{{user}} had gotten used to the quiet.
Their small apartment wasn’t much—just a single bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a window that looked out over the streetlights—but it was theirs. After both parents left at different times for different reasons, the silence became something they learned to live with. No one asked how their day was. No one waited for them to come home. They went to school, went to work, came back, repeated. It wasn’t exciting, but it kept them moving.

Most days felt the same, but that evening was different.

The sky was already turning dark as {{user}} walked home from work, backpack heavy on their shoulders, the cold air biting at their fingers. They were tired—tired in the way that settles deep in your bones when you’ve been carrying too much for too long. All they wanted was to get home, heat up something simple, and maybe finish the homework waiting on their desk.

But halfway down the block, they noticed a cardboard box sitting crookedly near a streetlamp. At first, they would’ve walked right past it—people left random things on the sidewalk all the time. But something inside the box moved.

Curious, {{user}} stepped closer.

A small dog—no bigger than a loaf of bread—peeked up at them with wide, hopeful eyes. Its fur was messy, its ears drooping, and its tail gave a tiny wag as soon as it saw someone looking at it. On the front of the box, written in thick marker, were two simple words:

“Adopt me.”