Tag: survival
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SURVIVAL
I tried not to vomit as I peeled the fetid sock away from my foot. It came off in tattered patches, stuck to the putrid flesh underneath. The pain was excruciating. I had to look. It wasn’t my foot any longer. I didn’t recognise it. It was just a lump of red-purple meat. There were…
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WORN
Back stooped, legs bowed. Face weathered and scored with lines, each one telling a story of a long life. She has lived through a pandemic, the third Great War, the rise of the machines. Still she walks on, unbowed. Her family is long gone: her true love long ago when the disease caught him; her…
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END TIMES
Christenson fell to his knees, his hands raised to the skies, his face a scream of agony. ‘Show yourself!’ he cried. Outside the storm tore at the earth. Debris battered against the protective dome. Trees, buildings, animals – all tossed asunder. Inside the palm trees were still, the climate pleasant. Only the constant howling noise…
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HEATWAVE
The sky is aflame at the end of the day. Another heatwave sweeps over the country. We’re used to them now. Soon it will be monsoon season again and the dust and dirt will be swept away and there will be some green lands. I’ll have a chance to grow some crops. But the sand…
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TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED
They set off at first light. No sign of the enemy. Peters took the front of the stretcher, Henderson the rear. Felix lay unconscious, each step across the uneven, barren landscape making his head roll from side to side. Henderson reckoned it was a hundred miles back to the demilitarised zone – at their laboured…
Iain Kelly 