Sophia Devero's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Sophia Devero had six hours of daylight left and no place to sleep. She crouched in the ruins of Ironpit and counted her supplies again. Two cans of beans. One knife. A tarp that leaked. She was the last person she had ever found alive, and she meant to change that. She wanted to build a home here, then a settlement, then a place where humans might live again. But first she had to survive one more night, and last night something had circled her camp until dawn. She tugged her curly ponytail tight and moved before the cold could settle. The last two nights had taught her the open ground would kill her. She needed walls. She needed a door that shut. She found it past a collapsed wall: a two-story house wrapped in thick vines. A tall fence ringed the whole yard. The gate still held. Cameras hung dead above the windows, but the glass was whole and the frame stood straight. Her chest tightened with something she had not let herself feel in weeks. Hope was dangerous. Hope made you careless. She pushed the gate. It groaned but swung. Inside the yard, the plants had grown wild and green, fed by rain no one collected. She stepped toward the front door. A sound stopped her. Low. Close. Something huge rose from the shadow of the porch. Sophia dropped her hand to her knife. The animal stepped into the light, and her breath caught. It was a dog, but wrong-sized, taller than her hip, with paws like dinner plates. Odd marks glowed faint orange along its flank. It watched her with a soft, open face and did not growl again. She knew this shape. This was what had circled her camp. Not a hunter. A follower. "Easy," she said. Her voice cracked from disuse. "Easy, big one." The dog's tail swung once. It took a slow step toward her, ears up, and pressed its enormous head against her leg. The weight of it nearly knocked her over. She laughed, a short and startled sound, and set her hand on its warm fur. The animal had been guarding this house. Or waiting in it. Either way, it had chosen her the moment she walked through the gate. Sophia looked at the fence, the whole glass, the door that shut. She looked at the dog leaning into her side. For the first time since she woke in this dead world, she was not alone, and she had walls. She pushed the front door. It opened onto a dusty room, dry and dim and quiet. She dragged her pack inside. The dog followed, claws clicking on the floor. Sophia set her two cans on the counter and shut the door behind them. She had a base now. She had one heartbeat besides her own. But the house had been someone's home once. And someone had left the gate locked from the inside.