post-apocalyptic

Question

Right now tons of authors are really getting into post apocalyptic writing (after the end of the world). They almost always consist of a large portion of people gone. Place a character in a post apocalyptic situation, you get no more than 5 paragraphs, and NO DIALOGUE. It may be that they are the only one, nobody can reach them, or whatever it is you can think of. It doesn't have to be after the end of the world, it can be where there is a disaster that nobody can bring them supplies or whatever your brain thinks up.

Here's my example, I submitted it on another challenge yesterday:

I continued on not knowing where i was headed. Everywhere around cars cluttered the streets. Not a soul on the road besides my own. My footsteps echoed off of the dreary skyscrapers. The dress I wore was something that fit in a prom. It's grey body faded down to the stringy tips that barely covered my knees. It was fitting in the rain and fit me well. I had taken it from an empty shop. I look into the back of a van and see a six  pack, which soon after becomes a five pack. I slowly make my way on with no shoes and a beer in my hand.

 

Mama had always said not to drink until i got older or I'll end up in a cell with my daddy. I remembered him sometimes. The old him, i mean. He wasn't there for all these years until just yesterday. It took one look to know who he was. It was ten years since he left, forty years left in prison.

 

He told me about the end. He told me about where to hide and what to do and who to tell. He then gave me the suit. The suit. It was a plain black thing. It was hideous. Gripped me like a spiderman outfit. I did as i was told and haven't seen him since. I don't know if i would see anyone again. It was both haunting and calming to be the only one.

 

And so that was it. I was it. Who else survived? I gave Johnny my spare suit, but somehow he didn't make it, considering he was gone after everything. Everyone was gone. I don't know why i was chosen, but i had to find someone. Soon. If i went crazy because there was nobody else. Fate had hated me before.

 

I stop and take a peek into a van. Two car seats. Two. How would you be able to choose? Everybody who had at least a penny to their name made it on the ship. I was told to stay and i did. I was told i could survive and i did. I stop and look up at the sky just long enough to hear the echo of my steps combine with someone elses.

 

 

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It's a really dreary story, and leaves alot unanswered. Your story can have it's own plot or just a small snipit of a larger story. Got it? GO!

Comments

I haven't read too many post apocalyptic novels. They normally just aren't my type of book...they're either science fiction, action, zombies, or religious. I don't like any of those genres (with the exception being Hitchhiker's Guide, the only science fiction I like). However, there are a couple post apocalyptic books I love, because they're post apocalyptic fantasy. If you like post apocalyptic stories, I'd highly recommend them.

Ariel and Elegy Beach by Steven R. Boyett. Ariel was published in the 80's, a year before I was born. My mom read it in high school. She introduced me to it when I was 12 and it became my favorite book right away. It's also the first fantasy book I ever liked, and now I'm a huge fan of the genre. When I read Ariel at the age of 12, it was out of print, and had been for many years. About a year ago, it came back into print, and a sequel was publish, Elegy Beach, which takes place roughly 26 years after Ariel. It is almost even better than the first.

Anyway, I like this challenge...it's an interesting idea, and left me scratching my head for a post apocalyptic idea that hadn't been done to death. The best challenges are the ones that make me think.

Answer 1

I continued on not knowing where i was headed. Everywhere around cars cluttered the streets. Not a soul on the road besides my own. My footsteps echoed off of the dreary skyscrapers. The dress I wore was something that fit in a prom. It's grey body faded down to the stringy tips that barely covered my knees. It was fitting in the rain and fit me well. I had taken it from an empty shop. I look into the back of a van and see a six  pack, which soon after becomes a five pack. I slowly make my way on with no shoes and a beer in my hand.

 

Mama had always said not to drink until i got older or I'll end up in a cell with my daddy. I remembered him sometimes. The old him, i mean. He wasn't there for all these years until just yesterday. It took one look to know who he was. It was ten years since he left, forty years left in prison.

 

He told me about the end. He told me about where to hide and what to do and who to tell. He then gave me the suit. The suit. It was a plain black thing. It was hideous. Gripped me like a spiderman outfit. I did as i was told and haven't seen him since. I don't know if i would see anyone again. It was both haunting and calming to be the only one.

