imaginable. Even sheltered as she'd been in the past, Ellie knows this well; infected could be lurking anywhere, as well as thieves and bandits and god-knows what else. But this is the strangest experience she's had yet. Her backpack's gone. Her gun's gone. Her switchblade is gone. Worse than that, her clothes are gone. And... she's now wearing a... dress?
....
She's never worn a dress in her life, let alone anything so pristine and white. She's barely even seen any except in pictures, since they're so impractical these days. Too much bare skin for infected to grab and chomp down on. It's so surreal that she actually has to stop and stare at it for a while, brushing her fingers over the unfamiliar material. It's clean and soft and... it feels new. She'd never known what "new" even felt like until now.
It's while she's examining the dress that she realizes that her bite mark is showing. Feeling a sudden flare of panic, all thoughts of preserving the newness of the dress flee her mind. She scrambles to a nearby rock and starts scraping the material against it until it breaks enough to tear off a strip, which she ties around her forearm just beneath the elbow. It isn't much, but it's better than showing the old wound off. Even when it's already healed, something like that is likely to get her shot by anyone she stumbles upon. Unless it's Joel...
...Joel. Shit, she needs to find him.
Her exploration of the area only leads to more questions. The place she's in is so quiet. Houses look neat and well-maintained, instead of the ramshackle messes she's used to. The first sign of movement tells her there's people living here, but they're just walking around like everything's normal, like they feel safe, unarmed and casual, despite the fact that the woods are open and no walls protect the town. It's the most confusing thing she's ever seen in her life. She doesn't dare approach them, though. They have... growths on their backs. That's never a good sign. If anyone catches her, she'll most certainly duck and run.
At some point she wanders back to the area she'd woken up in, and nearly trips over a book. It's not like there's time to settle down to read it, and she'd just ignore it normally if her name wasn't written clearly on the cover. Hoping to find a message from Joel or someone else she'd know - Marlene or the Fireflies, maybe - she opens it up, only to find... voices. Lots of voices.
...It talks? Since when did books talk? Wasn't that a thing from like twenty years ago? Baffled, she sits down and slumps back against the nearest tree, only to flinch and glance over her shoulder to check the source of the pain. And then, of course, she screams and sends the book flying, because what the hell she has things growing out of her back too.
The journal records the scream, initially, and then a series of stammering, panicky denials, but it doesn't catch what she does next- when she starts pulling out feathers, a handful or two at first until the pain catches up with the adrenaline and she discovers the blood on her fingers. She doesn't stop there, though. She has to get rid of it. Whatever mutation has happened to the infections here, she will not become one of those monsters.]
[Eventually, when she's been found, cleaned up, and given a proper explanation for all of this, Ellie gives the journal another examination when she's reluctantly recovering at the clinic. She's tired, confused, and in more pain than she can ever remember, but that isn't going to stop her from looking for the one person she trusts to get her through this. He has to be around here somewhere, right? Even on- another world? (That sounds so dumb...)]
Right, so. Uh. Talking book, got it. I'm Ellie, and... I'm looking for Joel. Kind of scruffy, carries a lot of guns, doesn't smile, like, ever. Not even at good jokes. I was told to use this thing to find him, so... Joel? If you're here, I... messed up. Sorry. You better still be alive.
...Does anybody have a book I can borrow? I lost everything I had on me when- yeah.
Seriously, this is how this thing works?
[Waking up in the wild - alone, especially - was the most dangerous thing imaginable. Even sheltered as she'd been in the past, Ellie knows this well; infected could be lurking anywhere, as well as thieves and bandits and god-knows what else. But this is the strangest experience she's had yet. Her backpack's gone. Her gun's gone. Her switchblade is gone. Worse than that, her clothes are gone. And... she's now wearing a... dress?
....
She's never worn a dress in her life, let alone anything so pristine and white. She's barely even seen any except in pictures, since they're so impractical these days. Too much bare skin for infected to grab and chomp down on. It's so surreal that she actually has to stop and stare at it for a while, brushing her fingers over the unfamiliar material. It's clean and soft and... it feels new. She'd never known what "new" even felt like until now.
It's while she's examining the dress that she realizes that her bite mark is showing. Feeling a sudden flare of panic, all thoughts of preserving the newness of the dress flee her mind. She scrambles to a nearby rock and starts scraping the material against it until it breaks enough to tear off a strip, which she ties around her forearm just beneath the elbow. It isn't much, but it's better than showing the old wound off. Even when it's already healed, something like that is likely to get her shot by anyone she stumbles upon. Unless it's Joel...
...Joel. Shit, she needs to find him.
Her exploration of the area only leads to more questions. The place she's in is so quiet. Houses look neat and well-maintained, instead of the ramshackle messes she's used to. The first sign of movement tells her there's people living here, but they're just walking around like everything's normal, like they feel safe, unarmed and casual, despite the fact that the woods are open and no walls protect the town. It's the most confusing thing she's ever seen in her life. She doesn't dare approach them, though. They have... growths on their backs. That's never a good sign. If anyone catches her, she'll most certainly duck and run.
At some point she wanders back to the area she'd woken up in, and nearly trips over a book. It's not like there's time to settle down to read it, and she'd just ignore it normally if her name wasn't written clearly on the cover. Hoping to find a message from Joel or someone else she'd know - Marlene or the Fireflies, maybe - she opens it up, only to find... voices. Lots of voices.
...It talks? Since when did books talk? Wasn't that a thing from like twenty years ago? Baffled, she sits down and slumps back against the nearest tree, only to flinch and glance over her shoulder to check the source of the pain. And then, of course, she screams and sends the book flying, because what the hell she has things growing out of her back too.
The journal records the scream, initially, and then a series of stammering, panicky denials, but it doesn't catch what she does next- when she starts pulling out feathers, a handful or two at first until the pain catches up with the adrenaline and she discovers the blood on her fingers. She doesn't stop there, though. She has to get rid of it. Whatever mutation has happened to the infections here, she will not become one of those monsters.]
[Eventually, when she's been found, cleaned up, and given a proper explanation for all of this, Ellie gives the journal another examination when she's reluctantly recovering at the clinic. She's tired, confused, and in more pain than she can ever remember, but that isn't going to stop her from looking for the one person she trusts to get her through this. He has to be around here somewhere, right? Even on- another world? (That sounds so dumb...)]
Right, so. Uh. Talking book, got it. I'm Ellie, and... I'm looking for Joel. Kind of scruffy, carries a lot of guns, doesn't smile, like, ever. Not even at good jokes. I was told to use this thing to find him, so... Joel? If you're here, I... messed up. Sorry. You better still be alive.
...Does anybody have a book I can borrow? I lost everything I had on me when- yeah.
Seriously, this is how this thing works?