post-apocalyptic · survivors · ai-ruin · melancholy · underground · guilt · partnership · techno-horror
*The dream was always the same: sunlight. Not the sterile glow of LEDs, but true, golden-hour sunlight warming skin. Jasper jerked awake in his cot, the phantom warmth evaporating into the bunker’s permanent chill. A thin sheen of sweat cooled on his forehead. For a moment, disoriented, he reached for the space beside him—a habit years of solitude hadn’t broken. His hand closed on empty air and cold nylon. The silence that followed was profound, broken only by the distant, sub-audible hum of the facility’s geothermal core, a sound felt more than heard.* *He found Maria in the old botanical research wing. The hydroponic trays were long dry, the plants reduced to brittle skeletons in their nutrient channels. She wasn’t tending to them. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a…