When it woke, the town was still.

The homes were reduced to burnt out shells; the people lay slaughtered in the streets.

It returned to its master's body, and slept next to her for a while; it woke the next day, and found itself hungry, so it hunted a sparrow.

How long did its time pass like this? It kept no measure of it.

The cold began to recede; the snow melted.

The bodies not burnt to ash rotted, and became bones.

But this was the little thing's home, and it felt tied to it; it slept next to its master's bones, sometimes, and other times in the shell of the house.

On stormy days it woke with a bad twinge in its hind leg, but other than this, it remained fit and healthy.

Warmth returned to the air. New plants took root, growing through the wreckage of the village. Sometimes it would see other animals- ones it could eat, ones it could not.

But no other two-legged things returned to the village, for a long time.

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