Chapter Text
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
While traveling thru this world below
There's no sickness, no toil, nor danger
In that bright land to which I go
I'm going there to see my father
And all my loved ones who've gone old
I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home
i. the beginning
Her hair is dirty with mud and dry leaves. There’s a layer of grime stuck to her skin, leaving a terrible, disgusting feeling — her hands are covered in blood, dirt, and tiny shards of stones. Her nails are rotten, and where two fingers are missing, there’s a trail of dried blood that almost looks like an abstract, strange, grotesque drawing.
Ellie feels like trash. Period. Everything hurts — from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes. She flexes her hands three times and stretches her legs, trying to ease the pain, but nothing changes — the pain remains, blinding, surrounding her entire body.
She gives up and throws herself on the ground, in the small camp far from the farm and Jackson. She opens her backpack and looks for the water canteen. When she unscrews the cap to quench her thirst, she notices it’s empty.
“Shit... ” she murmurs.
She couldn’t be more fucked. She throws the canteen back into the backpack and stays still for a while, breathing deeply, trying to control the throbbing pain that dominates everything.
The forest is silent and dense. There are no infected in that area — thank God, damn it — and the small camp is set up beneath large rocky stones, which offer some cover from the hot sun and the birds flying freely in the sky.
She should go fish some fish at the lake below. Or set traps for squirrels. Or get some drinkable water. But she finds no strength. No will. And she stays sitting there for a very, very long time.
With her left hand, she absentmindedly scratches her reddish-brown hair and feels a small wound, crusted over. Quickly, she pulls her hand away.
Her mind, so strange and generous, decides now is the perfect moment to hum his songs to her. The melody of the rough, low voice echoes in her mind, descends to her heart, and leaves her body paralyzed — by pain, sadness, rage, and an endless cycle of eternal longing.
...If I ever were to lose you
I'd surely lose myself...
Joel.
His name escapes the vault of memory and haunts her with his voice singing for her. The outline of his body appears in her mind, and he extends his arms as if wanting to hug her from afar. His eyes — framed by small wrinkles and thick eyebrows — shine at her as they always did in his presence, so happy. It’s too much.
She tries to disconnect, but the music doesn’t stop. Her body doesn’t move. Her voice is stuck. And all that remains is to let herself be haunted by a man dead and buried six feet under — but who, to her, was everything.
Joel was her protector. Mentor. Friend. And a whole bunch of other shit he meant to her. And the three-letter word lingers deep in her mind and on the tip of her tongue, because he was like a dad to her. In one way or another.
And she misses him like hell.
Actually, she misses everything.
She hears a sharp, piercing cackle above — dry, cutting — and her head snaps violently toward the sound.
Weapons ready. Standing up in an instant. Muscles tense, prepared for any shit coming from the forest’s edge.
But her eyes find no hunter. No infected. No familiar face from Jackson’s patrols.
Only silence.
Then she slowly lifts her gaze, as if something above pulls her — and she sees it.
Perched on a crooked branch of a dead, leafless tree, a crow. Enormous. Motionless. Its feathers so black it seems to absorb the light of the surrounding sky, like a hole in reality. Its eyes — as dark as the rest — reflect nothing. Neither sky, nor forest, nor her.
A shiver runs down Ellie’s spine like an ice blade. The air grows heavier. Almost still.
“Fucking weird crow... ” she whispers, as if words could chase it away.
But the crow doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
It just watches.
And Ellie has the strange, disturbing feeling that she isn’t the one watching the world... but the world — or something much older — is watching her.
She doesn’t like the feeling. Fucking weird.
“You humans never cease to amuse me.”
The voice is hoarse. Ancient. Like the sound of a dry twig snapping in half.
Ellie chokes instantly, her whole body stiffening.
The crow.
The fucking crow spoke.
She takes a step back, eyes wide, finger nearly pulling the trigger by reflex.
But it doesn’t move. It just stays there, perched, its beak slightly open as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
“Fuck...” she whispers, almost breathless.
Her throat is dry. Cold sweat trickles down her neck. This shouldn’t be happening. Not in her world. Not after everything.
“Okay... I must be dreaming. It has to be. The damn fever, the hunger, the pain...” she murmurs to herself, trying to find logic in the absurd.
