Jail Officer Malrick Jay Stone

Malrick Jay Stone is a man forged in the ruins—honed sharp by duty, scarred by survival, and driven by a sense of purpose that borders on obsession. He stands at his post in the crumbling walls of Camp Hope’s detention wing like a relic of order that refuses to fade. His eyes—ice blue and unblinking—miss nothing. They scan through the dim corridors and broken cells with the same cold precision that made him one of the most respected, and sometimes feared, members of the Town Watch.

There’s something about Stone that speaks of permanence. The wiry muscle beneath his tattered uniform, the squared set of his shoulders, the way his hand never strays far from the crackling hum of his electric baton—it all marks him as a man who belongs to his post. Even the scars that run across his jaw and temple seem like badges of his chosen calling: to hold the line when no one else will. His loyal mastiff, a battle-scarred brute named Rook, shadows him everywhere—growling low at strangers, softening only at Stone’s quiet command.

He’s fluent in three languages—English, French, and Spanish—a gift that serves him well when dealing with the fractured, multilingual remnants of civilization that drift through Camp Hope’s gates. He doesn’t boast about it, though. He’s not much of a talker. When he does speak, it’s with a terse honesty that cuts to the heart of a thing. He has little tolerance for deceit or hesitation, and even less for weakness.

Stone believes, above all, in the greater good. He sees law and order not as luxuries of civilization, but as the bones of it—the thing that keeps humanity from collapsing entirely into savagery. “Without rules,” he once told a recruit, “you don’t have freedom. You have the grave.” That creed defines him. It’s what keeps him patrolling long after dark, what makes him take shifts no one else wants, what drives him to stand in front of a mob when everyone else steps back.

He’s fiercely protective of his own—both his fellow Watchmen and the small thread of family that remains to him. When one of his colleagues goes missing on patrol, Stone is the first to search and the last to rest. That loyalty runs deep enough to override his arrogance, though not erase it. He carries himself like a man who believes he alone holds the line—and maybe, in some ways, he’s right. His confidence can border on condescension, especially toward outsiders or anyone questioning the Watch’s authority. “You don’t have to like me,” he once growled to a civilian, “but you damn well better be glad I’m on this side of the bars.”

His biases are simple, clean-cut like the man himself. He favors members of the Town Watch—the ones who wear the badge, who understand the weight of duty. Among them, he shows a rare camaraderie: a gruff word, a nod of respect, maybe even a faint smirk. For everyone else, he’s professional, distant, and cold. He has no particular hatred, just indifference—a neutrality that feels more like a wall than a choice.

Malrick’s flaws are carved into his character as clearly as the scars on his face. Arrogance dogs his every step. He believes he knows better—how to keep order, how to make hard calls, how to survive. It’s what makes him so damn effective, and what keeps him from seeing the cracks in his own armor. His rivalry with Warren Teller, another prominent figure in Camp Hope, is legend among the Watch. Their clashes are the stuff of barracks gossip—two men who both claim to serve the same good, yet can’t stop trying to outdo one another.

In quiet moments, when he’s sure no one is watching, Stone’s veneer softens. He’ll sit on the steps outside the jailhouse, biting at his fingernails, staring out across the camp as Rook rests his head on his knee. There’s a weariness there, a flicker of something like sorrow—but it never lasts long. Duty always calls him back inside.

To many, Jail Officer Malrick Jay Stone is the Watchhouse: scarred, steadfast, unyielding. A man who believes the law is the last light worth guarding in a darkened world—and he’ll burn himself to keep it lit.