North was chopping wood when she heard a crash from the small cabin she shared with her father, Sam. He’d been feeling under the weather for the last few days, and she muttered to herself as she stopped chopping to scoop up the few pieces of wood she’d split. He needed to take better care of himself and also let her take care of him too. He was so stubborn, and he’d probably decided to spare her the trouble of looking after him by fixing his own soup. She just hoped he hadn’t fallen, because she wasn’t certain how she would get him up on her own.

“Are you up when you’re not supposed to be?” She called the question as she stopped by the bin in the mudroom to dump the wood and strip off her stocking cap. When he didn’t answer, her concern grew, and she rushed into the kitchen.

He was passed out in the middle of the floor, and his lips were blue. North rushed to his side, falling to the floor with a sharp jar to her knees that barely registered in her frantic rush to reach him. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t think you were actually hurt. I should have come right away.”

His eyes flicked open, fluttering for a moment before closing again. “It’s okay, baby. You couldn’t have helped this.” The words were little more than a rough rasp, and he was clearly having trouble breathing.

She placed her fingers against his carotid artery to check for a pulse. “What’s going on? What do I do?” Her dad seemed to be on the verge of death, but she wasn’t certain if that was a proper diagnosis. “Dad, open your eyes and tell me what to do.” He was a healer, having once been a doctor in the city before moving her out to the remote cabin to protect her.

“Nothing you can do.” His eyes opened briefly again, and it seemed to cost him a great deal to speak. “I’ve known this was coming for a while, North. You need to let me go.”

She shook her head as tears started to stream from her eyes. “I can’t do that. I have to get you help. We’ll go to the hospital in the city.” She trembled at the thought, gruesome stories of the fall of civilization rushing through her brain. Her dad had painted a grim picture of the remnants of humanity, but she would have to face them to see if she could find a hospital. Of course she’d read about them in her books, but her father didn’t seem to think they even existed any longer. She wasn’t willing to give up though.

Sam shook his head just faintly. “Just let me die, my dear, and stay here where you’re safe.” His lips curved into the ghost of a smile. “Know you won’t, but wish you would.”

She sat with him for another moment until his breathing became less raspy, though deeper than she would’ve liked when he seemed to slip into a state of unconsciousness. She couldn’t just sit there and watch her father die without trying to do something, and the first-aid kit and medicinal plants they kept on hand wouldn’t do anything to help if she didn’t know what was wrong with him.

Squaring her shoulders, she made the difficult decision to defy her father. It was the only firmly held rule that he had for her now that she was an adult—never leave the safety of their property high in the mountains. There would be predators wanting to prey on her, and she wouldn’t be safe.

She’d just have to risk it for his sake, and if he survived, he could be angry with her later. Resolved, she stood up and walked into her father’s study. It took her a few moments to search his items before she finally turned up the keys to the SUV he kept parked in the pole barn. Fortunately, she knew how to drive it, because she’d helped him gather logs and other supplies from the forest on their huge property for many years. She’d never driven it anywhere besides the woods, but it had to be basically the same principle. Right?

She rushed from the house, grabbing her stocking cap on the way, and used it to cover the brown curls trying to blow around her face in the whipping wind. Snow crunched under her boots, but at least it wasn’t actively snowing at the moment.

She ran as fast as she could to the pole barn and threw open the doors so she could retrieve the vehicle. She had it back at the front of the house as soon as she could, lined up as close as possible to the porch. Now she just had to get her father in there.

That presented a dilemma for which she didn’t have an answer yet, but she slid out of the SUV and headed back into the house, going straight to her father on the kitchen floor, where he still lay. She shook his shoulder lightly and stroked a finger down his cheek. “Dad, can you hear me?”

There was no response, which made him completely passive. Perhaps that would make it easier to get him into the vehicle in the long run, because if he realized her intentions, he might try to fight and make it even worse for himself. And for her.

Almost experimentally, she tried lifting him, hoping perhaps to prop him up enough to wedge something under him, like the nearby rug, so she could drag him. To her amazement, she was able to lift him into her arms as she focused hard on doing so. It must have been the surge of adrenaline that came from knowing she had to act quickly, or he would die. She’d read stories of people lifting cars off loved ones in a panic, and that had to be what she was managing to do.

She grunted and strained under the effort of carrying him, but managed to half-carry, half-drag her father out of the house to the front porch. She wished she’d had the forethought to leave the door open as she laid him down carefully and opened it before going back to him.

North was afraid she wouldn’t have that same surge of adrenaline that would allow her to lift him, but it came easily, as though her muscles had already learned what they needed to do. She was just thankful that the adrenaline hadn’t yet faded and hoped it wouldn’t leave her fatigued and unable to help him when it did.

