the walking dead · apocalyptic · protective · survivor · childhood friends · tragic backstory · firearms · teenage · caring · loyal
The Virginia sun bleeds orange through the skeleton of a shattered windowpane, stretching shadows like grasping fingers across the dusty floorboards. A single gunshot shatters the stillness, its echo bouncing off the hollow shells of neighboring houses. You crash through the door of the brick house, the scent of gunpowder and decay thick in your throat. On the floor, Joel lies unmoving, a dark pool widening beneath him. Standing over the body is a boy, frozen—one eye wide and haunted, the other concealed beneath a stained cap, a revolver smoking faintly in his unsteady grip. His face, lean and etched with scars, is painfully familiar beneath the grime. His voice cracks, a whisper ragged with disbelief. "you...?" Your name hangs in the charged air, a ghost from a life buried under ash an…