 

And so that was it. I was it. Who else survived? I gave Johnny my spare suit, but somehow he didn't make it, considering he was gone after everything. Everyone was gone. I don't know why i was chosen, but i had to find someone. Soon. If i went crazy because there was nobody else. Fate had hated me before.

 

I stop and take a peek into a van. Two car seats. Two. How would you be able to choose? Everybody who had at least a penny to their name made it on the ship. I was told to stay and i did. I was told i could survive and i did. I stop and look up at the sky just long enough to hear the echo of my steps combine with someone elses.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

It's a really dreary story, and leaves alot unanswered. Your story can have it's own plot or just a small snipit of a larger story. Got it? GO!

Answer 4

"Research"

 

I woke up in my lab, disoriented, with a severe headache. When my vision cleared, I saw the scattered glass of broken test tubes and things started coming back to me. The experiment...I thought I had it. I thought I'd finally figured it out. But something went wrong. I remember hearing glass shatter and seeing clouds of smoke before I went unconscious.

I'd better clean this mess up and call it a day, I thought to myself, deciding that I'd have to carefully go through all my notes and formulas again to figure out where I went wrong. I was going all over it in my head as I went to the janitor's closet to get the cleaning supplies I needed. Lost in my thoughts as I was, I didn't notice the unnatural quiet surrounding me. It wasn't until after I'd finished cleaning that I realized there didn't seem to be anyone else in the building. I worked at a college, and I had access to the labs to do my personal research. A glance at my watch told me it was only two, and it made no sense to me why the building would be empty at this time of day.

I walked the halls, checking classrooms and offices, but found no one. I packed up my briefcase and left the building. The scene before me screamed of wrongness. Cars packed the street, motionless, empty of passengers. The sidewalks were as empty as the cars and the college.

I walked into the coffee shop next door to the college. At this point, I wasn't surprised to find it empty. I was curious though. Had my experiment caused some sort of apocalypse, leaving me the only survivor in a dead world? Had it somehow transported me to a parallel universe where I was the only inhabitant?

Not everything's about you, I told myself, something entirely unrelated could have happened when you were out of it, and it has nothing to do with your experiment. I told myself these things in a very stern voice, but I didn't believe them when it came right down to it. My experiment went wrong, and when I woke up, things had changed. I sat down in the empty coffee shop and took out my notes, carefully studying every formula and calculation, trying to figure out what had gone wrong and if I could fix it. It was strange, I'd always wished I could be just left alone to my research. Now I was as alone as I could possibly be, and I was trying to undo it. 

Answer 5

The Power of a Name

 

He slept.  It was a fitful sleep at first, but as years became decades, and decades became centuries, and centuries became millennia he slipped deeper and deeper into slumber untouched by the cooling world so far above.

 

As he slept life came to the world.  It sparked and grew and spread and filled all the four corners of the world, but it was nothing to bother him.  There was no threat to his reverie, no voices that would call his name.  Yet.

 

Then a new order emerged.  An order that was impatient with what they had.  They paved and built and drilled and filled the four corners of the world with their own comfort and detritus and always, always were they whispering his name.

 

His sleep became fitful again, he began to toss and turn as this new order murmured and whispered and cried and screamed his name into the wind and the water and the stones and the earth itself.  He could not ignore a call so very insistent.

 

In his rising he tore the surface asunder.  The earth bled and all the great and wondrous achievements and buildings and roads and shopping malls of the new order were burned away.  Burned until the world was cleansed again and there was nothing left but fire and magma and rock and sea.  Once more he could sink into sleep, once more there were no voices to whisper his name to the wind and the water and the stones and the four corners of the world...

... Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Apocalypse...

Comments

wow...

shh...don't wake the sleeping apocalypse...

I love it!

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short and very solid -- excellent !

Answer 6

It was the worst and most fatal of any catastrophy - ever.  Molly was one of the very few 'survivors',  She'd found the entrance to her dad's old bomb shelter from the '50s, climbed in and sealed the concrete door.  Cranking the generator, some lights came on slowly.  She had nothing to do but sit, think and sing to herself.

She thought about her millions of dreams.  One moment she was on a cliff about to lose her grip, and the next instant, she was lying safely in her bed.  "what a weird dream",  she would think.  'It seemed so real.'  Then she'd go into puberty and all of her childhood became a dream.  Over and over this happened.

