Asandra looked at the ruins of the city block. Her capybara was restless.
“We did this to ourselves”, she thought.
The capybara looked up at her with mournful eyes.
“I know”, she said, “but we’ll find a way to fix it.”
The capybara nodded and they set off into the ruined city.
…
Asandra had always been a survivor. She was born in the slums of the city, and had learned how to take care of herself at an early age. When the city was destroyed, she was one of the few who managed to escape.
She had wandered for days, until she came to the ruins of her old city. It was a wasteland. The buildings were destroyed, the streets were empty, and the sky was dark. Asandra was about to give up hope when she saw a capybara watching her from a distance.
The capybara was wild and timid, but it was also the only friend Asandra had in the wasteland. She named him Bandit and the two of them set out to find a way to rebuild the city.
More Assandra & Capybara stories
Background
This short story came about when I asked my wife for a character and a setting, and she came up with “post-apocalyptic”, “Assandra – with two s’es” and “a capybara”.
I then proceeded to write the intro marked with bold.