N. White: The End - Visions of Apocalypse

“I love you, too, Allan, but all things end.” She smiled. “Everything ends. Even the good things.” She blew a kiss to the screen. “I will pray for you in Heaven.”

And the screen went blank, fizzing into blind static.

Sudden brilliance filled the room with harsh shadows and Allan turned away from the window. Far below, and far away, a ball of fading light was expanding and around it the fibres of Mainstay Three were twisting, shredding, uncoiling, flying apart. The gravity anchors were falling. And above him, he knew, the Sail was slowly, and inexorably, starting to billow….

Three weeks later, and half a light year away, Allan watched the relayed images. Earth was empty now, save for the Zealots, and everyone in the fleeing armada was watching with him. Watching as the light, the raw, savage, relentless wind of light, hit the Sail and was reflected back. Reflected into a single focussed point of heat that moved upon the surface of the Earth as the world turned beneath it.

The Homeworld burned, and a billion people burned with it. And all its history, and all that came before history, too. The dinosaurs burned, and the Neanderthals, and the Cromagnon and Homo erectus . And the Romans burned, and Athens burned, and Minos burned, and Atlantis burned. All the empires that ever were, and all the artists, and all the poets, and the echoes of the songs the Great Whales sang, and the patterns of the clouds, and the places walked by Jesus, and by Buddah, and by Mohammed. All ashes now, and melting, and white hot, vaporising, and blowing away, atomised, and blowing away in the wind. Blowing away into the dead, cold emptiness of space.

And Allan, watching all of this, saw nothing but the morning-lit, golden down on Clara’s shoulder. The tears that ran down his face were only for her.

G.L. Lathian was born and raised in the remote South West region of Australia. Without television or modern distractions, he spent his childhood years creating stories — a tradition that lives on until this day. Lathian is a published journalist and avid traveler.

InSacrifice, the will to live is all that separates the dead from the walking. Retired marine, Tim Jacobs, must go beyond the means of normal men to keep his loved ones alive. The journey south seems endless, but as the Arctic Circle expands, to stop would mean death. Fighting starvation, hypothermia and marauders, Tim’s greatest battle remains within. But in a world without hope, sanity can be a fickle thing.

The cries of an animal tore at Tim’s sleep-ridden conscious. He stirred, trying to discern dream from reality. Careful not to expose too much skin to the frigid air, he unzipped his sleeping bag and peered out of the cave at the still, white landscape. It was the pale grey of predawn and for once, it wasn’t snowing.

Smouldering fires sat either side of where Tim lay and he thanked their warmth for seeing him through another night. For the first time since the Great Freeze, he didn’t have his wife, Christine beside him, nor their son Jake tucked between their embrace. At times, body warmth was all that had kept the family alive.

The bawling came again and Tim scrambled from his bed, ignoring the biting air. Fear of the cold was easily suppressed by the hunger of a man who knew starvation. The snares worked, they damn well worked , Tim thought as he hurriedly strapped snowshoes to the boots he had kept on through the night.

Tim gathered his backpack that had been a makeshift pillow and shouldered his quiver of arrows. No two were alike, collected over the months of travel, but all would suffice when it came time to kill.

Again, Tim heard the distressed animal and he frantically slung the pack over his shoulders and rushed to the mouth of the cave. With bow in hand and an arrow nocked, he moved eastward, upwind, to where he had set snares the previous night as the snow had eased. Fear, excitement and anticipation roiled inside of him. It was one thing to survive the ice, but in this world, a lack of food was just as deadly. A week had passed since Tim or his family had eaten more than scraps.

Tim slowed as he approached the tree line that held his snares. He could hear the laboured breathing of something hidden from view. Something large. Tim hesitated. He had set his traps in the hope of catching a rabbit or maybe a fox. This was neither. Peering through the dense birch branches, he saw his family’s saviour. A moose six feet tall and weighing at least a thousand pounds was struggling to free its leg from a snare fixed to the base of a tree.

Twenty yards away was an animal that would keep them fed for months. Tim stayed behind cover, knowing his presence would scare the animal into frenzy. If the thin cable broke, Tim and his family wouldn’t survive the week. He struggled to pull back the fifty pounds of pressure loaded on the compound bow; months of travelling south towards the equator had stripped the muscle from his body.

Tim felt the bowstring relax into position. He stared down the bow’s sights; the arrow’s fletching brushed his cheek. The liver or lung, either will kill it quickly. An easy shot , Tim thought. But never had the stakes been this high. He steadied his breathing and stilled his shaking hands. A second later, he loosed. The moose staggered up, frenzied with pain. Its attempts to run were hard to watch, but Tim would not feel remorse for something that would save their lives.

The animal fell to its knees again, breathing in an unsteady and laboured rhythm that sent plumes of steam into the air. Finally, it collapsed and the morning became silent once again.

Tim left the carcass and scrambled back to camp, snow sinking under his feet. The military had taught him to be prepared, and prepared he was. Back at the cave lay a timber sled, a necessity that had helped transport their supplies over a land of snow, ice and little else. With a rope tied around his waist, he could haul hundreds of pounds of meat and the entire hide; a prize he’d almost forgotten compared to the hunger that wrenched his stomach.

With sled in tow, Tim hurried back and set about skinning and gutting the animal. The dripping blood was forming an icicle beneath the arrow wound. He would have to be quick to beat the hardening skin.

The work helped keep Tim’s mind off the cold and his thoughts turned to his wife and son. Christine and Jake were both malnourished and exhausted. The journey south — fleeing from the relentless expansion of the Arctic Circle — had almost killed them. Tim had lost at least sixty pounds himself, although the layers of clothing hid it well.

The sun crept over the horizon to the east and the expanse of snow and untouched wilderness, sparkled in its warm light. For more than a year there had been nothing but snow, heavy clouds and thunderous storms. Tim smiled for the first time in months as he looked at the endless, empty blue above. The retired marine began to laugh, uncontrolled and unbridled, fuelled by the relief of knowing he had provided for his family. Their goal of reaching Mexico by the month’s end was becoming a reality. Even the weather looked upon them kindly.

Once the moose’s hide was removed and rolled, Tim used a wood-saw to quarter the animal. The steel blade hewed through large bones and cartilage as easily as it did firewood. The sun was four fingers into the sky by the time Tim had the rear quarters and hide secured to his sled. Almost half the moose would have to be left behind. He simply did not have the strength to drag so much. What remained, he buried, hopefully deep enough to be out of reach of any scavengers.