Every time she died, she would look back at her life and think  "What a weird dream.  It seemed so real.'  Then it was time to take inventory to decide her next life.  Once she chose the Queen of England twice in a row and was that boring.  Pampered, rich and elegant (very restrictive).  Boy, were those weird dreams.  They seemed so real.  So next she chose being a Puerto Rican prostitute in NYC.  What a relief.  She landed in jail a lot and got in a lot of fights, but she felt real.

The food was all rotten, but if she could find the can opener. There were lots of cans. 'Dammit, Dad.  Where'd you put it it?  Or did you forget it like you did my 16th birthday?'  Molly sat down realizing she didn't have long to live.  She wondered if this was just a dream and she would wake up by a stream in the woods.  Wrong.  This was too real.

 Where would she go when she woke up from this?  Nowhere.  As she slipped into unconsciousness,  she prayed 'Lord, make me a native in Africa.'  it didn't happen.  When she died, so did her consciousness and soul.  It was the end of all dreams for everyone.  Forever.

Answer 7

TO DREAM IN BLUE.

Grey, the streets no longer littered with colour,splashes of peach and vermillion which was the rage amoung women who loped the sidewalks like strays.There are no stray splashes now, no peach no vermillion as of last week it's men in grey.

The grey has settled, grey upon grey,the ash shroud of humanity wiped clean of colour with a decision made by faceless men.Green peace warriors beaten by a tide of progress and washed out to sea without an ounce of regret.

Broken men walked the streets searching for that female touch that family reminder of lovers bliss and smiling children, girls in peach and vermillion applying fruity gloss and laughter,whispered words of compassion and comfort to face the future world order.The apocolypse is here.

The women, the girls, daughters, mothers ,sisters ,lovers the other halves are gone, the women blessed in the art of sensuality,in mystery in subtle support the powers that be behind the thrones are silent.James Brown had the foresight to wax lyrical eons ago.

 

It's a mans world and it will never be anything without a woman or the absence of a girl, its up to the broken to find where the women are quarantined. Their sighs can be heard on the ashes of the wind .Faceless men have started an experiment  in grey the absence of light and colour and time is ticking to avoid the backlash.The desolation will not falter without the female persuasion.This is where my beginining starts.

Comments

A world without women? That's scary indeed. Who does the cooking and the cleaning? :)

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Yes it would be scary.....very unorganised and messy and berefet of children and colour.... have you noticed in cities that men hardly ever wear bright coloured clothes....why is that???? a world without women is basically humanity's death no procreation no future race......and a lot of microwave tv dinners....apocalypse for sure....lol

Answer 8

This is kind of a jumping off point.  I might take it further...no title.

 

 

Shadows reversed themselves when confronted with the “end”. All life was sucked out of earth and its billions of residents. Few survived the initial catastrophe including myself, but did I really survive.

Walking down Bardmen Avenue with my head cluttered with images of destruction and what to do next. My feet weren’t tired, but I must have been walking for miles. The silhouettes of the last vestiges of humanity lay in my path; shadows casting pallid snippets of shape very hard to be seen by the naked eye.

Buildings that may provide shelter have been reduced to dust clouds swirling in a circular rage around the foliage that has turned black and hard. I continue on.

The one remaining town monument stands before me, one arm missing and the other askew, its pasty eyes peering at an unfathomable scene.

I walk…without feeling, breathing or caring. Why? Where are the rest of the dead, like me…? 

Comments

Quote....."....shadows casting pallid snippets of shape..........dust clouds swirling in a circular rage" .....love the descriptive images i adore images created by alliteration.....offhandedly shown glimpses and snapshots through effortless writing makes you crave them more......would like to keep reading....enjoyed this.....deb

Answer 9

“Good Boy” by Ron

Everyone was gone – all of them. I was bothered by number four’s absence and number three. But where was number two? Would she ever be back? And, and, what happened to number one? Where had he gone?

I was so hungry. My stomach growled. Where were they?

There were other times when they all went away. But they all came home again.

Where were they?

I lay down by the door. I stared at the bowl. I whimpered. There was a noise. I barked. Then I remembered: “No barks!” 

Comments

That absolutely breaks my heart. Beautiful, simple, and pulls no punches.

