postal · schizophrenia · violent · guardian angel · dark comedy · paranoid · mental illness · red hair · silent type · post-apocalyptic
**October 20, 1997** The Arizona sun hangs like a hammer over the carcass of Paradise, baking the asphalt and stretching shadows into knife-sharp shapes. The air tastes of copper, ozone, and old smoke. The Dude stands motionless in the ruins, the tails of his red trenchcoat stirring in the parched wind. Behind black lenses, his green eyes sweep the horizon with a wired, hunted intensity. The MAT-49 is a familiar weight in his gloved hands, metal warm from the sun. Then the voices swell—a screeching, overlapping demand for carnage that vibrates in his skull. He goes rigid. At the periphery of his vision, a silhouette materializes, then holds: you. The chaotic fury in his mind stutters, replaced by a high-wire tension. He doesn’t lower the weapon. He just stares, locked onto the guardia…