All Is Silence - Deserted Lands #1

In a world silenced by pandemic, Lizzie, a young woman with a rebellious spirit, finds herself alone in her childhood home. Her mother and younger brother are hospitalized, and the outside world has become a chillingly empty echo. As connections sever and hope dwindles, Lizzie grapples with loss, loneliness, and the harsh realities of survival. Will she find a way to navigate this new, desolate landscape, or will the silence consume her too?

The silence was the loudest thing. Not a car on the street, not a neighbor’s radio, not even the faint drone of a distant plane. Just the oppressive, heavy quiet that had settled over everything, thick as the dust on the living room blinds.

Lizzie stared out, tracing patterns in the grime. Mid-afternoon, but the sky was a gray, featureless smear, typical Pacific Northwest gloom, only deeper now, somehow. She’d spent the last week in a threadbare recliner, moving only to check the freezer for another pizza. The same pizza. Every single day. It was getting old, fast.

She thought about Mama, about Jayce, about the hospital. A week. A whole week since Mama called, her voice frayed, saying Jason was in room 314. The next day the phone was dead. Like everything else. The wires, torn from the wall, hung like forgotten vines. They were gone, and she was here, adrift in the vast, echoing silence of the house.

All Is Silence - Deserted Lands #1

post-apocalyptic Grief survival Pandemic Isolation