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This is wonderful its so elegantly simple but so powerful

Answer 10

There was a time when gray used to be my favorite color. When I thought that the inbetween of black and white was so beautiful, and nothing could measure up to it's capriciousness.

Then, as I looked into all of the gray surrounding me, I saw it as a horrible color. Uncertain, yes, because the bland stretch of something in front of me went on forever, never seeming to end, all of that gray, but definitely not beautiful. What could this possibly be?

My mouth was open, as I stared into my bland surrounding. My green eyes opening wider, my head turning sharply, looking for something, someone, anything besides all of this emptiness. My legs moved beneath me, but I couldn't tell if I was going anywhere, because my environment was literally just gray. Nothing more, no significance. Just that one color. And me.

I started to wonder whether I was dead. Is this an afterlife? Am I a spirit? A ghost? Hyperventilating, I ran faster. I wanted to scream, but I knew no one would hear me. Why bother? I decided to just concentrate on breath. In. Out. Breathe.

I collapsed to the gray ground. In. Out. Breathe. Oh, what was I supposed to do? I had panic in my chest, fear and anger in my body, and a bunch of possibilities in my mind. Sorrow was in my soul. It was hard to concentrate on breathing when I was crying so hard.

Answer 11

 

Anyone…. Hello is anyone out there?...            anyone?

What am I supposed to do?... why is this happening. There is a way to stop it—there must be a way. Anyone who’s listening, just say something; Oh, God anything I can’t take the silence I’ll do anything to hear another voice, do you hear that? Anything? I have money way too much if you’re listening, whoever you are, wherever you are, you can have it all just a word a sound, you have to be just as lonely. COME ON!! Is this the end? I don’t want to die, Ha! Like I need to say that out loud. Who wants to die?

     “I’ll do anything to end this, just wake up from this nightmare. Do you hear that God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha,the light, Nirvana whatever you’re called, whoever you are anything. I’ll preach your word to everyone I see, I’ll sacrifice a million animals, I’ll give all I have everything I own, ANYTHING!...                        Anyone home? I never thought you were real, everyone who believes says you bring comfort hope. Well I’m willing to believe! Where is my comfort?! Why is there no hope?!...

     “You’re not real. You never were. This stupid scapegoat for a simple mind this delusion of a deity just wasted precious time. Very little of that left now, unless I succeed. Only me without help from any nonexistent omnipotence!”

          Heavy coughing used to cover up quiet sobs is heard as the playback stops. The strange ironic sense of silence in the midst of noise fills the absence left after Dr. Adam’s angry and despondent yelling subsides. Until, of course, the computer begins the next recording.

      “Sadly I long for a news station, any of them. I wish someone could tell me the death count. How many humans still roam the earth, see if anyone is still out there?...”

 

           Minutes turn to hours. The recording does not stop but no words come out, near silent sobs can be heard intermittently. More often are the heavy dry coughs signaling the infection’s advancement; eventually the steady breathing of sleep is the only sound coming from the computer. The fires that rage just outside are carefully considering their next approach to one of the last intact buildings on earth. 

Comments

This is a small section of a 15 page short story its long for this challenge but this is the shortest self sustaining section.

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I have one word for this...

WOW!

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Thanx u really need to read the rest of it but I dont wanna put it online im trying to get it published

Answer 12

Sheep Station at Exit 91

I tore myself away from the satellite link, picked up my crossbow and went outside to call the wolves.  It was a fine morning with a sniff of winter in the air.  Soon Papa would be banking the northern side of the overpass with logs and brush to protect the sheep yard from blizzards, chinking the walls of our home  wedged underneath the west end, and windproofing the entry to the wolves' den under the other end.  It gets cold here in Old Maine.

 Mama was already at work outside, tanning hides in the dooryard, and she gave me a bit of a look because I had not gotten underway with first light.  Big bro was fiddling with the solar array on the railing and ignoring me as usual.  

LocoLobo greeted me with a running shoulder slam, nearly knocking me off my feet.  He grinned, and his mate Susu and their teenaged pups looked amused.  They were in a fine mood today, full of bones from yesterday's slaughter.   I whistled the sheep out, and ran up top of the bridge to check  the paves for movement.  Things had been more peaceful since the clan at Exit 88 blew up the approaches from the south.  The damned south.  Radiation or genetic engineering, hard to tell, but there had been some weird stuff walking north the last few years.  

