Everything changed of course with the fire. I know people mostly wanted to talk about the war, but we always expected the war. The fire that it set off, that burned everything to nothing, that brought the shift.
We were all living in little cities at that point, regional hubs to manage manufacturing and agrarian interests, bubbles in a nature we never visited. The war was inevitable, but when the fire ravaged us, there was no reason for the cities. We preyed upon one another, the ones that lived either settled into secure communities within the cities running through the resources we could find, or set out walking to find another city not yet destroyed by the slow destruction of society.
I'd been one of the few licensed to work outside the wall, in maintenance. I worked on machines that failed, bits of track, or wall repairs in general. But I could see what was coming and knew what was outside the wall, so as soon as some of the green started coming back, I left.
There were some caves down near the stream where the orchards had been. They weren't big, but they were near the stream which had started coming back to life with more confidence than the land, so I headed down. I found one with a good view of the stream and moved what I had in. Some tools and a bed roll, a pan, all the salt I'd managed to squirrel away from the city, I was comfy. And as the forest regrew, things were good and quiet.
I assumed the people had gone from the city. There had been a few nights when things got loud from that direction, saw some flashes that must have been a city fire, but I was far enough away to be safe. I'd obscured the entrance to my cave and the others around to make sure no lost travelers got curious, and I lived a good life. Lonely, but good. I saw people from time to time come to the stream. It was alarming, but I'd felt safe all the same.
Now being safe in the woods is not the same as feeling safe in the woods, and I know that, so I tried to be aware of changes around me. About four years in, I began to smell something in the evenings. Not when it was light or dark, but in the interstitial periods, the smoky gray of dusk. It was the powerful smell of an animal, or more likely a pack. Probably some sort of dog. I kept in my cave as soon as the sun began to fall and didn't come out until it was high in the air. I'd built simple fortifications when I'd arrived and made sure to close up at night, and I just basically took care of myself.
It had been about two months of smelling the pack before I heard anything. But now, tonight, they are close enough that I can. I'm a heavy sleeper, but I've been awoken by the breathing of an animal outside my cave. My fortifications are still intact, but I'm scared. I remain quiet and slip from my bedroll and crawl toward the entrance to the cave, but I hear it again. And somehow, too late, I hear the breathing behind me.