[Fade Away]

Throes of gunshots and men yelling echoed out into the hollowed jungle of a crumbling forest region, as the heavy footsteps of Joel and Ellie darted straight through the said street. Outnumbered by a group of angered hunters on their tail, Joel and Ellie had to make the hard decision of making a quick retreat from the gun-show and flee for a hideout.

Bullets cut through the heavy air, passing overhead of Ellie and Joel. With his revolver, Joel turned to fire rounds at the charging hunters and keep running, to try slowing them down. He hit one hunter in the knee with a bullet, and the next one sliced over another scuffed hunter's cheek. As the hunters began to slow down, but keeping up their profanity, Ellie and Joel took an immediate turn down another dirt path, finding that it was leading down a distant of a cityscape.

"That'll take too long..." Joel panted out to himself, instantly thinking up another plan. "Here! Behind the brush!" He and Ellie ran towards a large, untrimmed form of green and brown brush on the sidelines of the path. Both quickly jumped over the brush together, only to be met by a steep hill under their feet. Both slipped from standing, and they went tumbling down the grassy hill.

Both rolled down another ten seconds, before crashing right into a rocky mountain wall.

"Shit!" Ellie swore out, feeling her shoulder collide with the mountain wall hard. "So much for a plan B." She chuckled out, holding her shoulder.

"Shh." Joel immediately hissed out, hearing the heavy rumbles of the hunters above coming towards the path they disappeared off of.

"Fuckers are fast!" One man shouted.

"Just keep going! They're probably heading for that city ahead!" Another man ordered out, as the others heeded his demand. All of the hunters followed suit down the trail towards the cityscape, completely oblivious to the idea of Ellie and Joel hiding down below the hill behind the brush.

"Whew." Joel breathed out in relief. "They're gone."

"Yeah." Ellie nodded her head, pulling herself up to a kneeling position next to Joel. "You okay?"

Joel nodded his head. "We've got find some shelter for now. We're losing daylight." Joel reminded Ellie, indicating on the crashing sunset beyond the trees. As Joel pulled himself up to stand, Ellie also stood up straight. "There should be somewhere for us to hide until morning."

Both the comrades went walking down the unknown path they crashed on, keeping close to the mountain wall. They walked for another five minutes close to the rocky structure of the mountain wall, until they could feel the chilly breeze of a cave entrance nearby. Caves were always a terrible sign of something dangerous lurking within, but Joel and Ellie weren't scared of what could be waiting beyond the echoes of darkness.

The cave entrance was large, and leaking drops of water from the recent rain they experienced. Joel and Ellie turned on both their flashlights and started off into the cold cave.

"Yoohoo!" Ellie couldn't help but shout out inside the cave, hearing her voice stream across the watery walls. "Anymore hunters in here that want to be pummeled?" She threw out with a bark of laughter following that.

"Shush, girl." Joel playfully pushed her by the back of her shoulder. "We just have to be quiet until dawn."

The two silently walked through the cave together, trying to find the best area to stop at. They continued walking further and further down into the closed-in cavern of blackness, until they found something far more interesting up ahead of where they were.

Before them, they found a larger, more wide cavern before them. The rocky ceiling was amply higher than anything else they've seen in other caves they had explored, and only a sharp beam of moonlight from a crack in the cavern ceiling poured into the darkness. The light was shone down onto a flat surface of the cavern, exposing the dirtied ruins of what seemed to have been an exploration site.

"Whoa!" Ellie jogged ahead of Joel towards the forgotten clamor of folding tables, rolling chairs, and electronica devices smashed and torn apart. "This looks like that one exploration site I was reading about a while ago." Ellie said in awe, looking over the rusted devices and crumbled tables. "Did you know the world was going to be in shambles because of one guy?"

"When did you read about that sort of thing?" Joel asked, walking up to the site. "Are you pulling my leg?"

"No!" Ellie insisted. "About twenty years ago, a guy named Desmond Miles was suppose to be a key-source to finding an Apple of Eden to the universe, and save it. Don't know what happened after that, but, I think he died..." She shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know what happened to the world after that. Maybe it's the reason for the infected going on?" She joked lightly, chuckling.

"Don't matter anymore." Joel shrugged one shoulder. "We can use this site as a resting spot." He went over to a rolling chair and dusted off the seat. After that, he collapsed down onto the chair and kicked his feet up on a folding table's surface. He exhaled heavily. "Tired."

"Yeah." Ellie smiled slightly. "I'm going to look around a little more."

"Just be careful where you go." Joel reminded her, as Ellie started off further into the site.

"I will!" Ellie waved over to him.

Ellie passed a large boulder that blocked her path further into the site, easily climbing over it, using it's bulky structure as help to climb upon. Over the other side, Ellie's eyes caught a sight of something remarkably notable.

On the other side, she saw what looked like a large lounging chair, attached to old cable wires and a large head set on the head of the chair. Ellie remembered it from a historic novel she read a while back. The chair was the exact image of what appeared to be an Animus. Something Desmond Miles used to see into his ancestor's lives, and how to follow their footsteps into finding out darker secrets they have tried to bury ions ago.

"Maybe it's not the real thing..." Ellie told herself, trying not to feel so excited over what looked like an Animus replica. She jumped down from the boulder top and casually strolled towards the long chair. She saw how the red cushions built into the chair seemed old from age, but comfortable to the eye.

Out of her weary state of running around all day, she climbed into the chair and laid back, sighing out quietly as she closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms over her stomach and crossed her legs together to feel comfortable. Her head rested on the bent headset of the lounging chair softly. Immediately she felt her back start to ease out, and her body start to become heavy for slumber.

As she started to fade into sleep, she could lastly hear a faint sound of something speaking quietly.

"Subject confirmed. Prepared for transmission..."

The first chapter, and the fresh start, of a collaboration of a young survivor and a native assassin.

Why am I writing this? When I played as Ellie on The Last of Us, she reminded me so much of a young Connor in the Winter time. I kept thinking she and Connor should collab and become an awesome duo of assassins. She's excellent with stealth and silent kills with a blade, and she's a fucking awesome professional with a rifle and with archery. Ellie, find the Assassin's Creed and join! KYAAAAAAH~.

More to come, in the next chapter, when Ellie wakes in her own Wonderland of a whole new wooorrrrllllld.