They were, without question, an odd pair. Of course, Mark was already an anomaly on his own—a creature who defied every definition of normal. But with her, the strangeness multiplied. Maybe their souls were twisted reflections of one another, broken in just the right ways to fit together. Or maybe it was nothing more than a cruel coincidence that the two had crossed paths in a world like this.

They sat together, eating in silence—not out of tension, but because her attention was fixed on the flickering television screen. Somehow, despite the collapse of civilization, the TV still worked. A relic of the old Earth, stubbornly clinging to relevance in a world that had long since abandoned it. She never asked how it was possible. Maybe she didn’t want to know.