Station Eleven Novels & Stories

On New Year’s Eve, Kian Newman never came home. Instead, he had someone deliver a container of frozen ravioli and sent me a single message: "Stay safe this year." I had barely locked the screen when a photo popped up in the company group chat. Isabel Wilkinson, Kian's assistant, had posted it. It was a lavish holiday dinner spread across the table, every dish clearly homemade. The caption read: "Someone spent all day cooking so I could have a taste of home. Love you."

Even the corner store cashier couldn't stop talking about the biggest undercover takedown in a decade. When you're at rock bottom, you hate everything. I hate Owen for his cruelty. Hate my father for his stupidity. Hate this rotten world. Hate myself for being so weak. I shut myself in. Wasted away. A bag of noodles in the fridge lasted a week. When I was thirsty, I'd cup my hand under the tap. I'd lie there staring at the peeling ceiling, from pitch black to dawn. My weight plummeted to under ninety pounds. Owen reached out once. For Riley.

**Hearts in the Storm** The storm outside rages on, mirroring the chaos within the cabin. Rain lashes against the windows, lightning occasionally illuminating the dark forest that surrounds them. Inside, tension simmers. Ethan, Sophia, Max, and Jason are all on edge, with danger looming just beyond the walls. The fire crackles, but its warmth does little to comfort them. As the gunshot echoes in the distance, fear tightens its grip on everyone, but it’s the weight of the secrets that has shattered the fragile trust between them.

Baxter hit the lock on the unit door with such a clang that both Nadia and Jake jumped a little. “Demons can’t come to Sedona?” Jake added, suddenly annoyed that Dan had not shared this information, it would have been helpful. “You didn’t know?” Baxter looked at the pair, rubbing the top of his bald head. “I did not know that,” Nadia followed Baxter into a unit that was barely big enough for the three. It was hot, stuffy from months of trapped heat and humidity. “Yes ma’am,” Baxter said, nodding to the large chest in the middle of the unit; a ring of what looked like table salt surrounded it. “Want me to knock it off?”

" I took a proud sip of my soda on camera. After Gavin totally lost it, I ended the call. The scorching heat had lasted three months. Then one day, a single raindrop fell from the sky. It poured for three days and nights, and at last, the temperature dropped back to normal. Armed with an electric baton, I went to room 401, opened the door, and was hit with a stench so foul it's hard to describe. A decayed skeleton lay on the living room floor, barely any flesh left, probably Jennifer. I had not left any diesel for the generator. When it stopped, the heat soared. Jennifer's chewed-up bones started to rot.

He would find the girl from the diner, and he would spend the rest of his life making her understand that he had never meant to leave her in the dark. ..... //Lyra's pov// I stood in the center of the kitchen, a roll of thick brown packing tape held in my trembling hand. The sound of it peeling away from the roll, a sharp, aggressive *shreeeeck* shattered the heavy silence of the room. It was 11:00 PM, and the bakery below had just started its giant industrial mixers, sending a low vibration straight up through the floorboards and into the soles of my feet.

Alex secured Damian in the far corner, chaining him to a steel support beam like the animal he was. Only then did we breathe. Alex dropped into the chair across from me, rifle slung loose across his lap. His eyes found mine, searching, anchoring. “We need to know if he’s lying.” I nodded. “I’ll check.” The satellite terminal blinked to life under my fingerprints. Slow, crawling through encrypted channels until it hit the feed Damian had hinted at. One click. Another. And there it was. Site Eleven was gone—reduced to rubble and ash. But not thirty miles from it, buried beneath a forest I’d thought long-abandoned… another facility flickered online.

The tension he left behind lingered anyway. Caleb exhaled quietly beside the stove. “He’s stressed.” “Everybody’s stressed,” Rowan said without looking up. Nobody argued with that. The sleet intensified outside, rattling softly against the cabin roof while wind pushed fog through the trees surrounding the ridge. Evelyn stared into the stove flames, trying not to think about how quickly winter had arrived in this timeline. Another change. Another thing is happening too soon. The electronic tone flickered softly through her skull. CLIMATE INSTABILITY DETECTED.

Then that feed cuts to static. “We’ve lost visual on the conference room!” the tech is frantically working controls. “Trying to reroute…” “All units converge on the fortieth floor,” Sebastian orders. “Protect the asset!” My world tilts. The asset. Daniel is the asset. And I can’t see him anymore. More voices flood the radio—overlapping, urgent, panicked. “The West stairwell is blocked…” “Movement on the thirty-second floor…” “Civilian casualties in the lobby…” “We need medical…”