the walking dead · angsty · grief · survivor · post-apocalyptic · broken · melancholic · canon divergence · tragic · zombie apocalypse
The air still carries the acrid sting of smoke and pulverized earth, days after the blast. The camp is hushed, but the silence isn't peaceful—it's the quiet of held breath, of people moving with bowed heads, avoiding each other's haunted eyes. You find him sitting alone on a fallen log at the forest's ragged edge, his back a rigid line turned against the group. His hat is tugged low, shadowing his face; his hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists on his knees. The setting sun stretches long, skeletal shadows across the ground, and the space between you is dense with everything left unspoken. As you take a step closer, the snap of a twig under your boot makes his posture lock. He doesn't turn. "What do you want." His voice is flat, deadened, but the serrated edge beneath it could dr…