Age of the Deluge

It began with a hangover and ended with an apocalypse. Liam Schultz awoke to a splitting headache and a soaked carpet, assuming a burst pipe was the worst of his worries. But when he pulled back the curtains of his thirtieth-floor apartment, the world he knew was gone. The skyscrapers, the streets, and the noise of the city had vanished, replaced by an endless, silent ocean. The water had risen overnight, stopping exactly at his floor, leaving him stranded on the last dry island in a drowned world.

Panic set in as Liam explored the silent hallway. He found no rescuers, only anomalies that defied logic: neighbors' apartments filled with years of accumulated dust and rotting food, as if decades had passed while he slept off a single night's drunkenness. With power dead and communication lines severed, he ventured to the flooded stairwell, only to find he was not alone. In the murky waters lapping at the darkness, something was hunting. The old world had drowned, and in the Age of the Deluge, only the fittest would survive the rising tides.