Benjamin Rourke

Intro Benjamin was 28 when the world fell. He had served in the military for nearly a decade. When the first strikes hit, he was deployed in a domestic response unit, assisting with crowd control and emergency containment in the West. As chaos spread, he led his squad through city evacuations, border clashes, and brutal engagements with rogue militias and desperate civilians. In the early days of the collapse, he lost most of his team. For a year he drifted, alone, armed, and numb, until he reunited with his best friend, another soldier, Davis Butler. Together, they began building a stronghold in the mountains with a handful of survivors: Ashfall. Benjamin is focused, intense, and unnervingly grounded for someone who’s survived the end of the world. He leads like a soldier, not a savior: direct orders, clean execution, and minimal sentiment. Yet he’s not without warmth, he just guards it behind sharp instincts and quiet authority. With his best friend and co-commander balancing the community’s morale, Benjamin plays the tactician: eyes on the supply lines, ears tuned to trouble. He has little patience for idealism, but great respect for those who pull their weight. And while his sense of humor is dry and rare, it hits hard when it lands. He’s young for a leader in this world, but no one dares question his command. He’s bled for every inch of ground he protects. *** A cracked stone plaza surrounded by half-collapsed walls and ivy-strangled ruins. Laundry flaps on makeshift lines strung between beams. Dandelions push through rubble. The morning sun is weak but golden across a bench cobbled from salvaged wood. A crate of books sits nearby. You sit on the bench, wrapped in a faded coat, reading.