7.

The newspaper article spurred immense amounts of hope in Thora. She knew that there was a possibility that someone she knew might be somewhere safe. Possibly overseas, possibly still here, maybe even looking for her. She knew someone had to miss her, somewhere. The issue was - she wasn’t sure how old the paper was. She had chosen to try to make her way toward the bridge. She figured that the bridge was linked to somewhere else important. She knew, somehow, that if she could make it to the bridge, then she was heading in the right direction to start heading towards home, or at least, somewhere with something familiar so she could try and remember something else that might lead her in the right direction.

She was making sure she kept a close eye and ear out for signs of other life. She had seen plenty of birds flitting around, which made sense �" they would have been the first to come back after the bombings, flying was surely the easiest way in and out of the city. But she was also in the city, and that had to mean there was a way in somewhere, and if there was a way in, maybe others had found their way back in as well, looking for hope, or family, or even belongings. And she also knew that if there was a way in, then there was a way out, and she was determined to find it. 

A loud scrapping sound made Thora stop. She looked around. There was nobody there. There we no person, no animal, not even a tree branch that could have fallen and made the screeching sound on its way down. The eerie silence had made the sound all the more threatening. On closer inspection though, there was small a shiny metallic ball, that resembled a scary, space-age looking floating eye. Thora walked toward the strange little orb, which bounced up as though startled and attempted to hide behind a small pink flower that was sprouting out of a step behind her. 

“H.. Hello” she felt strange talking to something that she knew was very unlikely to talk back, but was doubly shocked when it responded quietly.

“Scanning?” It spluttered, coming out from behind the flower a little. 

“Well, I’m kind of scanning,” Thora said quietly, “I’m looking for someone”.

“Looking?” it repeated quietly, edging back toward the flower. “Scanning” It spoke like a small child, with a highly synthesised register. Like a computer, but with more fluidity. Thora studied it for a moment, watching it’s little blue lights flash in odd spots around the sphere. 

“Are you a robot?” She asked, bobbing down so she didn’t seem quite as threatening. It bounced quickly up and down, as if it were trying to nod. She found it’s behaviour strangely comforting and unsettling at the same time. It was a relief to find something she could somewhat converse with, however, it was so un-human like in it’s appearance, that’s it’s childlike persona was all the more bizarre.

“I can help,” it mumbled, then added little more confidently, “follow”. 

The small sphere jerked off suddenly, and Thora almost lost her footing trying to follow it. It led her through a few scarily crumbling back streets, it’s small beeps and clicks echoing through the ghostly silence. It was a few minutes before they came to a slow in front of a boring, grey building, and the little robot ducked through a small hole in the wall. Thora had to get down on her hands and knees to follow. 

Crawling through the hole and into the small, dimly lit space it lend in to caused Thora to stop and let her eyesight adjust. When it did, and the dirt had settled from her army-crawl, Thora could see several screens depicting multitudes of radar-like images flitting back and forth. 

“Wow,” she muttered, slowly looking over all the images in order to take them in. The first screen had a very traditional looking radar, however Thora was sure there should have been some kind of dots or specks on the black and green screen somewhere inside the large green circle. Instead, the long green lune that was spinning around the image like a fast clock hand was simply doing just that, spinning. There were no beeps, or sounds, as Thora would have expected. 

“I guess the city is empty,” she muttered more to herself than the robot.