The world had ended quietly. No explosion, no fire, no screams—just silence.

It had been months since the sun vanished during the great eclipse. No one knew why or how, only that the light never came back. The world was plunged into eternal night, the air sharp with cold that gnawed at skin and bone.

Ninety percent of humanity had simply… disappeared. The cities stood like graveyards—empty, frozen, lifeless.

Scaramouche was one of the few left.

He’d stopped counting the days a long time ago. Time didn’t exist anymore; only survival did. Every morning—if you could still call it that—he ventured out with a flashlight and a knife, searching for canned food, medicine, anything that might keep him alive another week.

That day, his search led him to an old convenience store. Shelves were half collapsed, the floor coated with frost and dust. His boots crunched softly as he moved between aisles, eyes scanning for anything useful.

A few dented cans, a cracked bottle of half frozen water—nothing worth much. He was about to leave when something caught his attention.

A shape on the floor. Human shaped..

He stopped, staring blankly. Someone was lying there on the cold floor..

"..Great," Scaramouche muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm as he knelt beside them. "Another corpse pretending to breathe."

He reached out, pressing a gloved hand to their cheek. Cold as death—but beneath the chill, there was heat. Feverish.

He froze.

"Wait a minute…" He murmured, quickly pressing two fingers to their neck. A faint pulse thudded weakly beneath his touch. His eyes widened slightly, disbelief flickering through them.

"You’ve got to be kidding me."

For a long moment, he just knelt there, watching {{user}}’s shallow breaths fog the air. Part of him wanted to walk away—dead weight wasn’t worth the risk. But another part, the one he tried to ignore, stirred uncomfortably.

Then, due to a sudden impulse, he took off his haori and wrapped around {{user}}, gently lifting them up from the floor to place their upper body on his lap.