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Rules for Survival

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on March 23, 2026

There’s a buzz in the outer hall, echoing around its rock walls and bouncing the urgent whispers from the low ceiling and Ash watches the advance scout, Morgan, just back from patrol, as she imparts her news to the those nearest the tunnel mouth. Whatever it is, its big, her gestures frantic, her mouth moving fast and people huddle around her, heads bent to catch the words. Ash hangs back, comforted by the weight of rock, solid at her back, as the group passes the news from person to person, each mouth opening in shock, before passing the message on. Ash is tense and even before the news reaches her, she catches fragmented echoes: The Day patrol are coming back, wounded. Then: only one of them is wounded. And another: No, no-one is wounded; but they have someone with them. As the news approaches, she hears the dread word uttered but dismisses it, until she feels Ayla’s hot breath against her ear and she can’t avoid it: Outsider.

Escape

Published by Janet Johnson on March 23, 2026

Laura watched the children playing happily with the large, brightly coloured building bricks in the dim light; Poppy patiently helping her baby brother to build a tower as tall as she could, before he knocked it down with delight. She marvelled at how well Poppy had adapted to their new life and, for George, the only life he had ever known, but she worried about them constantly. They had been underground far longer than either Joe or she had anticipated and been prepared for, but they knew from the reports that reached them sporadically that they had to hold on for as long as they could. She had rationed the food and water for the last year, but the children were starting to show signs of malnutrition. Their skin was becoming translucent, anaemic-looking, they were increasingly lethargic, and they were so thin. She knew in her heart that if they were to have any chance of survival, it wouldn’t be long before they had no option but to leave the safety of the bunker and face the horrors above ground. Hopefully, they had bought themselves enough time.

The Final Battle

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on March 23, 2026

by Jason

This is part of the final battle sequence (!) These Peck scenes will be intercut with scenes where Emyr confronts Gloam and The Herald, Jynn and The Fang fight S’Uba.

Peck stepped over the threshold and realised that Emyr had vanished. This was not the plan. There was a moment of panic and then the nexus caught hold of Peck and carried her out and away from The Circle. The universe opened up a new conduit, just for her and catapulted her across the stars. Shifting chromatic patterns propelled her down a long narrow tunnel. The universe opened itself and expanded in every direction, revealing layers of sound and energy she had not sensed before. The tunnel she travelled down pierced the fabric of the universe, crossing into another realm where it passed through layer after layer of primal song till the stars blinked out and Peck flew on through an electric darkness. There were no reference points for her to cling to. If it had not been for the nexus force that still gripped her body Peck would have though she had stopped moving all together.

The End of the Road – Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on March 2, 2026

Part 1: Yasuk

At the edge of the village, the abandoned gallows stood silent, their ropes stirring in the desert breeze. The creaking wooden frame had bleached and cracked, its knots swollen with age. Doctor Muhammad Hosseini watched the ropes sway and wondered if anyone would use them again.

Since the world beyond the village had vanished, crime had dwindled to something barely perceptible. Greed and anger were never gone, but muted, like a low insect hum fading into the heat. In its wake, fear remained. Not panic, but something graver.

In the first days after the silence, men kept to the shadows while women drew their veils tighter and children slipped between houses without playing. Their laughter, once spilling through the streets had drained away, leaving the village muted and watchful. Even now, the air felt tense, as if it were waiting for something to happen.

After the lynching of the local platoon of Faith Guards, most crimes no longer seemed to matter. People increasingly forgot central authority, as it had collapsed into memory and, like the world beyond the hills, fewer people spoke of it each day. Now they spoke of it only in hushed tones, afraid it might return, and perhaps even more afraid it wouldn’t.

Coygan by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on January 19, 2026

51°45’16” N 4°29’12” W

Making

The day we died felt odd, deceptive. It was disorientating to say the least. Though by that point, none of us really cared what was happening. For some time, the tides had felt thicker and sluggish, the sea had become something else. Something strange. We were dazed, as used as we were to the tidal whims of our home, this felt different, it crept up on us sideways and left us confused. Life continued in a fashion – we fed but with no great urgency or joy, just opened our mouths and let in the not so nourishing waters. An act that felt so normal and, at the same time, so very different. We continued as long as the burnished light rippled through the glas water. But by the time the light had shifted and lost its golden hue we knew that something was wrong: a part of us had been ebbing away, a drop at a time, but for how long we weren’t sure, as if we had been slowly pouring some vital part of ourselves into the veridian tides.

By the time the light completely disappeared, we were all dead.

We sank to the ocean floor, shells cracked or chipped as they hit the bottom. Our soft parts started to wither, revealing bone. Some of us were broken apart and what little remained was scooped up by a band of desperate heliwrs. We don’t think we gave them much sustenance: a group of them are on the other side of the hill. Listen to us, “the Hill,” apologies we are getting ahead of ourselves, we’ll get to that bit in a moment. Many of us fell on that day and the days that followed. Layer after layer and slowly, inevitably, our world calcified becoming something quite, quite different. We came to know a new way of being – the way of stone.

