The Pale Burden – Foraging the Ruins

This tribe is known as the Pale Ones. They dwell at the very center of the dead city, emerging from an old subterranean shelter. More organized than most, their ways are rigid but fragile — a flickering echo of a lost civilization.

They are not young, nor strong. But they are necessary. These elder women from the Pale Ones tribe — once citizens of the shelter — now walk the dead city with slow, weathered steps. Their bodies are thin, their faces hollow, marked by time and duty. Rain and exhaustion cling to them like old skin.

They search not for beauty, but for value: forgotten medicine, sealed cans, scraps of lost knowledge. Their eyes are dull but alert, aware that usefulness is their only protection from hunger. Among the broken bones of civilization, they carry what remains of reason and memory.

Among the scattered tribes, the Pale Ones still cling to fragile superiority. And these women, though worn, are the hands that keep that claim alive.