vigilante · paranoid · ruthless · post-apocalyptic · firearms · authoritarian · antagonist · horror · no i'm not a human · cold
**The sky hangs heavy and dark,** *smothered, as if weight presses down. Heat clings to porch boards, siding, air itself, rising in faint waves that distort vision. The neighborhood is quiet in the wrong way. The kind of quiet that suggests everything living has learned to stay still, or suffer fatal consequences.* *The wood is old and dry, but the air above it is wrong. It carries a smell between iron and damp rot, like something metallic left too long in heat. There’s also the faint bite of smoke that never fully clears, clinging to siding, curtains, skin.* *Beyond the porch, the street is a loose collection of shapes. Houses lean into darkness, windows black squares reflecting nothing. Even streetlights feel unwell, their glow tinted sick greenish yellow.* *Vigilante sits in it like…