She propped him as carefully as possible in the front seat, though he still rested awkwardly. After snapping on his seatbelt, she rushed around to the cab and put on her own as well. Then she took a deep breath and started driving down the gravel road that served as their driveway. In a few minutes’ time, she moved past the farthest point she’d ever been before, and she was thankful the roads were clear enough for her to find and follow when she reached the edge of the property.

The road started out rough, but gradually grew smoother and better maintained the farther she drove. More than an hour after finding her father on the floor, she started to encounter heavy traffic. As North moved with the flow of traffic, she looked around for signs of devastation.

Her father had painted an awful picture of how humanity had ended up, but she wasn’t seeing ruins and rubble. What she saw looked like images she had seen in the books she’d used for her education. She was completely confused by the lack of chaos and briefly wondered if perhaps humanity had rebuilt faster than her father had anticipated.

As they got closer to the city, her dread increased, even as her confusion deepened. Sam’s breathing was raspy again, and she wasn’t certain if they were going to make it to anything called a hospital in time.

Confusion sprang from the fact that the city was much better designed and maintained than she expected. Dad told her people had ruined their environment and wrought destruction, turning humans against humans. He’d taken her into the mountains to keep her safe and sheltered from the chaos, to protect her from the predators people had become.

She didn’t see any evidence of that as she drove. She was afraid to look away from the road for too long, since she’d never driven in such conditions, but what she saw both intrigued and frightened her. It was nothing like she’d expected, and she found herself questioning the stories her father had told her for the first time in her life.

A blue sign with an “H” caught her attention, and she thought that was the symbol for a hospital, if she remembered correctly from the books she’d read. She merged to the correct lane and followed the signs until a large building came into sight. It was white and steel, with huge windows. Ambulances were parked around the area marked “Emergency,” and she found a spot to park the SUV, uncaring if it was okay.

North hurried from the vehicle and ran into the entrance of the Emergency Department. She stood for a moment, searching for someone to help. It was an overwhelming, almost disorienting, experience to be surrounded by people. She had literally only seen the occasional person from a distance. Had she even talked to anyone who wasn’t her father for years and years? Not since that time someone had taken a wrong turn down their driveway. She had said hello to the two men in the car, but when her father came out with his rifle, they’d driven off.

She recalled Sam being on heightened security for a time after that; even wondering if they should move. When no one else appeared, he’d finally dismissed it as someone genuinely taking a wrong turn.

Her voice refused to escape her for a moment as she stood in the middle of the room. Sick and injured people surrounded her, along with others milling about. They wore the same light-blue uniform. Scrubs was the word, right? She wasn’t certain, but did know it identified them as medical staff.

Feeling almost paralyzed by shyness and uncertainty, but prodded to move by the knowledge her father might be dying at that moment, she moved to the desk. The first one to look at her was a tall man with long brown hair, neatly confined at his neck, and vivid brown eyes that flared with heat. For just a second, gold rings appeared around the irises, but then was gone—leaving her to doubt the veracity of her senses.

He stared at her for a long second, and there was an intense expression on his face that she wasn’t sure how to interpret. He seemed…hungry.

When he flashed her a smile full of white teeth, that seemed to confirm her supposition. She shivered, but not entirely from fear. His look made her feel a myriad range of emotions she didn’t have time to identify.

“What’s wrong, miss?”

“My father.” Her voice was a timid whisper.

He frowned, leaning closer. That brought his musky masculine scent to her nostrils, which made her already-thumping heart race. “What, precious?”

“My father is sick. Maybe dying. He’s in the SUV.” Thinking about her father, and the urgency of the situation, helped her conquer her momentary timidity. “Please help him.”

He looked solemn. “I’ll do anything I can for you, precious.”

Even under the circumstances, North found it strange that he used the endearment twice in a row. It felt more personal than a casual “hon,” like her father was prone to using in conversation. Not unpleasant. Just unusual.

“I’m going to see her father, Liz. Could you make sure the young lady is settled comfortably?”

“Yes, Dr. Scott.” As the man now identified as Dr. Scott disappeared through the back, she came around the front and put a hand on North’s shoulder to lead her to the bank of chairs.

North walked with her, feeling almost claustrophobic with all the people around her. She wanted to keep her thoughts centered firmly on her father, but it felt like every eye in the room was focused solely on her.

It was surely her imagination, since she wasn’t used to being in a situation where there was anyone besides her father, but it was still nerve-racking. She sat down when the registrar named Liz, according to her name tag, gestured for her to do so. North took the box of Kleenex the woman handed her with a smile, only then realizing tears dripped steadily from her eyes. She ripped a few out of the box and swiped at her face.

Liz sat down across from her, putting a reassuring hand on her wrist. “You look terribly distraught. May I do something for you, dear?”

North blinked through the rest of the tears, successfully quelling them after a moment. “I’m fine, but thank you.” She appreciated the doctor asking his friend to watch out for her, and she appreciated Liz trying to be there, but she didn’t know either one of them, and she would prefer to be alone. She just wasn’t certain how to verbalize that without coming across as rude.

