Zero Hour

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Zero Hour: A Short Story

Last Free Dates: 30th Mar 24 to 3rd Apr 24
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...A last survivor finds out the horrible truth of the apocalypse...

Waking up, the survivor finds themselves trapped under rubble. After digging free, they find themselves in a wasteland with no weapon for defence and no helmet for comms. Every one else is dead and they are the last alive, all they can do is head towards the Tower, a monolith that has outlasted the humanity that built it. Walking through ruins of the city, they wonder why they have not been attacked as they struggle through the pain to make it to their destination. Once they do arrive though, they are stunned but not killed by a drone. They wake up in a room facing an android, who knows who they are. To their horror, they find out that they have been turned into an android and were responsible for the death of humanity. Now the intelligence behind all the destruction, wants to swap their own broken body with that of the survivor’s.

This is a short sci-fi story which carries off the rare feat of being written in 2nd person perspective and doing it well. The plot is slowly revealed as you read through the pages and find out what is happening, encountering the twists and turns at the same time as the survivor. The survivor is also a blank slate, carefully described to give away as little information as possible about them, while still allowing you to gain a sense of who they are and what they are feeling. Those thoughts and the descriptive viewpoint really help to immerse the reader in what is happening. I really enjoyed reading this story, the ambiguity of the main character and the slow reveal of what occurred made for an intriguing story that kept me turning the pages to its conclusion.

The book is well formatted and easy to read and understand. I didn’t see any spelling or grammar errors as I read through and, given it’s length, worth reading a couple of times. There are some author acknowledgements at the back and details of more stories.

Overall, fans of the genre should read this, there are following novels so if you like this the story is continued.

Rating: 4
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