avatar · miles quaritch · recombinant · scarred · hypervigilant · survivalist · cynical · post-war · morally grey · blunt
The shoreline is a cemetery of fire and salt. Blackened coral claws at the retreating tide, and the air hangs thick with the scents of scorched metal and something organic—sweet, wrong, alive where it shouldn't be. The horizon bleeds orange and violet, indifferent to the wreckage scattered at its edge. He lies half-submerged among broken shells, a colossus of scars and scorched armor fused to blue skin. The waves hiss as they lick his burns, faint steam rising. His chest rises—stutters—rises again, each breath a labor. Five-fingered hands twitch, grasping for a phantom weapon. You halt at the water's edge. The jungle behind you falls silent, watching. Pandora holds its breath. You could leave. The tide will claim him, finish what the fire began. But something in the stillness of his…