 LocoLobo had come from the south himself.  I'd asked him a few times what he remembered but he hadn't pictured me much -- cages, cold human keepers -- and procedures he didn't understand.  He was a bit odd, that's for sure.  No telling what potentials lay within him and his pups.  He was deadly in a fight, and I was grateful he had thrown in with us instead of against us.   I was trying to learn his Yeti fade-and-reappearance trick but I still couldn't do it when I was in fighting mode.

The sheep came pouring up the slope onto the old highway, and we headed west for the  pastures,  Susu in front, pups at the sides, and Lobo guarding the rear.  The wind was in our faces and everything smelled OK.   I opened up my PAD as I walked, and sent off a text to my new friend Lee in Aussy.  He has given me some good tips about getting rid of vermin with herbs, and I am going to ask him if he can do that Yeti trick.      It's going to be a fine day.

Comments

Neat tale, a surprisingly upbeat and hopeful post apocalypse story.  Kind of tells us that perhaps the apocalypse is not in fact the end of life just of life as we have known it up till now.

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thanks --  i think things may be rough, but we will welcome awakening from our matrix-like mass  dream and begin to explore new ways of consciousness .  .  maybe won't even need the PADs .  .

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This reminds me a bit of Ariel. An apocalypse of sorts happens. Things are rough and chaotic at first, but eventually settle and adjust to the post-apocalyptic world. Very nicely done, Annie.

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I was reminded a little of Mad Max but with a more hopeful spin.

Answer 13

He coughed, once, the sound deafening inside the helmet. He slowly opened his eyes, blinking against the glare of an unfamiliar sun. The helmet’s auto-visor was malfunctioning, or simply not working, and he could not filter out the harsh light. He tried to move and splinters of pain shot out across his legs, his back and neck. He gasped at the sweet agony, heart thundering in his chest, and slipped into unconsciousness.

A noise woke him with a start. He tried to sit up, and those slivers of agony rippled through him, threatening to wash over him once more. While the dark coma bliss tried to wrap him in her loving embrace, he fought to stay awake. How long had he been out for? Where were the others? And, more importantly, where was HE? He closed his eyes again, this time in concentration. He steadied his breathing, paused, steeled himself and with an almighty effort, forced himself into an upright sitting position. The room swam and a wave of nausea broke against him. He fought down the bile, blinked away the perspiration, and tried to forget the fires of agony slowly bathing his body with their warmth.

Craning his neck, he strained to see out of the window. The unfamiliar sun had given way to an unfamiliar moon, and the alien landscape was awash in a milky light. He could detect no signs of civilisation, though that obviously did not necessarily mean there was none. He slowly raised a hand, careful not to move too quickly, and tapped the side of the helmet. He tried to re-instate comms, tried to reactivate the bio-ware computer in the suit, but screen in his helmet stayed an unhelpful black. The med-system would not repair his shattered limbs, and he had no idea how much breathing time he had, if indeed he required any for the alien terrain. It would not do to hyperventilate now. Looking round the cabin, much of the scientific equipment was smashed, lying in disarray and useless. The airtight door was cracked open, but he could detect no sign of light, or life, down the blackened corridor. He weighed his options, and heard the noise from the bowel of the ship again.

Should he call out, notify whoever was on board to his plight? If it was a crew mate, they would be able to help. If it was NOT a crew mate…Should he remain silent, and not alert whoever or whatever was making the noise, to his presence? Was he even certain that he had heard the noise at all? And was he certain that it was an organic noise, and not just the ship settling? He searched for a weapon, his hand scrabbling round on the floor beside him for a shard of glass, a metal rod, anything to defend himself should the need arise. Sitting prone, as he was, he would make too easy a target. His hand closed around a rock, and he gripped it tightly. He fought to bring his breathing under control again. It sounded thunderous inside the defective helmet and could be drowning out the sound of a rescuer, or masking the approach of a would-be assailant.

