Hypocrisy Apocalypse Short Stories & Novels

My girlfriend, Summer Reeds, told me the apocalypse was coming and sent me to a snowy peak in the dead of night, saying it was for my own safety. "There's going to be a period of extreme heat and torrential rain, so this is the safest place you can be in! Stay here and be good. I'll go get the supplies!" Summer was a meteorological data analyst, so I trusted her. However, even as the day crept into night, she still hadn't returned. Wearing nothing but a thin T-shirt and shorts, I shivered uncontrollably in the icy cave. I took out my phone to call her, only for the screen to automatically switch to the surveillance feed from home. My entire family was gathered around my foster brother Aster Rivers, celebrating his birthday. With an elated expression, Summer exclaimed, "Don't worry, I've already tricked Charles into going up that snowy mountain, so he won't be coming back any time soon!" Aster covered his mouth, looking worried and guilty. "What? What if something happens to him up there? Maybe… maybe we should go bring him back. I-I can endure it, I promise…" Summer sighed. "See? This soft-heartedness of yours is why Charles keeps bullying you! Don't worry, I've left supplies for him up there, so he's fine!" My parents nodded in approval. "That's right! He threw you out in the rain, so he can get a taste of what it feels like to go hungry and freeze!" "Yes, consider it payback!" "He won't bully you anymore once we go bring him home after a month, alright?" Outside, the blizzard grew fiercer, and my heart grew more and more numb from the cold. Too bad you didn't know that there were no supplies in this cave at all. Too bad you didn't know that I was never coming back. You wanted to punish me to vent your anger for my foster brother? Fine. Then I'd use my life to appease him.

The entire world froze. Overnight, the city plunged to –40 °F. Yet, in the middle of this frozen apocalypse, my mother, my sister and her son moved into the home I bought for my marriage. Even my own husband took my sister’s side. They threw me out into the freezing cold to scavenge for supplies. I came back frozen half to death, and they had not even saved me a bowl of warm soup. Then, my sister shoved me straight off the fifth-floor landing. In that bitter cold, my body hit the ground and shattered like glass. When I woke again, I found myself back in the week before the apocalypse struck. This time, I resolved to cut them all off. I would make every last one of them pay.

At the base entrance, the guard stopped us for the usual inspection. “Your infection test came back negative, right?” I nodded. The guard was just about to let me through when Ethan Cross, the team’s new medic, suddenly spoke up. “Wait, Captain. What about that scratch on your arm from the mutated rat?” The air froze. The guard’s expression changed at once. “Captain Hale, is that true?” I gritted my teeth. “It is. But the wound has already been treated, and I have antibodies.” “I’m carrying a top-level mission. I need to enter the base immediately.” The guard hesitated, his hand already moving toward the gate controls. But Ethan stepped across my path and blocked me. “Captain! You were coughing badly on the way back. What if you’re a carrier?” Then he turned to the guard, his voice firm and absolute. “I request immediate quarantine for Falcon Squad and a full screening for Captain Hale.” The guard’s eyes sharpened. He raised his weapon. “I’m sorry, Captain Hale. You’ll need to come with me to isolation first.” I froze where I stood. A full screening would take at least forty minutes. But the zombie king in the base laboratory would awaken in thirty. I had to lead my team in and stop it before it broke free.

In a drought-ravaged apocalypse, I kept our entire apartment block alive with my “watermaker” ability. But when I grew weak, my neighbors shattered my limbs and turned me into a living water source. Later, when raiders stormed in, they dragged me out to take the blade for them, only to realize that even my severed arms could still produce water. So, they shouted about “saving humanity,” then shoved me into the crowd and fled in the chaos. People rushed forward one after another, tearing at my flesh. But I didn’t die. What was left of me fell into the hands of a monster, and I was subjected to inhuman torment day after day. Ten years later, when the apocalypse finally ended, that monster tossed me into an incinerator. Only then did I die. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the moment I first awakened my ability, just as my neighbor knocked on the door, begging for water.

My older sister Katie said she missed me and requested I visit her. The second day at her place, the apocalyptic heatwave arrived. I fought tooth and nail in the supermarket for food and coolant—she told me I'm shameless and have no self-respect. I offered a high price in the community chat for supplies—she sneered at me and said that anything stored for so long must be disgusting, contaminated by bacteria. Yet, she threw herself into the arms of the man living across the hallway just for a bit of food. While cuddled in his arms, she watched me die in the heatwave. When I opened my eyes again, I heard her on the phone saying she missed me. Well, keep on missing me!

My name is Hazel Falken, and I am the only daughter of the Base Commander during the apocalypse. Even though it is the apocalypse, I am still spoiled left and right by my family and raised to be their little princess at home. My dad, Ernest Falken, is worried that I will marry into a family that will mistreat me. So, he decides to choose four husband candidates and bring them up in our own home for me to pick from when I'm older. In my past life, I chose Curtis Granger, whom I have liked for a long while, when Dad asked me to pick my husband. However, not long after our marriage, Curtis volunteers himself as a guard to be stationed outside the base perimeter. He never returns home after that, and I am left living as a widow in the safety of the base's inner district. 30 years later, when my hair has turned fully white, I decide that I can't wait for him anymore and go out to find him. I then realize that he has formed another family outside the base without my knowing. It then dawns on me that Curtis never liked me. He had also only married me because he wanted to repay Dad for bringing him up. Not long after that, a wave of zombies attacks us. Curtis pushes me down and shields me under his body. "Hazel, I know that I never should've lied to you. I'll give up my life to repay the kindness that Commander Falken has shown to me. "But if there is a next life, I hope that you won't pick me again." When I open my eyes again, I find out that I have travelled back in time to the day when Dad asks me to pick my husband. "Hazel, these four people are my right-hand men. Whom would you like to pick as your husband?"

We had lived in an enclosed underground basement for as long as I could remember. My parents told me the world had ended. Zombies roamed everywhere. Deadly toxins filled the air. Anyone who ventured outside was certain to die. To stretch our meager food supply, I wasted away until I was little more than skin and bones. At last, only a single can of food remained. I left behind my final words. **Mom and Dad: One less mouth to feed. Live longer.** After I died, my soul slipped free of the shriveled husk I had called my body for eighteen years and passed through the thick metal door that had supposedly protected me from the outside world. Bright sunlight greeted me. Outside, my parents were hosting a barbecue with a group of friends. The air was rich with the mouthwatering aroma of grilled food. The apocalypse had been a lie. They had told me that story only to keep me locked away. I had died for a lie.

On the day the zombie outbreak occurs, I tell my boyfriend, Valerio Petrucci, to come over and hide in my apartment, where my front door is already reinforced. Soon, sounds of the door being knocked can be heard. I'm about to get up when transparent comment bubbles appear in front of my eyes. "Don't open the door! Valerio isn't the only one out there—there are a bunch of loan sharks with him as well!" "One of them is already infected with the zombie virus and is about to turn into a zombie!" "You'll die if you let them in!" Someone knocks on the door once again at that moment.