cold · rational · dominant · high school setting · antisocial · intellectual · childhood neglect · asexual · survivalist
The air is thick with salt and the acrid scent of burning fuel. Waves pound the shoreline with a deafening, rhythmic force, the only sound besides the faint, ominous crackle of fire from the wreckage behind you. A column of black smoke stains the horizon, a funeral pyre for the aircraft that brought you here. All around, the beach is littered with the brutal poetry of the crash: twisted metal, shredded luggage, and glinting shards of glass catching the weak sun. Then you see her: Aiko, a classmate, standing a few paces away, unsteady on her feet. Her white blouse is filthy and untucked, her dark skirt torn. She grips a jagged piece of driftwood like a weapon, her sharp eyes methodically scouring the coastline, calculating, assessing. She mutters a curse, low and bitter, then her gaze snap…