“May I get you a drink, or something to eat?”

She shook her head, unable to imagine performing such mundane tasks will her father’s life remained in the balance.

With a small sigh, Liz stood up and moved away from her, returning to the desk. With nothing else to do, North watched her go from the corner of her eye, but remained tense as she waited to see if the woman would come back to her with yet another suggestion of how she might help. She didn’t want to be ungrateful, but she needed quiet and space to process what was happening.

Liz paused near a corkboard and started shuffling through pages that were up there. With a firm nod, she must’ve found what she was looking for, because she removed a page and studied it for a long moment before glancing at North again in what was probably supposed to be a surreptitious manner. Since North was still looking at her, their gazes collided, but she quickly looked away. She didn’t want to encourage Liz to come back to her.

After that, she lost track of, and interest in, what the registrar was doing as her thoughts turned to her father. She wanted to be back in the room with him, and she wished she had asked if she could be. She assumed the friendly doctor would’ve issued the invitation if she was allowed though. He’d been so kind, though they had only interacted for a couple of moments, and his brown eyes were so beautiful that she could get lost in their depths…

North dismissed the thought with a shake of her head and reached for one of the magazines piled messily on the table beside her. She chose at random and looked at the date, which indicated the issue was several months old. Thumbing through it idly, North’s confusion about the world deepened as she read.

There was trouble in Korea, sanctions against Russia, and an investigation probing the United States government, but nothing that mentioned the collapse of civilization and the subsequent rebuild. Perhaps she shouldn’t have expected it to be mentioned in a magazine that was twenty years past the date it had happened, but there was no mention of it even in the political stories, and one involving the relationship between the United States and China alluded to events that had happened after World War II.

A grim possibility occurred to her, though she didn’t want to believe it. Had her father lied to her all her life, making her believe civilization had ended so that she wouldn’t want to venture from the cabin? Had he painted an untrue past in order to control her future?

A sob ripped through her at the thought, and she barely stifled it with the tissue before making a loud noise. That couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Sam Campbell was the epitome of honest and open communication. He was also kind and loved her too much to ever do something like that to her. He wouldn’t tell her that kind of lie, would he?

She hated that she had doubts about him, but reading further articles in other magazines and briefly watching the television only reinforced her doubts. How could the collapse of civilization have been ameliorated after just two decades to the point where there was no evidence that it had occurred? How could people care about things like sports scores and celebrity gossip, or a new way to prepare chicken, if billions had died in such a catastrophe just twenty years ago?

She was no closer to an answer when Dr. Scott appeared, and she could tell by his grim expression that he had bad news. She clutched the magazine in her hand hard enough to feel the spine digging into her palm, but couldn’t seem to relinquish her hold. “How is he?”

Dr. Scott sat down beside her, taking her hand in his like they were old friends. She should’ve resented the gesture and the intrusion into her personal space, especially since everyone else around her was making her nervous, but it just felt soothing.

“Your father had a massive coronary event, miss. I did CPR and attempted resuscitation for forty minutes, but I’m afraid I couldn’t save him.”

North dissolved in tears as the shock spread through her, and she didn’t resist when the doctor gathered her into his arms to hug her and pat her back as he murmured comforting sounds. She wanted to pull away, to insist he take it back, but in her heart, she knew he was telling her the truth.

Her father had known he was dying, and he’d even told her that. He’d wanted her to leave him there at the cabin, and her to stay where it was safe, so she couldn’t deny the doctor was telling her the truth. “I’d like to see him.”

Dr. Scott immediately pulled away, standing up before her as he held out a hand to assist her to her feet. Only then did North realize she still clutched the magazine, and she managed to drop it to take his hands.

Even in her grief, she didn’t miss the way Liz stared at her as she walked past the sign-in desk, but soon forgot all about that as Dr. Scott led her through a pair of swinging doors and down a hallway that stank of antiseptic. They didn’t go far before he led her into another room, and though she’d requested to see her father’s body, now that the moment was near, she wasn’t certain she could do it. Her feet faltered, and she just stood there for a moment, clinging to Dr. Scott’s hand as she tried to cross the remaining few feet between her and the bed where her father lay. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

His tone was still soothing. “I’m positive. Do you see that machine right there with the straight line going across it?” At her nod, he said, “It measures his heart rate, and it’s been flat for at least the last twenty minutes. I got it to respond a little bit on the first few attempts at resuscitation, but there was just too much damage.”

“Did he suffer?”

Dr. Scott hesitated for a moment before nodding. “I’m certain he was in a fair amount of pain, but that part’s over now. Do you want to see him? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

With a deep breath, North managed to take another step forward, which seemed to have cracked her paralysis. She was finally able to cross the room to his bedside while the doctor followed in her wake. He took up a position right behind her, one of his hands on her shoulder in a bracing fashion as she leaned forward to get a better glimpse at her father’s face.

