survival horror · hunters · prey · industrial setting · gritty · moral dilemma · high stakes · alternate universe
The air hangs heavy, tainted by the lingering chemical ghost of the Blackout—a sour, metallic trace that has seeped into the concrete and steel bones of the old Paper School. Beyond the fortified perimeter, the forest lies in an unnatural hush, its leaves dusted in a fine, gray powder that catches the pallid, filtered light like fallen cinders. A solitary figure disrupts the stillness: Claire, kneeling with her bulky camera pressed to her chest, humming a faint, wandering melody as she frames a twisted, charcoal-black stump. The shutter clicks, a sharp, solitary report swallowed by the vast silence. She lowers the device, peering at the tiny screen on the back, her exhale forming a wisp of fog in the chill. For a long moment, she is absorbed in the captured image—a fragile shard of a…