His touch was like an electric current that ran through his fingers into my cheek and down the back of my neck.I took another step back, away from him. “Don’t do that,” I whispered and...

History doesn’t start with a tall buildingand a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is takingus for suckers and is playing a mean game.

Olivia, my choice will always be simple when it comes to you…

Our planet is not fragile at its own timescale and we, pitiful latecomers in the last microsecond of our planetary year, are stewards of nothing in the long run.

It is an edged cliché that the world is most pleasant in the years of a Waning Sun. It is true that the weather is not so driven, that everywhere there is a sense of...

The world is a goddamned evil place, the strong prey on the weak, the rich on the poor; I’ve given up hope that there is a God that will save us all. How am I...

Eventually our whole world, every culture, will explode and we’ll all just be fucking cosmic dust. We’ll all dissipate. We’ll all be nothing and everything. What’s more spiritual than that?

The more we know about the former world, the better we’ll understand what happened when it fell.

It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.

Mom used to tell us stories of these bogeymen when we were kids, and Lizzy would crawl into my bed so she could fall asleep. Stories of the monsters who forced us underground, and when...

It’s not a war. It’s an annihilation,” he’d mumbled low for her ears only. She’d been unable to respond, only focusing on her own breath and marveling that she in fact was still breathing.

‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in...

He’s going to kill everyone on this planet, reduce the human race to dust. There will be no one to stop him. You are the only one who can. – Aiden Deverill

The world had seen so many Ages: the Age of Enlightenment; of Reformation; of Reason. Now, at last, the Age of Desire. And after this, an end to Ages; an end, perhaps, to everything.

You cannot be who you were.

If it happens that the human race doesn’t make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered...

Thank God for imminent doomsday.

The guns reminded me that this was just an attempt to punch holes in the darkness that enveloped us now.

I love my virginity to the apocalypse.

I’ve been itching to kill a zombie lately. Can I take the lead on this one, dad?

She knew better than to challenge a man who spent his life preparing for the apocalypse.

It’s called the Infinity Effect.

It’s over.””I am not the only lord in Hell. Others will rise to take my place. The Morningstar will crave revenge.””Let them come.

The only bright corner of my heart, where nothing seemed to hurt, was where Grey was. When I thought of him, I could see a future where I could be happy again, where I might...

—if the spirit tries to hide, its temple far away… acopper for those they ask, a diamond for those who stay.

Everyone is dangerous in here, can’t you see that?” he warned.

The ultimate singularity is the Big Bang, which physicists believe was responsible for the birth of the universe. We are asked by science to believe that the entire universe sprang from nothingness, at a single...

When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.

Sometimes it’s torturous to think of things we can’t possibly have.

The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world.

I think you’re crazy good at this survival stuff, Cary.”His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels...

We grab handfuls of bottles and climb up onto the roof of the house. She stumbles and her foot slips into the gutter sopped with dead leaves. I grab her wrists and pull her clear...

Wasn’t allowed to have pets. I killed my pet cockroach when it crawled into my ear.

I have heard the languages of apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence.

It’s an alien apocalypse! Quick, grab the beer!

After everything that’s happened, her fear of requesting a prescription or of asking Trevor about his mother baffles her. Shouldn’t life-altering events make you less afraid of the little stuff? But it’s the little stuff...

And that date, too, is far off?”Far off; when it comes, think your end in this world is at hand!”How and what is the end? Look east, west, south and north.”In the north, where you...

It was the first and only fight of his childhood, but it had taught him a valuable lesson about human nature, how people were just another species of animal, and like any animal, from the...

I stopped looking at the cars after the first few miles. Once I started to see past the exteriors, I saw what lay inside some of them and felt the urge to sprint to the...

In her mind’s eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness,...

When I wasn’t in the barn garden, helping out, sorting seeds or checking hoses I’d spend time alone, usually in the bathroom adjacent to Joel’s room, staring into the shattered mirror as my hand gently...

God, you mean I lost my virginity to the apocalypse?”Morgan sighed again. “The whole thing was really embarrassing; my parents sent me to Brooklyn when they found out.” She shrugged. “I thought I’d be safe...

you’re all a bunch of sheep!” and even if they did say anything, I doubt anyone would listen… they’re all too obsessed and attached to their cellular phones and overly big televisions and whatever other...

What would it be like if a star exploded nearby?” Our nearest stellar neighbor, as we have seen, is Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away. I had imagined that if there were an explosion there we...

Most folks don’t have but a few days to a week’s worth of food in their houses at any given time. When they run out, they’ll have to forage. Only the fools will forage in...

Hardly has the universe stretched its wings to spanWhen it gathers to egg once more

I used to be Autumn Winters, daughter of an actress and an architect. I had been one of three living in this home, but now I was just Autumn Winters, and I was alone.

I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy...

A giant grin, accompanied by a slight chuckle, had been the grand finale to any of his most successful jokes, while the less impressive resulted in a raise of both his brows, which he followed...

This is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.