Fraser Small

E Fraser Small

Alex woke to find that her mum was gone. That, in itself, didn't overly concern her, it had happened before-sometimes Mum just needed to get away from it all. But Alex knew today was different. The constant white noise of London was gone too. No police sirens, no irate delivery drivers, no bin men, no dog walkers, no airplane trails in the sky.

She did what she'd been taught to do, and waited. Within hours, all electricity stopped. The technology that she'd taken for granted during her young life was now useless. When her laptop and mobile phone batteries died soon after, communication with the outside world was reduced to anyone within earshot. All that remained was silence. Something she had craved for as long as she could remember. Now she had it.

Those first days drifted by in a haze of fear, adrenaline and confusion. When no one came to find her she knew there were two choices. Stay where she was or move further into London to find the 'others'. Grabbing her soundproof headphones-and other items deemed essential to a 13-year-old-she opened the front door and ventured out into an alien landscape. One without humans. No bodies and no remnants of a frantic evacuation. No signs of a battle, no deadly airborne virus and no zombies trying to kill her. All the people were just ...gone, vanished in one night.

So started her adventure into the unknown, a constant physical and mental fight to survive in a world that neither needed nor wanted her. A life in which she could do anything she wanted but always alone. How long would the hope drive her on-that she couldn't be the last of her species, that someone else must remain.