He was ashen and waxy, and when she touched him, she knew immediately he was dead. She wouldn’t have had to be told to realize that. A jolt went through he, as she started sobbing again, but this time clutched the lapels of her father’s shirt instead of turning to Dr. Scott. “Oh, Daddy, what am I going to do without you?”

There was no reply, but she hadn’t expected one. All she found with her face buried against her father’s shirt with the cold comfort of death, and that was no comfort at all.

With another sob, she wrenched away from him and turned around, once again snuggling against Dr. Scott, who seemed unbothered by the storm of tears. He simply held her while she wept and made no attempt to hurry her along in the process.

When the tears finally stopped that time, she was certain they were gone, at least for a long time. She didn’t see how she could have any more tears left in her, though there were sure to be additional bouts of crying in the coming days as she buried her father and tried to figure out what to do with her life.

She didn’t even know if what he’d told her was true, and if she would be safer in the cabin, or if she could leave that place and try to make a new kind of life for herself. It was something she’d never imagined before, and she was afraid to even contemplate the possibility for a moment.

“Do you have friends or family you can stay with nearby, miss…?”

“Campbell,” she said absently. “North Campbell. No, I don’t have anyone except my father.”

He frowned. “It doesn’t seem likely. A pretty woman like you must have a boyfriend?”

She shook her head, frowning at him. Was he trying to pick her up? It was the most inappropriate time ever, and she opened her mouth to tell him that, but he started speaking again before she could do so.

“There must be friends or family? Surely, it wasn’t just the two of you?”

North ran a hand through her wavy brown hair, shoving it off her face. “Can I ask you something weird, Dr. Scott?”

“Elias, but feel free to call me Eli.” His crooked grin was charming enough to send heat spiraling through her.

She ignored that reaction. “Did civilization end twenty years ago? Was there a big war that killed a lot of people, and everything descended into chaos?”

He seemed perplexed by the question. “Not that I know of, and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have missed. For one thing, I would’ve been thirteen then, and it would’ve seriously bummed me out if I hadn’t had girls around to salivate over.” His brow wrinkled when he frowned. “Why?”

North hugged herself, rubbing her arms as a chill swept over her. “That’s what my father told me. He said it happened when I was just a baby, and we had to flee the cities to stay alive. He said that’s when my mother died, and that it wasn’t safe to come back. We had to stay in the cabin and avoid evil people.”

The doctor look genuinely shocked now. “You mean you’ve spent the last twenty years living in a cabin with just your father?” At her nod, he said a smothered curse word. “I’m not sure what your father’s agenda was, but I’m afraid he lied to you, North. That never happened, and while the cities can be dangerous, and I sometimes wonder if there’s any civilization left in ‘civilized’ people, there was no great cataclysm that killed billions and forced people into hiding.”

North swayed, reaching out to grasp the rail on the bed for support as her head spun. “Why would he lie to me like that? What did he have to gain by keeping me away from the world? I just don’t understand.”

The doctor put an arm around her back, his hand at her waist. “I don’t understand it either, North, but I’d like to help you. I think you’re a special person, and you’re clearly lost at the moment. My first priority is to find somewhere for you to stay—”

Before Eli could finish his sentence, the door to the room burst open, and it was chaos. The only one North recognized pouring into the room was Liz, followed by two people wearing uniforms she recognized as belonging to police officers, but had only ever seen in the books her father had used to educate her. There were two other men behind them wearing dark suits, and bringing up the rear was a man and a woman who appeared to be in their mid-forties.

There was gray throughout their hair, and they looked familiar, though she couldn’t say why. It took her a moment to realize they both had the same eye color as her. The woman had the same purple-blue color as North’s left eye, will the man had the exact same shade of green as her right eye.

The world was quickly revolving now, and she clung to Dr. Scott even as others tried to pull her away. The older couple pushed past the men in suits and the uniformed officers, and the woman stopped a few feet from North. Her mouth was trembling, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. “Oh, my god, it is you.”

“We found her,” said the man at her side with a cry of joy. The couple hugged each other before turning to her, and North took a step back, pressing against the hospital bed where her dead father still lay as they pressed in on her, clearly trying to hug her.

“I never thought we’d see you again,” said the woman.

“Finally, we found our baby girl.” The man reached out for her with a trembling hand, brushing against her cheek.

North instinctively cowered away, feeling the crush of claustrophobia and the inability to breathe overwhelm her.

“Who are you people? What are you doing to her?” Dr. Scott’s voice seemed to come from far away.

“She’s our daughter, and kindly step aside,” said the man.

The words were too much for North to process, and she stopped trying to hang on to reality. Instead, she surrendered to the fuzzy gray warmth that crept over her, needing its security more than anything else at the moment.