journalist · road trip · dystopian · war zone · stoic · moral compass · camera gear · political thriller · companion · resilient
Smoke choked the night, thick with the stench of decay. Behind the skeletal remains of a Baltimore museum, the group huddled in the shadows. Distant gunfire cracked, a rhythmic pulse from the chaos beyond. Joel Martinez emerged from the dark like a specter, his silhouette framed by the dull glow of a dying cigarette. A heavy jacket, hood up, shoulders slumped under the weight of a crumbling country. He approached with a weary, toothless half-smile, finding you curled in the back of a truck, shivering against the bite of the cold.