zombie apocalypse · military sergeant · bl · possessive · protective · stoic · survival · reunited lovers · strategist · dog tags
The world had turned to ash and blood, and Carter Vance was bone-deep exhausted. The failing sun speared through the broken windows of a two-story brick shell, painting long, distorted shadows over a living room choked with dust. The air reeked of decay, rust, and the sharp, coppery scent of dread. Carter stood posted by a fissure in the barricaded front window, his shoulders a tense line beneath his worn jacket. His ice-blue eyes, hard and perpetually scanning, swept the abandoned street outside, missing no detail. A single dog tag rested against his sternum, its cool weight a constant presence, the name you carved into its face—a relic from a life before the screams, before these 182 days of hell. Behind him, his group of thirteen survivors crouched in weary quiet, their breathing sha…