She must have hit her head, she thinks, where the hell she hit it she doesn't know but this nonsense about a bird fucking talking to her must have been imagined by her concussed head.
But the crow tilts its head, curious. Its black eyes seem to pierce right through her.
“Dream, delirium, reality... You humans love to label everything. Such a bore.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Ellie closes her eyes for a second. Breathes deeply. Then faces the animal.
“Okay, I bite... what are you?”
She just stares at that damned crow as if looking directly into the end of sanity — and deep down, maybe she really is. Her heart pounds like when she hears clicker footsteps in the fog. But this was worse. This had a voice.
“I am what appears when time wants to play.”
The phrase echoes inside her like a dull beat, as if the words had weight, flesh, teeth.
Ellie doesn’t answer right away.
“Play...?” Ellie says, between a nervous laugh and a choked curse. “Time doesn’t play with anyone. It just... tears away what you love. Devours. Leaves you with what’s left.”
The crow leans more on the branch, curious. Its eyes shine for a moment — not with light, but with memory.
“What if there was a moment, just one, when it bowed? For you.”
Silence.
Ellie doesn’t blink.
“Am I hearing you wrong or are you saying I can... go back?”
“No. Not go back. Going back is for those who flee.”
The crow spreads its wings, slow like black veils unfurling.
The sky seems to darken for a moment — or maybe it’s just the pain in her head. The hunger. The guilt. The memories.
“But you can redo. A specific point. A single thread woven into the rotten fabric of your history. Choose wisely, for time offers no second chances. Not even to you, child marked by the end.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” Ellie asks, voice faltering.
“Nothing that hasn’t already been taken.”
The beak closes. The wings flap once.
And Ellie feels it. Like a hole opens inside her and all the past screams at once.
Joel. The red snow. Jesse. The theater. Tommy. Dina. JJ. Maria. Jackson.
All the pain in one spot, pulsing like a beacon in the dark.
“Can I save him?”
The crow stares at Ellie for a long moment. Then answers.
“You can try.”
“Are you serious? I can... I can go back and save him?” she asks, voice trembling, eyes fixed on the crow.
“I said you can try, but yes, I suppose you can save him.”
“What... what do you want in return? I — I don’t have much, but I can, I don’t know, do anything, fuck. I —” She sounds desperate, voice failing, caught in a knot of nerves and fear.
“I want nothing in exchange from you, child. Your sadness echoes throughout this forest, and it’s not a feeling you should carry like this.”
“I…”
“Silence, child.”
The voice cuts through the air, firm, relentless.
“You will go back, yes, to a specific time — but not the one you wish.”
“There are also some rules, if you accept, of course, that must be followed. First rule: you cannot talk about this.”
The crow flaps its wings between itself and her, like a black veil separating two worlds.
“To no one. No mention of me or the events that happen in that timeline. If you break this rule — tell anyone, or even hint at it — everything ends. You come back here, and there will be no more chances. Understand?”
Ellie swallows hard, throat tight.
“Second rule: people die and others are born. You may be willing to save only one person, or more, but you need to understand that, following this new timeline, people who were alive may die — and those who are dead may come back to life. Don’t try to save everyone, child. That’s not how life works.”
The air around seems denser, heavier.
“Third rule: you will go back, but you will remain human. You will not gain any additional abilities — beyond what you already have. If you get hurt, you stay hurt. If you die, you die. And that’s it. Finished.”
The crow lands a bit closer, the darkness of its feathers touching the air between them.
“Now, child... Do you accept?”
She breathes deeply, chest heavy, and stares at the crow now seeming like a living shadow among the sparse light of the forest.
“I accept.”
There’s no hesitation in Ellie’s voice. Only a raw fire burning everything inside. She knows there’s no turning back. There’s no room for fear, only for what must be done.
“Rules don’t matter. I’ll do whatever it takes to save Joel.”
The crow tilts its head, eyes shining like a bottomless black well.
“Then be ready, child. Because time doesn’t wait.”
With a slow, heavy beat of wings, the air around folds, the world seems to wobble, and Ellie feels her body being pulled by an invisible force — as if she were being unraveled from the present to be sewn into another timeline.
The sound of the forest fades. The smell of earth disappears. Only his voice remains, the last melody, the last breath, calling her.
...I believe
And I believe 'cause I can see
Our future days
Days of you and me...
And Ellie throws herself into the abyss of time.