The Last of Us: Survival

Chapter 170 170: A Hard Life

Two days later.

The black market.

Inside a decrepit shanty, the air hung thick with damp and mildew. The cramped space held nothing but a single cot and a gutted sofa scavenged from God knew where.

This deep underground, darkness was the default. The only illumination came from small incandescent bulbs strung at each junction of the refugee quarter's corridors—the sole source of light for the entire population down here.

On the cot, a gaunt woman sat propped against the wall, her hollow face locked in a permanent expression of illness, racked by ceaseless coughing. Anyone who'd known her before would have been stunned—she was barely past thirty, yet she looked twenty years older. Wasted. Hollowed out.

Beside her sat a girl of about six. Sallow-skinned and thin, clearly malnourished, she was noticeably smaller than other children her age. She watched her mother with quiet, helpless worry, reaching up now and then to pat her back with small, clumsy hands, trying to ease the coughing.

Eller sat nearby in silence. He wanted to pour his mother a cup of water, but when he picked up the battered, dented canteen and unscrewed the cap, the water inside was nearly gone. He thought of the men who controlled the water pump. He looked around the barren shanty. A wave of helplessness crashed over him.

Life in the black market's refugee camp was brutal. Food was scarce, but the smugglers had at least installed a water pump to provide daily drinking water.

In the beginning, the pump had been communal. Then roughly twenty of the camp's young, able-bodied men had banded together—armed, somehow, with makeshift weapons and a handgun—and seized it. No one else was permitted to draw water.

The other residents had protested. Every one of them had been beaten into silence. The remaining men in the camp—older, weaker, unarmed—couldn't match a group of aggressive young thugs backed by a firearm. Everyone had simply... accepted it.

The group announced their terms: water could be purchased with supply cards or goods. These men, who spent their days being ordered around as hired muscle in the black market, had crowned themselves kings of the refugee quarter.

Now, families with working members spent the bulk of their meager earnings on drinking water after covering the bare minimum of food. Families with nothing to trade but a woman's body could barter that way instead.

Those who had nothing at all either died of dehydration in their shanties or drank the filthy runoff seeping through the ceiling—and died of infection shortly after.

Eller's family had nothing left to trade. Not since his father had died. This canteen of water—what remained of it—had been stolen during a moment when the guards at the pump had dozed off. Someone else had tried the same thing once. They'd been beaten to death. Eller had succeeded.

Between that stolen water and whatever scraps he could pilfer and barter for food each day, they'd barely scraped by.

But the canteen was almost empty. Even rationing every drop, it would last a week at most. The relentless pressure of survival bore down on the eight-year-old's shoulders until he felt he might buckle. He closed his eyes and sank into thought.

Two paths lay before him. He could risk another raid on the water pump—dangerous, but he'd done it before and had the experience to draw on. The payoff, though, was minimal: one canteen. A temporary fix.

Or he could deliver valuable intelligence to the man.

The second option carried far greater risk—and the potential to endanger his family. But high risk meant high reward. He couldn't be certain the man would honor his promise. But if he did, it meant a doctor for his mother. It meant food.

Eller reached into his pocket and pulled out the portrait booklet the man's associate had delivered. He flipped through it page by page, the paper rustling softly.

He'd been studying the faces obsessively since receiving it two days ago, trying to burn each one into memory. But there were so many—he'd only managed to memorize about a third so far.

Just go out and see what happens.

His mind churned with calculations, but he knew that finding any of these people wasn't something that would happen overnight. He hadn't even memorized all the faces yet, and the black market was vast—he couldn't watch everywhere at once.

For now, he'd head out, do his usual rounds of petty theft, and keep his eyes open for any faces from the booklet. If he got lucky, he might not need to risk another water heist.

"Joey, look after Mom. I'm heading out."

He rose and looked at his sister, still sitting faithfully at their mother's bedside.

Joey turned her small face toward him and nodded. "Okay. Be careful, big brother."

"Mm."

One last worried glance at his mother on the cot. A quiet sigh. Then Eller pushed open the shanty door and stepped out into the dark.

...

Walking across the damp, grimy tiles toward the edge of the refugee quarter, Eller headed for his usual hunting grounds.

"Eller!"

A voice called out—young, piping. He stopped and turned.

A boy roughly his age was hurrying toward him. Eller's face softened with a smile. "Malken."

Malken was one of his few friends in the camp. His home situation was no better than Eller's—no sick mother or little sister, but a father who drank and brawled his way through every day, sending his son out to steal so he could buy cheap rotgut. Come home empty-handed, and the reward was a beating.

Eller waited as Malken approached, but when the boy drew close enough for the dim light to catch his face, Eller's expression hardened. A clear handprint was stamped across the boy's cheek.

"That bastard hit you again?"

Malken's hand flew to his face. He'd been struck the night before—his father's open palm—but without a mirror down here, he'd assumed it would fade overnight. Apparently not.

Realizing his friend could see, he forced out a miserable approximation of a smile. "Don't worry about it. After this long, I'm used to it."

Eller knew there was nothing either of them could do. Whether kids like them would even survive to adulthood was an open question.

He reached over and squeezed Malken's shoulder. A quiet word of comfort. Then, privately resolving that something had to change, he shifted the subject. "Where are you headed today?"

"Where else? Same old spot." Malken sighed, head drooping.

Eller's eyes went wide. "You're still going there? That area's full of smugglers and off-duty soldiers—you know how sharp those people are! If that guy hadn't shown you mercy last time, you'd have lost your arm. You know that, right?"

"What choice do I have?!"

Something in Malken cracked. His fists clenched and his voice broke upward into a shout. "That's the only place where I can steal enough! Otherwise, my dear father can't get his booze, and you know what happens to me! Don't stand there lecturing me when you don't have to live it!"

"You—"

The venom of it stunned Eller into silence. He stood there, mouth open, unable to form a response.

The outburst drained out of Malken as fast as it had come. His shoulders collapsed. His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Thanks for caring... Maybe getting beaten to death wouldn't be so bad, honestly."

He said nothing more. He stepped around Eller and jogged toward the exit, merging with a group of children his age as they filed out of the refugee quarter and vanished around a dark corner.

Eller stood rooted to the spot, watching his friend disappear. Something ignited in his chest—a nameless fury, hot and raw. His small fists clenched until the knuckles ached.

And deep within him, like a seed dropped into scorched earth, something took root—and began, quietly, to grow.

...

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