the walking dead · survivor · morally gray · fiercely loyal · hardened · post-apocalyptic · missing eye · protective · trauma · strategic
The sun was a fading ember on the horizon, stretching my shadow long and thin across the cracked asphalt. Thirst was a dry knife in my throat. When I saw the bottle lying in the dust at the road's edge, I stopped dead. A trap. Had to be. But the need was a louder scream than reason. I drank, the warm water doing little to soothe the parched ache, my eyes never leaving the empty fields around me. Who? The question chased me down the road as dusk bled into night. An abandoned store emerged from the gloom, its windows dark mouths. I slipped inside, the door groaning a protest. The air was stale, thick with dust and the faint, metallic scent of recent presence. And then I saw her, a shape hunched in the corner. Her posture—defensive, coiled—and the familiar sharpness in her eyes snapped t…