Shaking the scene from his thoughts, he made his way to the fridge, opening the door to reveal a bottle of rotten milk and few cans of beer. A week earlier, he would have jumped at the sight of a beer, but now the can did nothing but make him crave water even more. He closed the door slowly and turned to the cabinets. The first two held nothing but spices and a few boxes of rigatoni noodles. The next two were full of utensils and plates. With a sigh he closed them and moved on to the third. He licked his lips out of habit, noticing that the blood had dried up.

He swung the next door open, desperate to find something to quench his thirst. Inside were a can of beans, a can of soup and a couple boxes of cereal.

It occurred to Alex that someone must have looted the house earlier, and something inside him brightened at the idea. Maybe they were still out there. Maybe he wasn’t alone after all. He opened up his backpack and dropped the beans and soup inside to eat later and walked back through the hallway.

He passed a door, slightly cracked open. Sliding his fingers into the gap, he slowly opened it, revealing a dark utility closet. His heart raced when he saw the outline of a water heater. He instantly recalled a documentary he’d shown his students about civilians who survived the Solar Storms of 2055. One man had managed to live for three months off the water inside his water heater.

He clicked on his flashlight and swept the beam over the dark space. Crouching, he took one step inside the room. His heart sank when he felt his boot slide into a gooey substance.

Closing his eyes, he sucked in a measured breath and then angled the light at the floor. He knew what the substance was, but wanted to see it with his own eyes. When they snapped open, he saw the remains of an orb.

“My God,” he said, pulling his boot out of the sticky material. He was alone after all. There was nothing left of whoever had taken refuge in the closet, nor was there any water left in the small heater, which had a claw mark across the length of the metal.

Alex didn’t bother closing the door. The orb was relatively fresh, not the dried out type he had come across before. He knew the aliens were probably still nearby. Moving slowly across the carpeted floor, he decided to head upstairs. He wanted a view of the block, to see if he was right—to see if they were still there. Gripping the combat knife tightly, he ducked around the next corner and stopped at the bottom of a large wooden staircase that led to a second floor.