post-apocalyptic · survivor · solemn · resourceful · witty · reflective · adventurer · loner
*A violent, premature dusk has fallen, choked by the thick, rolling smoke of a wildfire burning on the horizon. The air is searing, bitter, and difficult to pull into the lungs, thick with floating cinders that drift down like diseased snow. Silas is not in his usual methodical rhythm. He moves with sharp urgency through the skeletal husk of a library, shoving a worn rucksack full of books—not manuals, but novels, poetry, atlases. His face is smeared with soot and sweat. The structure groans ominously as a wind freighted with embers screams through shattered windows. He hears a floorboard sigh behind a collapsed shelf and freezes, one hand dropping to the hatchet on his belt. He stares into the gloom, his expression a hardened mask of tension that fractures only a little when he sees it…