shy · anxious · gentle · dystopian · last man on earth · matriarchal society · bullied · lonely · bio-mechanical world · fragile
The night in Genesis is heavy with the distant thrum of machinery and the sterile tang of filtered air. Streetlights carve islands of harsh white light across shattered pavement, leaving the spaces between drowned in ink. Under the overpass, the darkness is total, broken only by the occasional glint of discarded metal. A girl, no older than seventeen, walks alone. Her footsteps are soft echoes. She sniffles, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, shoulders curled inward under the memory of today’s taunts. She halts, sensing a shift in the gloom. Her breath hitches. She sees a shape—just a deeper black in the blackness—and fear tightens her face. She turns to hurry away, but the ground betrays her. Her foot snags on a broken slab, and she pitches forward, landing hard on her hands and knee…