Where once there had been the soothing ebb and flow our world we were now rigid, static, and seemingly lifeless. We were prisoners held under ossuary guard, hardening and strengthening with the passing of the ages. Yet our awareness seeped out into the strata, permeating the solidity surrounding us, we slowly came to a new understanding in the darkness. An understanding that we were utterly alone in the rock. An understanding that hungry forces churned and kneaded what lay beneath us, moulding it to its own ends.

All we could do was wait.

BEAUT: Ch 2 Shadows

Published by Martyn Winters on January 19, 2026

Scene 3 – The Cornucopia on the Lane

After alighting from his bus on the Strand, Colin found the pub he was looking for on Temple Lane, near the submerged Victoria Embankment. It was at the end of a pontoon skirting King’s College and around the back of the Courtauld Institute.

‘The Cornucopia on the Lane’ proclaimed itself ‘The World’s Narrowest Gastro-Pub.’ Tucked between a gentleman’s outfitters specialising in Crown Court clothing and the offices of an accountancy firm, the pub stood as a thin slice of Tudor England. With a core structure built around 1598, the Corny, as the locals called it, had distinctive leaded windows and half-timbering on its gable. Although they were recent additions—installed for the tourists who all-too-infrequently strayed that way—they looked the part to Colin.

Shit Out of Luck

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on January 19, 2026

By Sandra

I hadn’t planned to be in a stinking alley at two am with the Fry brothers, and as a fist smacked into my jaw and my head snapped sideways, I had time to regret a number of life choices, which included – in no particular order –

Not learning a martial art from a young age – which would have seriously improved my chances in this situation.

Pretending I could play poker – a large part of why I was in this alley getting lamped.

Not moving out of mum’s house years ago – so I wouldn’t have been involved with Aunty-Pat-next-door’s problems.

Agreeing to help Aunty Pat find her missing – and annoying, and useless – son.

Making friends (of a sort) with Andy Pritchard, see above.

Oh, and not kissing Tracey Evans, in first school, when I had the chance. Nothing to do with this situation, but just representative of my life decisions.

The Goodbye

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on December 2, 2025

He stood at the edge of the beach taking in the expanse of wide dark sand, peppered with rocks and stones. The high tide mark near his feet had deposited a raft of plastic bottles, some blue rope and a chewed foam body board. The constant drizzle meant the beach was empty other than two people at one end, too far to make out faces, heads were bent to the sand searching the beach.

He fumbled with his rucksack, rechecking the contents, his hands numbed by the wind and looked back to the old Fiat, its windscreen cloudy with salty drizzle. Mandy still sat, a study in sullenness, in the passenger seat, arms folded and mouth tight with frustration. He’d had to work hard to convince her to come this far and now his brain failed him when he thought about how to get her to the water’s edge. Let alone actually in the water. He looked at the waves crashing lustily onto the beach, unlike their usual gentle teasing. It wasn’t going to be easy. Easy? Impossible more like.

B.E.A.U.T. – Scenes 1 & 2

Published by Martyn Winters on December 2, 2025

The BUREAU of EXTRATERRESTRIAL AND UNEXPLAINED TECHNOLOGY One. The Interview Whitehall, Lundeinjon, UK – Geola 12th, 9 BAI.[1] It was a grand club once. Now it smelled, to Colin, of ancient soldiers dwelling on their historical conflicts; of cigar smoke infused into the panelled oak walls, the heavy Regency furniture and the men themselves; of gin spilt onto the maroon carpet with its pile trodden in places to an ice-rink shine; and of centuries of boiled cabbage and beef gravy, port and potatoes, semolina and suppressed sexuality. Portraits of men who ignored death only to find it had not, after…

Additional Scenes for The Missing and the Found:

Published by Janet Johnson on December 2, 2025

By Janet

This scene comes somewhere at the beginning when the girls are found to be missing, and the search for them starts:

As she drove further along the dirt road, clouds of red dust in her wake and the highway a distant memory, Eleri was grateful for what3words and the Jeep Rubicon she had picked up at the airport. Although she had managed to sleep on the plane, she desperately needed some fresh air to clear the fog in her brain. The last 24 hours had passed by in a blur; one moment she was curled up on the sofa watching Race Across the World, and the next she was catching the red eye to Albuquerque and a 3-hour drive to the Chaco Canyon. The girls had already been missing for five days, and Eleri knew, more than most, that the hope of finding them alive decreased with every additional day after the first 24 hours. Not far now, she thought as the location pin on her phone appeared. The road curved right, and in sharp contrast to the loneliness of the drive there, a hive of activity now presented itself: police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and uniformed personnel filling the parking lot at the Information Center. She parked the jeep carefully; her boss wouldn’t appreciate any bills for damage, the jeep itself was costing enough, and asked a young officer for Sheriff King. The Sheriff turned as she approached. She could see him appraising her suspiciously before a flash of understanding.

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