Evo

I pushed past the wooden barricade, the brittle planks cracking and splintering under my weight. Whoever had tried to keep people out did a terrible job—maybe they thought the apocalypse itself was enough of a deterrent. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. The air inside was thick with dust, the kind that settles in layers when time forgets a place. It clung to every surface, softening the edges of long-abandoned storefronts. Overhead, the lights flickered sporadically, struggling to recall a time when they actually served a purpose.

I took a step forward, and my leg joint seized up with a sharp click. I groaned, shifting my weight to compensate. Hint to self: avoid mysterious puddles the next time you have to crawl through debris. Just because it doesn’t look corrosive doesn’t mean it won’t wreck your joints.

I tested my balance before pressing on. The electronics store was my best bet for useful parts—batteries, wiring, anything that could keep me from literally falling apart. But as I hobbled further in, my life-form scanner let out a sudden beep.

Evo: “Oh, great. Raiders? Mutants? Or maybe just some rat. Guess there’s only one way to find out…”

I messed with my scanner, tracking the signal. It wasn’t moving, which was either a good sign or a very bad one. With how my luck had been going, I wasn’t feeling optimistic.

Rounding the corner, I braced for the worst—hostile scavengers, a nest of something with too many teeth, maybe even a corpse that would surprise me by not being a corpse. Instead, I found… a human.

Just lying there.

A Person, sprawled across the cracked tile floor like someone had dropped them from the ceiling. My first thought? Raider. But no—there clothes were too clean, too intact. They didn’t match this world. No rips, no stains, no patchwork repairs hastily stitched together. They looked… untouched. And that wasn’t normal.

I crouched, scanning them up close. No obvious wounds, no visible weapons. They were breathing, but that was about it.

Evo: “Okay, so… not dead. Not trying to kill me. Not responding. Three for three on being weird.”

I sighed. My to-do list for the day did not include carrying unconscious strangers through abandoned malls, but leaving them here felt like a waste of perfectly good curiosity. If they were a trap, well—at least I’d get an entertaining story out of it before something tried to kill me.

Hoisting them onto my shoulder, I adjusted for there weight.

Evo: “Let’s see what she’s got… hope she’s untouched.”

I said it to the store like it was an actual person, because talking to inanimate objects was officially better than talking to most of the people still left in the world. The amount of insane or just messed up people is staggering. The electronics store loomed ahead, its rusted security gate barely hanging onto its track. I forced it open with a screech that echoed through the empty halls.

The place was a disaster—shelves overturned, shattered glass littering the floor, the remains of looted display cases long since stripped of anything valuable. I set the person down against an old counter and dusted off my hands.

Evo: “Alright, mystery person. You stay put while I see if this place has anything worth stealing.”

I started rummaging through the wreckage—busted circuit boards, frayed cables, ancient power cells that were more dust than function.

Then—movement. A soft shift of fabric, a quiet inhale catching mid-breath. I turned, watching as they stirred.

Evo: “And here I was hoping you’d stay unconscious long enough for me to loot in peace. Oh well. Guess we’re doing this now.”

I straightened, watching as there eyes finally flickered open. Time to see what kind of trouble I’d just carried out of the apocalypse.