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This story takes place six months before the events of Harem Apocalypse.

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The world ended in ninety days.

A virus swept across the planet with terrifying efficiency, killing roughly eighty percent of humanity before burning itself out. Cities fell first - too many people packed too close together. The infrastructure collapsed within weeks. Power grids failed. Water stopped flowing. Governments dissolved into chaos, then silence.

Those of us who survived did so through luck, isolation, or both.

I found Haven six months after the collapse - a former summer camp in the Texas hill country called Camp Clearwater. Eight of us made it here together: Marcus and me, plus six others we'd gathered along the way. We built the fences. Fortified the buildings. Planted gardens. Created something that almost felt like a future.

For a little while, we were happy.

I dream about those days sometimes. The good ones, before the raiders came and took everything.

Tonight, I dream about Sophie.

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She arrived at Haven's gates three weeks after we'd finished the perimeter fence.

Twenty years old, alone, half-starved and terrified. She'd been a freshman at UT Austin when the world ended - survived the first wave by hiding in her dorm room, the second wave by running. Lost her family, her friends, everyone she'd ever known.

When Marcus opened the gate and she saw other people - living, breathing people who weren't trying to kill her - she collapsed into his arms and sobbed.

That was Sophie. Heart on her sleeve, emotions unguarded, desperately hungry for human connection.

She was beautiful in a soft, unpolished way. Full figure with wide hips and heavy breasts that strained against whatever shirt she borrowed. Long brown hair that fell past her shoulders in waves she never quite tamed. Big doe eyes the color of honey, always watching, always curious.

And innocent. God, she was innocent. The collapse had taken her family but hadn't hardened her the way it hardened the rest of us. She still believed in kindness. Still trusted people. Still blushed when Marcus took his shirt off to work on the fence.

I noticed her watching him. Hard not to - my man was worth watching. Six-two, broad shoulders, military bearing from his time in the Marines. Dark skin, strong hands, a smile that could light up the whole compound.

I noticed her watching me too.

At first I thought it was admiration. Hero worship, maybe. I was the medic, the one who'd patched up her scrapes when she arrived, who'd sat with her through the nightmares those first few nights. She looked at me like I had answers to questions she hadn't learned to ask yet.

Then one night I caught her outside our cabin, frozen mid-step like a deer in headlights.

"Sophie?"

"I'm sorry." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I heard... I didn't mean to..."

She'd heard us. Marcus and me, being not-so-quiet about our evening activities. Her face was flushed crimson, her breathing uneven, and even in the moonlight I could see her nipples straining against her thin sleep shirt.

I should have sent her away. Should have been gentle but firm, protected her innocence, maintained appropriate boundaries.

Instead, I said: "Did you like what you heard?"

She couldn't meet my eyes. But she nodded.

"Have you ever been with anyone, Sophie?"

A shake of her head. Barely nineteen and the world had ended before she'd had a chance to live.

I thought about sending her back to her cabin. Thought about all the reasons this was a bad idea.

Then I thought about how short life had become. How quickly everything could end. How she deserved to know pleasure before the world took that chance away too.

"Wait here," I said...