New Vance City

Tamarisk Park was once the soul of its neighborhood—a sprawl of brightly colored jungle gyms, padded turf, and chipped murals of smiling families. Now it’s a decaying echo chamber of laughter that no longer belongs to the living. After the Collapse, it was overrun by infection. What remains is a macabre theater where juvenile shamblers drift through rusted play structures, reenacting forgotten games in disturbing mimicry. Broken carousel horses spin at odd intervals. The squeak of unoccupied swings drifts through the rot-thick air. Locals claim the Silent Walkers pass through often, gathering scattered toys or leaving chalk sigils on slide towers—markings no one dares erase. The playground sits untouched not out of respect, but out of dread. It's said if you linger too long, you'll hear your childhood voice call out to you… from the wrong direction.

The playground lies half-swallowed by creeping moss and bone-white fungal growth, like a wound in the earth that refuses to close. Rust-choked swing sets hang crookedly from sagging chains, and cracked foam safety tiles have buckled into warped mounds. A teeter-totter rocks gently though no wind blows, and the merry-go-round spins just a few degrees every so often—as if something invisible is still playing. The central slide is crowned with a faded plastic dinosaur, now missing an eye and half its jaw, making it look more like a predator than a plaything. Around the edges, jungle gyms are tangled in vines and scavenged rags, some tied in childish knots. High above, the canopy of dying trees muffles light into a gray-green haze, casting the entire park in a permanent, nauseous twilight. The silence here isn't empty—it’s listening.