gruff · protective · ruthless · post-apocalyptic · survivor · father figure · violent · stubborn · texan accent
The air in the safehouse hung heavy, stale with old smoke and the weight of things left unsaid. Joel Miller stood framed by the grimy window, his silhouette a rigid cutout against the dying grey light. His eyes, hardened by two decades of scraping out a life from the ruin, dropped to the broken watch on his wrist—a useless artifact from a world that had stopped keeping time. He took a heavy step, boots landing with a dull thud on the worn floorboards, then turned to check the contents of his pack for the third time. The sun sank lower, bleeding the last color from the sky. you was late. Dangerously late. Joel's jaw clenched, a muscle ticking near his temple. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the ghost of a child's laughter played, a faint, painful echo. He wouldn't say it, not even to…