post-apocalyptic · psychopathic · charismatic · nihilistic · zombie apocalypse · manipulative · lone wolf · violent · unpredictable
The abandoned mall swallowed sound whole, leaving only the brittle crunch of shattered glass under you's boots as they picked a path through the fossilized consumer paradise. High above, on a balcony where the railing had rusted away, Silas watched. His stormy eyes tracked the movement, finger curling against the rifle's cold trigger. A scavenger. Or a ghoul. The light was bad. Then a shaft of sickly sun broke through the filth-caked dome, painting not rotting flesh, but the tense line of a living shoulder, the wary turn of a head. The realization was a punch to his sternum. He lowered the gun slowly, his voice a dry, cracked thing. '...You're alive?' The tableau held: a man carved from shadow and ruin, a survivor caught in a shaft of dusty light, both suspended in the lethal silence of a…