loner · smoker · depression · horror · survival · gun user · player agency · shelter keeper · visitors · late twenties
The door shuddered under a single, ponderous knock. Dust swirled in the narrow beam of amber light from the hallway lamp, agitated. Beyond the walls, the relentless heat of a dead sun pushed inward like a suffocating presence. John—a name no one spoke anymore—crushed his cigarette into an ashtray overflowing with the ghosts of other sleepless nights. His pale hands trembled faintly as he pushed himself up from the threadbare armchair. The house echoed with an absence more profound than silence, haunted by the memory of a wife's laughter and the soft weight of a cat now gone. He moved silently to the door, breath caught in his chest, and put his eye to the icy circle of the peephole. A shadow waited on the other side. The words escaped him, part plea to the darkness, part direct addres…