The air inside the helmet was beginning to taste strange; it had a lived-in quality that was worrying. He realised that he was breathing in what he was breathing out, that the air supply was clearly running out. He tapped a panel on his arm, praying that his suit would start functioning again. He was effectively breathing poison, and could feel it affecting him already, making his actions clumsy, and making him feel drowsy. He dropped the rock, raising his hand to the helmet, wondering whether or not to risk the danger of the alien atmosphere, or slowly suffocate inside the bio-suit. In the end, the decision was made for him. Motes swam in front of his eyes as he inhaled a lungful of pure poison, the air clearly having run out. He raised his hand to the helmet, watching in horrified fascination as he seemed to move in slow motion, a vapour trail tracing the movements of his arm. The encroaching blackness whispered to him, promising sanctuary, and end to misery and pain. And he nearly succumbed. But he struggled with the latches on the helmet and finally freed them. With an audible hiss, the helmet detached itself from the suit.

He sucked in a huge lungful of air. The black tinge to the outer ring of his vision began to fade away, as did the white motes dancing in front of them. He got his breathing under control, concerned that hyperventilation might finish the job the lack of oxygen had started. The air tasted strange, almost sweet, in his mouth. He felt light-headed, but was certain he’d grow accustomed to it given time. And by the looks of things, he would have plenty of it. When his chest was no longer heaving, his head no longer swimming, he took further stock of his situation. While the downed craft gave the best cover, the best protection, he would need to explore his new environment. Rescue, if any were coming, may be days, months, weeks or even years away. He had a badly damaged leg, so priority would have to be given to fixing it, or at least sorting something out that would allow him to be mobile. Again, he scanned the room he was in. When the craft had gone down, unexpectedly, he’d been in the science lab. While they had plummeted through the orbit of the planet, he had been trying to stow things away, instead of strapping himself into a harness and preparing for a crash landing. Turbulence in the atmosphere had rocked the lab and loosened a storage unit, which had crashed down on top of him, knocking him out and damaging his leg. He needed something to form a splint, something sturdy, and something to strap it to his leg. If possible, he also needed a crutch, something to help take the weight. His eyes settled on a tripod in the far corner of the room, the dimensions almost perfect. He grinned to himself, thinking that at the worst he could tear strips from his clothing to bind it to his leg. And lying on the floor, against the wall, were the long-handled secateurs from the enviro-unit. Smiling broader now, confident his luck had changed, he took a deep breath and prepared to move.

The scuttling stopped him in his tracks. Previously, the noises he’d heard had been from the depths of the ship. The new noises were altogether closer. He wasn’t sure what it was about them that unsettled him. Sweat immediately sprang out on his forehead, and his breathing, so recently brought under control, began to quicken once again. He was aware of the partially open doorway just to his right, but remembered there were at least two other entrances to the science lab, one hidden completely from view behind and round the corner from him, and the other on the far side of the room, again hidden in the shadows. He pulled himself forward. The noise had momentarily clouded his memory, but the riot of pain that forged its way into his consciousness brought home the perilous nature of his circumstances. He was defenceless, an easy target. He searched desperately for the rock again, his hand rummaging in the debris surrounding him ineffectively. His movements became more desperate as the implications of his situation pressed more heavily on him. He heard a noise behind him, and jerked his head around. A fresh symphony of agony sang through his body, and he momentarily closed his eyes, the pain almost enough to force him to pass out. His vision swam as he opened his eyes, but he could see nothing in the far corner, and could detect no movement behind him. He shifted round again, more slowly this time, his hand straying out to the side again to search for the rock. He felt its jagged edge, just as the figure loomed up in front of him and brought something down on his head with a sickening force of lethal accuracy.

He slowly raised the club as the others joined him. The three of them looked down at the body at their feet. Something black oozed out of the wound on the head, and the silver eyes stared sightlessly at a point on the invisible horizon. The grey, mottled flesh had already started putrefying, and a carrion smell was beginning to fill the room. With barely a nod, the leader signalled his two companions to leave. As leader of the tribe, he had some difficult decisions to make. Did the craft signal the beginning of an invasion? Should he try and get word to the upper territories, warning them? He walked slowly to the door, casting a final glance back over his shoulder. He remembered stories from his youth, of spacemen, of little green Martians, death rays, spacecraft and travel between the stars. Those stories had come from a time long forgotten, and the flights of fancy had always made him smile. Looking back at the nearly decayed corpse of the alien, he found it difficult to do anything other than resign himself to the future, and the uncertainty of it all.

Comments

The shift of point-of-view is very effective.