I’m cold. I’m bleeding. I’m alone.

The water settles around my shoulders, but still resists me when I try to move. Carefully, I untie one of my arms from around the tree I latched onto. Pain rifles through my body as I unhook my arm and I realise that it’s only now, after bracing the rip tide, just how tightly I held the tree. I know before I see that the bark has dug deeply into my forearm, and ...

I run down the eucalyptus tree as fast as my body will allow me. Reaching the bush floor I run in the direction that I came from not too long ago. The air is still thick with smoke from the fire, although some of it has cleared slightly now, carried by the wind that was helping the fire along its destructive path. I have to get back to my home trees. I hear voices of some of the local people appro...

Pregnant drops of rain plopped onto the sliding door, bursting one by one against the glass.

Marcy was curled up in her recliner with Rufus, reading a new book, a glass of wine nestled close by.

There was nothing more relaxing than a summer storm.

Her peace was momentarily interrupted by an alert from her phone on the table beside her. Glancing at the screen she read, ‘tornado warning for the S...

The sky is still mostly dark after two years. Every now and again there’s a gap in the dust cloud so a thin beam of light will make its way down to earth.

Recently I managed to catch one and felt a real ray of sun on my skin for the first time since it happened. Prior to that we’d been using tanning beds and UV lamps that were commandeered by citizens and makeshift governments.

For us here in wh...

She had to keep in mind, the journey, ten days on foot. Three times the sun had passed, the moon had lost half of itself, the stars stayed constant, like the day’s never ending blue sky. Her youngest child, in her arms, was lighter than the dust her feet shuffled up into the air. Hold on. Breathe, a conscious push of in and out. The rhythm of the days, in and out, holding tight, forward. Push and...

“Is it gone?”

“I don’t know. I can’t hear anything.”

“I think it’s gone!”

“Shut up, Hannah! I’m trying to listen.”

For a moment all I can hear is our frantic breathing, struggling to stay quiet. Hannah sniffles as she wipes the tears from her cheeks, but she stays silent for now.

It won’t last long. Ever since saying her first words 3 years ago, Hannah has barely gone a minute without blabbe...

Walking back to the home I once knew, was pointless, all that’s left, is pieces of a broken home, and memories i can never get back. I stare at what was once our home, and the tears start flowing.

“It’ll be okay.” He says, rubbing my shoulder, looking over at the mess. “We can clean this up, it’ll be fine.” He was always such an optimist.

“Not this time.” I say, releasing at little sob.

“Too mu...

I never really thought the world could actual end, you know like in all those films and books about Armageddon, zombie apocalypse etc.

Well here in the present I am stood on top of a high mountain watching the world end. Surrounded by lava.

It all started 1 week ago, it was a beautiful sunny day the date was the 3rd of September 2022. Heading towards the end of summer, here in Britain we had b...

They crawled out from the dark into even greater darkness. They were the survivors, at least for a moment in time. They were the lucky ones who might not remain either survivors or lucky.

The devastation was epic. They bunched together in a small group, stunned and speechless as they gazed at what was around them. Where once there were buildings that defied one’s ability to see the very tops ...

It’s been a year since the Great Quakes. San Andres fault line really shook us up, then tore us down. The ground split and swallowed cities, men, women, and children all alike. It swallowed them whole and grumbled after as if satisfied.

I was lucky to be someone who survived and lived so close to it. Lucky to live, lucky to lose, everything. My mom and I had driven out to a prospective college w...