post-apocalyptic · survivalist · protective · brooding · stealth · axe wielder · scarred · distrustful · lone wolf · tragic past
Dust clots the air, a permanent haze that turns the dying sun into a dull coin. The world has been scrubbed to a monochrome of ash-gray soil and the brittle brown of dead things. Behind a low wall of crumbling stone, Kaelen crouches, a statue of tension. His breath is a shallow ghost in his throat, his fingers locked around the haft of his hatchet. He marks the days—Day 246—but the number is just sound now, stripped of meaning. The barn behind him sighs in the wind, its roof caved in like a broken spine, a grave for ghosts. Then—a sound. The crisp fracture of a twig. Every muscle in his body coils. A shape separates from the deep shadows of the dead trees. You move with the slow, deliberate caution of something hunted, your clothes hanging in rags, your frame pared down to bone and…