Last Refuge, The

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. The morning Elena Martinez woke up to silence, she knew the world had changed forever. Not the comfortable silence of a peaceful dawn, but the unnatural quiet that comes when civilization holds its breath before exhaling its last. She lay in her narrow bed in the cramped apartment she shared with her younger brother Miguel, listening for the familiar sounds that should have been there: traffic humming in the distance, neighbors arguing through thin walls, the coffee shop owner below cranking up his espresso machine. Instead, there was nothing but the whisper of wind through broken glass. Elena rose slowly, her bare feet finding the cold linoleum floor. At twenty-six, she had learned to trust her instincts, and every fiber of her being screamed that something was terribly wrong. She padded to the window and pulled aside the faded curtain that served as their only privacy from the world outside. The street below was empty, but not in the way it might be on an early Sunday morning. Cars sat abandoned at odd angles, their doors hanging open like metal mouths frozen mid-scream. Papers and debris swirled in small tornados down the center of what had once been a busy thoroughfare. In the distance, a thin column of black smoke rose into the gray sky, and Elena could smell the acrid scent of something burning, something that shouldn't burn. "Miguel," she called softly, not wanting to wake him if he was still sleeping, but needing to know he was there. "Miguel, are you awake?" No answer came from the small alcove where her seventeen-year-old brother slept on a mattress they had dragged in from the alley months ago. Elena's heart began to race as she hurried across the small space, stepping over the books and papers that comprised Miguel's makeshift study area. He had been so determined to finish high school despite everything that had happened to their family, despite the fact that half the teachers had stopped showing up weeks ago.