The Day The World Died Novels & Stories

Anonymous gossip accounts. A clip of Sophia practicing tears before entering Julian’s office. Then another file opened. The dockside explosion. The footage was grainy, but clear enough to show Sophia opening the restricted gate she had sworn she never touched. My chest tightened, though I no longer had a body that could hurt. So that was why I had died in the first place. So that was why I had been dragged into this world. Dante’s face turned gray. Julian gripped the table. Adrian stepped back as if the floor had shifted beneath him.

[Juliet's POV] I jolted awake and gasped heavily for air. I took in the familiar-looking ceiling and bedsheets. I was in the rented apartment I had lived in for three years before the apocalypse. I felt the sun shine on the back of my hand, its warmth feeling so surreal. I picked up my phone resting by my pillow, and the screen lit up. It was July 15th, 2058—seven whole days before the apocalypse happened. I stared blankly into space for five whole minutes before my mind slowly drifted back to reality. I had truly been given a second chance at life.

Axel asked. "Weeks. Maybe a month. But certain worlds are going faster than others. The ones most damaged by your actions are failing first." He zoomed in on one mirror. "The Sandman's Sandbox, for example, is already gone. Completely erased. Any deadies who were there when it collapsed were erased with it." My stomach dropped. "How many?" "Forty-three deadies were in that world when it ceased to exist." Dracula's tone was matter of fact, but his eyes held something that might have been regret. "They're gone. Not dead. Beyond death. Simply unmade."

~ Evelyn. I had read the first third of this novel three times and the rest only once, and now that gap could kill me. Day seventy-eight. Seventy-eight days until the world froze, and I was sitting in my half-gutted villa with a cup of coffee, a notebook, and a dangerously unreliable memory. I took a sip and stared at the empty page. According to the novel, the global temperature collapse would begin on the eightieth day. The first signs would be sudden cold snaps, power outages, and government warnings that most people would dismiss as temporary weather disturbances.

Not yet. But the frustration kept climbing. I had watched the world fall once. I had watched people die of something nobody understood until it was too late. And my father sat here talking about possibilities. "You're preparing without knowing what you're facing," I said. "What if it's worse than you think? What if someone has already built something dangerous and is hiding it? What if it's..." "Where is this coming from?" I looked at him. "Chimera." The word slipped out.

I turn on my newly installed air conditioner in my apartment because of the sweltering summer heat. To my surprise, the man living in the apartment unit directly below mine—Unit 402—immediately shows up at my door, shouting anxiously, "Turn off that air conditioner right now! I'm going to freeze to death!" Completely bewildered, I assume he's just looking for trouble, but I choose to take the high road and turn off the air conditioner. Not long after he leaves, the heat becomes unbearable again, so I turn the air conditioner back on. The very next second, a gut-wrenching, agonizing scream erupts from the apartment below. I'm startled, but I don't think much of it, convinced he's just pu

To help her childhood sweetheart, David Middleton, take my place studying abroad, my wife, Sharon Griffin, destroys my records and deliberately fills in false information, ensuring that I'm permanently denied a visa. She even severely injured my hands before sending me to the Behavioral Reform Center. My mother-in-law, Paula Brown, who has always treated me with affection, takes Sharon's side. "Kyle is so ungrateful. We gave him everything, and he still wanted to get a PhD abroad to find his biological parents. Who's going to take care of me if he's gone?" Sharon snorts. "He's just vain. When he found out I'd turned down Westbridge's offer of admission, he gave me the silent treatment an

My attention returns to the document where the patient’s results abruptly finish…a solid black line drawn across the line, the letter d at the end. Before a new set of data is recorded, the heartbreaking realisation that Dad was now marking down his own results. The last entry is unreadable, a squiggle…the date tallies with them going away suddenly…never returning to me. I never knew their cause of death; Anton’s father had reported that they had died in the field…victims of a calculated attack against the Moon River pack. But now I understand…they caught the virus and fled before they could spread it here…onto me. Their last attempt to protect me.

A man stood outside a bakery, reading a newspaper while a woman beside him argued with someone over the phone. Everything looked normal. Nobody knew. Nobody knew that in a few days, the lights would go out. Nobody knew that the city they were walking through so casually would soon become a completely different place. But I knew. And I intended to be ready. I pulled out my phone and checked the date. My heart tightened slightly. Six days. Only six days until everything changed. My phone suddenly vibrated in my hand. I looked at the screen. Nathan. Again. I stared at his name for a few seconds before declining the call.

Mira looked up, her dark eyes searching my face. "The Deadlands? Lyra, that’s a frozen wasteland. And things going to hell? What does that mean?"I leaned in, dropping the sarcasm. "It means in about forty days, the sky is going to turn red, the temperature is going to drop to sub-zero, and the world is going to end. I need you to pack your bags, Mira. Because when it happens, my fortress is the only place I want you to be.