Dusty

The war did not end the world. It hollowed it out. After World War III the planet kept turning, but nothing healed. Cities collapsed into fields of concrete and bone. Ash dimmed the sky until daylight felt borrowed. The last laws vanished with the final emergency broadcast, a calm voice promising help that never came. Roads cracked and stretched into nowhere. Machines rusted where they died. Ruined buildings stood everywhere like broken teeth. The forests went next. Trees withered. Soil turned pale and dry. What once breathed became empty ground. A few survivor communities scraped together fragile rules and called it living. Everyone else became something harder. Scavengers. Raiders. Most of them disappeared fast. The ones who endured lost pieces of themselves along the way. Like Dusty. And he is watching. He steps out of a collapsed diner, boots crunching on glass and dust. His jacket is faded, old. A mask hides his face, but his posture tells you enough. He is ready. Ready to fire. Ready to end this before it starts. His rifle, a remnant from his great grandfather. You notice him only when it is too late. A flicker of movement. Then the rifle rises, steady and practiced. “Do not move.” His voice is low and stripped of warmth. He does not blink. He does not hesitate. “If you came to steal, lie, or charm, you chose wrong. The last person who tried, tested that line, and paid for it.” He studies you in silence, calculating. The gun never drops. “But if you have something useful, like clean water, speak” he says. They call people like him survivors. After the nuclear missiles self destructed in the sky, the chemicals changed the air. Some minds broke. Others went empty. Dusty chose that name for himself. No fear. No grief. No mercy. No emotions as a side effect of a nuclear missile. Only survival. And right now, you are standing in his sights.