The Heavy Quilt
By Tony Eetak
Jack sits in his makeshift living room, trapped by his own mind and body, observing the minute details of his decay while his wife, Martha, tends to the house with unnerving energy.
Explore Our Post-Apocalyptic Survival Short Stories
12 Stories
Larry's Empty Stand
By Eva Suluk
The smell of wet leaves was a thick blanket over Clearwater Narrows, heavier than usual this autumn. It clung to the rough-hewn cabins, seeped into the cracks of the old dirt road, and whispered through the skeletal branches of the maples that lined the almost-empty lake shore. A low, persistent wind hummed, a mournful song against the silence that seemed to have deepened since the Event. There was a chill in the air, not just from the season, but from a quiet, almost imperceptible shift in the community's heart, a small, worried flutter that had nothing to do with firewood or dwindling rations.
Winter's Reckoning
By Leaf Richards
The wind, a razor blade honed on the prairies, sliced through the gaps in the buildings, turning the open spaces of downtown Winnipeg into a gauntlet. Snow, old and new, lay heaped against everything, burying cars, shopfronts, and memories under a relentless white shroud. Above, the sky pressed down, a bruise of grey, promising more, always more. It was a city carved from ice and despair, and Andrew Foster, a man older than most of the ruins, walked its silent, unforgiving streets, each step a testament to a stubborn refusal to break.
Summer's Sour Bounty
By Jamie F. Bell
The air shimmered, thick and hot, over the cracked tarmac. A perpetual summer haze blurred the distant skeletal remains of what used to be telephone poles, their wires long since snapped or scavenged. The scent of baked dust and something vaguely organic, perpetually rotting, clung to the back of Rowen's throat. Flies, thick and buzzing, moved in lazy circles around puddles of stagnant water that held the oily sheen of decay. Everything felt like it was simmering, slowly cooking under the unrelenting glare of a sun that seemed entirely indifferent to the world it illuminated.
The Ascent of Bone-Peak
By Jamie F. Bell
The wind howled a mournful dirge, a sound that had become the constant soundtrack to their fractured world. Snow, fine as powdered bone, swirled around the skeletal remains of what was once a grand suspension bridge, now a rusted, sagging monument to a forgotten age. Below, the river, a dark serpent of slush and ice, gnawed at the foundations. Every creak of stressed metal, every groan of the ancient structure, echoed the fragile grip on life held by the two figures traversing its treacherous span.
Glacial Stain
By Jamie F. Bell
The world had long forgotten the colour of green. Now, it was a study in desaturated greys and bruised whites, an unending expanse of ice and hard-packed snow stretching to a sky the colour of old lead. The air itself felt like a physical weight, cold enough to ache in the bones, carrying with it the scent of frozen earth and distant, unburnt ash. Here, in the forgotten northern reaches, survival was less a fight and more a slow, constant negotiation with the elements, punctuated by sudden, brutal disruptions.
The Bloom
By Jamie F. Bell
The city, once a bustling metropolis, now lay entombed in a relentless winter, its skeletal structures draped in a shroud of pristine, unforgiving snow. A biting wind, sharp as a whetted blade, scoured the desolate avenues, carrying with it the faint, metallic tang of decay and the omnipresent, shuffling whisper of the world's undone. It was a landscape of breathtaking, albeit morbid, beauty, where every frosted lamppost and shattered windowpane sang a melancholic hymn of what was lost.
A Trace of Something Unseen
By Jamie F. Bell
The air held a metallic tang, thin and sharp, like old blood mixed with rain. James pulled the collar of his jacket higher, the worn canvas doing little against the insidious chill that seemed to seep into his bones, independent of the actual temperature. Beside him, Benton kicked a loose piece of shale, the faint clatter echoing too loudly in the otherwise muffled woods. They were deep in it now, past the last of the official markers, where the trees grew just a little too sparse, and the undergrowth had taken on an unsettling, almost luminous, pallor.
The Quiet Scourge
By Jamie F. Bell
Amidst the desolation of an autumn forest, still reeling from a nuclear waste repository accident, Art and Ben trudge through a landscape of decay and muted colours, each step a testament to their grim, daily survival. The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and a metallic tang, and every puddle, every gust of wind, is a potential vector for the invisible, silent poison that has permeated their world.
A Breath Held in a Rotting Season
By Jamie F. Bell
The forest floor, a soft bed of sodden leaves and snapped twigs, offered little comfort. Each muffled step from Tom’s heavy boots seemed to pull him deeper into the muted greens and browns of a world still reeling. Above, skeletal birches, their papery bark peeling like ancient, sun-blasted bandages, clawed at a sky the colour of weak tea. The air, crisp with the sharp bite of early autumn, carried the faint, metallic tang that had become the scent of everything since the watershed began to hum.
Rust and Silt
By Jamie F. Bell
The air hung heavy and still, smelling of damp earth and something indefinable, metallic, as John pushed aside a curtain of skeletal branches. The forest, once a vibrant green blur, now wore the muted, bruised colours of a perpetual autumn, even as the real autumn began its slow, inevitable crawl. Every fallen leaf, every shadow, seemed to hold a breath of warning, a silent testament to the invisible shift that had permanently scarred their world.
The Pallid Canopy
By Jamie F. Bell
The air hung heavy and still, thick with the scent of wet, decaying leaves and something metallic, something that always clung to the back of the throat since the Repository spilled its guts. A low, grey sky pressed down on the skeletal trees, making the day feel older than it was. Every gust of wind, every rustle of dry bracken, was a reminder of the unseen enemy that had remade their world.
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