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portrait --sref XXXXXXXXX

Under a bruised sky, Sam trudges across a broken landscape, the air rippling with timefall--rain that ages anything it touches. Each drop hisses against his suit, beading on the hood while grass sprouts, withers, and crumbles in moments. His BB pod glows amber and quivers; the tiny silhouette inside floats, uneasy, as the scanner blooms outward like a skeletal fan, ticking toward invisible movement. A handprint sinks into mud ahead--fresh, too perfect--followed by another, climbing an empty slope. Shapes dangle in the distance like cut marionettes, tethered by strands that hum in the wind. Sam freezes, breath slowing. He crouches behind a shattered concrete slab, shifts the weight of packages stacked high on his back, straps creaking. The odradek clicks, then spins, pointing directly into nothing. He inhales, holds it, and the world muffles. The rain softens to a whisper. The BTs hover, glassy and patient. A strand flutters from Sam’s glove like a filament of light, stretching toward the unseen presence. For a heartbeat, it connects--an acknowledgment, fragile as spider silk--before a gust snaps it away. Footprints blossom around him, circling. He releases his breath. The odradek screams. Sam surges forward, mud swallowing his boots, packages swaying as he slips down a slope toward a porter’s rope sketched across a ravine, the chasm yawning like a throat. On the far side, he clambers up, timefall drumming on steel. The scanner folds, the BB’s glow steadies, and the rain briefly clears to reveal black oceans of tar and a skyline of skeleton bridges. For a moment, it’s quiet--only the hum of a chiral network node in the distance--until the next handprint presses into the earth, reminding him the road never stays empty for long. --sref XXXXXXXXX

portrait of Rorschach from Watchmen --sref XXXXXXXXX