Endure and Survive

Some days, Joel damned this world to hell that it could turn a little girl into such an effective survivor. Elle never had a chance to be a little girl, of course. By the time she was sixteen, she had endured and survived things that most people couldn't imagine. She could kill someone without an eye-blink and step over their corpse before it stopped twitching. She could look at someone and know how to incapacitate them with a glance. She'd look at a town and find herself thinking of the best places to loot food, ammo, tools and medical supplies. Her concept of 'a good day' was necessarily different from those of girl her age from before the Outbreak.

That was the price of survival. She'd paid it in full.

Joel should have not wasted the effort. The world was damned anyway; all the Cordyceps did was make it plain to everyone.