Last Show
I was up on the solar catwalk fixing a dead junction box when I saw the pack come through the gate.
Post-collapse stories
Post-collapse stories, from quick reads to long series. Most post-collapse stories here sit in sci-fi & fantasy. Reads run 21 to 26 minutes. Writers to know: Plum Detour, Sundown Wanderer and Edition of Amber. Readers usually start with “Last Show” and “Debt Frame”. Ranked by how many readers finish them. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
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Post-collapse stories, ranked by readers
01 02 Debt Frame
The letter came on a Tuesday, which felt like a joke because nothing good has ever come to me on a Tuesday.
03 Hemlock Hours
Gabrielle Wentworth stood at the front of the granary and tapped the slate with her stick.
04 Last Shift at the Rebuild
Teresa Smithson walked into the bunker at dusk the way she had walked into it for fourteen years, which was to say without thinking much…
05 Last Caravan, Lost Love
The ration ledgers had their own smell, Kerry thought, and after eight years of working the registration tent she had stopped noticing it.
06 Sparks and Ashes
Caroline Phlox was thirty-four years old, and she had learned the hard way, over the two years since a divorce and one year of a mostly…
07 Sour Mash
The mash smelled wrong.
08 The Night Baker's Key
The ovens needed feeding at midnight.
09 Last Pour at the Refuge
Piper Benton was forty-three years old and she was wiping the same glass for the second time, which was a habit she'd picked up in the bad…
10 Signal and Soil
The ferry dock at Broadhaven still had its old-world bones sticking up out of the water, and every time I came down here with a cart of…
11 The Caravan Road
The road through the Marrow Valley was the same as every other road.
12 The Glass Wall Interview
The turbines were the first thing you noticed about New Meridian, even before you got inside the mountain proper, because the whole…
13 Respite Protocol
The cargo lifter had been complaining for the better part of an hour before it actually quit on them.
14 Gale Lessons
The thing you need to know about me is I don't lose.
15 The Salt Window
The salt out here never stops.
16 Ask the Vet
I had both arms up to the shoulder inside a heifer when the clinic door banged open.
17 The Glass Adjuster
I was sixty-three years old and I had been retired for four years, which was why I was standing in the central plaza of the Dome at seven…
18 The Resonance of Old Wood
Sasha Hendricks woke up before the sun on her eighth anniversary with Russell, and she could not for one second figure out why.
19 The Weaver and the Officer
I had been running the Gates-Haven circuit for eight months before I ever stepped inside the pawn-and-weave shop on Tanner's Row.
Post-collapse, by genre
Post-collapse sci-fi & fantasyBy length
10 to 30 minutesBest post-collapse stories of 2026Writers known for it
Plum Detour, Sundown Wanderer, Edition of Amber, The Winter Paradox
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Questions
What makes a story post-collapse?
Post-collapse stories, from quick reads to long series.
Can I read them for free?
Some stories are free to read in full, with no account. The rest open with a free preview; members read everything.
How long are post-collapse stories?
Most post-collapse stories take 21 to 26 minutes, and the average is 24. Sort by shortest to start small, or follow a series to get each part as it lands.