Short stories about the end of the world

An empty concrete tunnel recedes beneath overhead lights, interrupted by broad digital fragments and coloured accents.

Featured Story

Who Am I?

A weary man shuffles along a corridor, one of a line of weary shuffling men. The corridor is made of rough concrete and it is cold. Harsh light gives the men’s skin an unhealthy pallor. They are dressed identically in simple garments of coarse grey fabric. No words are spoken. Like the others, the man stares mindlessly at his bare feet. He is vaguely aware of painful soles caused by the rough concrete floor, but of little else.

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Latest Stories

Angular grey concrete planes and a golden sunlit edge interrupted by broad digital glitches and small coloured blocks.

The Ledger of Silent Hours – or What, Exactly, Is the Price of Living?

Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

The green numerals on Jonah’s wrist read 04:12:09. Four hours, twelve minutes, and nine seconds. That was his entire personal balance for the week.

An empty blue sea beneath a peach sunset, interrupted by broad displaced image fragments and coloured accents.

Point Nemo

Ryan Law

When it entered the upper atmosphere the computer tracked its trajectory and started the ship’s engines to intercept it at its terminus.

A distant coastline beneath a golden sky, with teal water and three prominent bands of digital corruption.

Call for a Moratorium on the Suit

Dino Alfier

A law that invariably and by its very design fails to attain its ends is unjust and incommensurably more deplorable than the crime it is intended to punish.

Layers of red and orange mountain silhouettes beneath a yellow sky, broken by displaced strips and coloured accents.

Red Dawn

Denis Bell

Huge great flashes and weird red things and a moon roughly the size of Alaska. They were driving north when the sky finally broke open and poured down its wrath upon humanity.

White surf meets a dark empty beach beneath coastal fog, interrupted by broad digital glitches and coloured accents.

The Monday War

Diane Tenley

His eyes watered. He was staring at the sun. The sky was clear blue and the water the same.

A bare ploughed field beneath pale mist and blue-grey clouds, fractured by broad strips with coloured accents.

The Shearing

Morgan Kinnally

Myles passes me my knitted hat. He already has his on. We didn’t used to need to wear a hat to bed, but since The Shearing, everyone’s got to keep their head warm. Nobody’s got long hair anymore.

Message board

2026-10-30

A place for Ash Tales updates

I’ve added this message board as a place to share short updates about Ash Tales. I started Ash Tales way back in 2015, and it’s taken many forms in the intervening years. As I’ve gotten a little older and hopefully a little wiser, the importance of this website has grown in my mind.

I think post-apocalyptic fiction is one of the most important forms for understanding how and why the world functions as it does. It provides a lens that we can use to understand so much about society and personal behavior.

All that to say, I have some decent-sized plans for the new year that I’m currently working on. I’ll use the message board to talk to you, and if you’d like to get updates more consistently, please subscribe to the newsletter, which I’m planning to start sending soon.

Ryan.

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