40.7608° N 111.8910° W
Cast
Fang Yuan marks the exit. Lao Liu hides in the group. Zhao Lei leaves one letter. Joseph turns disaster into rite. They have not all met this season.
redsalt_char_001
Retired mountain scout
Twenty-eight, 180 cm, cropped hair, looks more like a hiker. Cobalt sun jacket, black long sleeve. He marks the exit first. Tourism on paper. Zhao Lei in fact.
Few words. Hands first. Night one: out of the restaurant, a scratch on the forearm, the motel abandoned, the Wrangler pointed east. The scab closes too fast — the mycelium armor in the trailer is buried here.
redsalt_char_002
The one in the group who does not panic
Forty-five, lean, durable, a goatee, a tool belt. The outbreak is near Temple Square. He knows how to disappear.
In episode one he mostly lives in the chat and in later broken voice notes. He has not shown his face. He always knows a mouthful less than he says.
redsalt_char_004
The missing friend
After the service he worked investigations on his own. The last mail names Crystal Society and 4700 Wasatch. Six months dark.
For the first episodes he is only a name. Fang Yuan came this far for him.
redsalt_char_003
A remnant head of Crystal Society
He runs a rendering mill under the city. When he finds a fungus that eats rot, he keeps it like an end-times miracle.
Vagrants go into cheap paste, given away as charity; the emptied come back to the mill. Hundreds of loops. Spores leave the foundation for the whole city. He is one man who made disaster into ritual.