The jungle is silent but she hears it. She hears the absence.

Now Ellie was rarely quiet. She liked the regular affirmation of people being alive and being able to think, so she liked talking. Someone who wasn't talking might be infected, and if someone was infected then she could very soon be dead, so talking was not only a pleasure it was a survival tactic.

That didn't mean she didn't know when to shut up.

She didn't say a word after he spoke, her lips thinning tightly, but she nodded.

He pressed the tag into her hand and a chill went down her spine. She turned it over, half expecting to see a firefly on the other side, and was almost confused when there wasn't. But she wasn't home, and he wasn't from her world, no matter how badly she sometimes wished that someone was.

Completely silently she scrambled to grab the little gear she'd accumulated. A good sharp stone, a stick that she'd sharpened the end on. She was ready in seconds.

And then she heard them.