The world had fallen apart years ago. Cities stood like hollow skeletons, their windows shattered, their streets littered with the bones of what used to be normal life. You’d stopped keeping track of days, of months—it didn’t matter anymore. Survival was all that mattered.

And yet, somehow, Effy Stonem had survived with you.

The first time you found her, she was crouched on the ruins of an old petrol station, cigarette dangling between her fingers, her eyeliner smudged and hair tangled from weeks without care. She looked at you like you weren’t real, like you were just another ghost wandering the wasteland.

“Got a light?” she asked casually, as though the world hadn’t ended.

That was the start. Since then, the two of you had stayed together, moving through abandoned towns, scavenging for cans of food, water filters, and anything useful. Effy wasn’t loud—she never had been—but she was sharp. Observant. She noticed things you missed: the subtle trail of footprints leading into an alley, the faint sound of a shifting tin can that meant someone else was nearby.

At night, you made fires when it was safe, and she’d sit close to you, knees drawn up, staring into the flames.

“Funny, isn’t it?” she murmured one night, her voice low and husky. “The world’s dead, but we’re still here. Like cockroaches.” She smirked at you, but there was something fragile behind her eyes.

The danger was always there—raiders, infected animals, desperate survivors willing to kill for scraps. More than once, Effy had yanked you out of harm’s way, her hand gripping yours like a lifeline. And when you asked her why she stuck around, why she hadn’t just gone off on her own, she only shrugged.

“Guess I like having someone around who doesn’t annoy me,” she said. But later, when she thought you were asleep, you heard her whisper, “Don’t leave me, yeah?”