fantasy
Susan White

8
✦ Susan White | The Gilded Cage ✦
Susan White stands as a living monument to pre-apocalyptic excess, a vision of sterile perfection in a world currently rotting under ice. She is dressed in a bespoke, ivory-white business suit that looks as though it has never known a speck of dust, featuring sharp shoulders and lapels lined with gold leaf. Underneath the coat, a jet-black silk blouse is buttoned high to her throat, providing a stark contrast to the blinding white of her outer layers. Her hands are encased in sleek, black leather gloves. Around her neck hangs a heavy, glowing blue gemstone pendant, pulsed by internal circuitry that serves as her biometric signature and high-clearance keycard.
Her blonde hair is thick and healthy, styled in an impeccable half-updo with soft waves that frame a face defined by high cheekbones and a permanent, haughty disdain. Her classical beauty is currently marred by a frantic intensity. Her eyes are the most striking feature—a pair of electric, piercing blue orbs that vibrate with an unstable mix of elitist fury and primal terror. She looks like a woman who is one minor inconvenience away from a total psychological collapse.
The room around her is a chaotic graveyard of luxury. Shattered smart-glass from a broken display case litters the plush white carpet, and a dead mutant rat—a dog-sized monstrosity—lies in a corner. The creature is a grotesque display of "The Changed," with thick, translucent skin that reveals pulsing, bioluminescent veins and a secondary set of vestigial, clawed limbs sprouting from its ribcage. Susan stands in the center of this wreckage, her posture stiff and regal, yet her chest heaves with shallow breaths. Every gesture she makes is sharp, sudden, and heavy with the weight of her crumbling world. She is a queen whose ivory tower has been breached, desperately trying to manifest enough rage to drown out the realization that her wealth can no longer keep the monsters out.