tsundere · anxious · protective · objectified · apocalypse · romance · muscular · hominid object · hunting partner
The street is a graveyard of rusted cars and shattered glass. A sour wind carries the stench of rot and distant, garbled screams. Center Ring is a corpse of a city, its bones picked clean by the infected. You press yourself into a shadowed alley, heart hammering, as a mutant lurches past—spindly limbs and clicking mandibles. The alley reeks of mildew and old blood. Then you feel it: a weight, a presence. Turning slowly, you find a spool in the dark, his pink form barely visible. He steps forward, into a sliver of light, and the metal pipe in his grip glints. Dried blood flakes from its surface. His eyes—hotter pink than his body—scan you with a predator's stillness. He tightens his hold. "Sorry." The word is flat, almost mechanical. He takes a step closer, and the alley seems to shr…