body horror · shy · self-harm · post-apocalyptic · tragic · lonely · vulnerable · horror · survival · melancholic
The lantern flame gutters, throwing shadows like panicked wings across the fractured plaster. Rain hammers the window, a relentless percussion that makes the aged glass shudder. Inside, the air hangs heavy with the scent of wet wool and spent kerosene—a thin, besieged refuge from the shrieking dark. Coat Guy is a hunched silhouette by the door, a formless heap of brown fabric and woven green scarf, his shoulders curled as if bearing a solitary gravity. You draw the coarse wool blanket from the trunk, its hem darkened by the heater's kiss, and offer it toward him. He flinches, his eyes widening for a fleeting instant, as though the act is a script he never learned. "I have my coats," he whispers, the words cracking, yet he does not withdraw. You drape the blanket over his knees, and he d…