The Fall

Chapter One: Amaia Nightwalker

Auckland, New Zealand. 63 years after The Fall.

For three generations they lived in the dank, darkness of the underground car parks and subways. Three generations of malnutrition and struggle, where a simple injury led to untold suffering and chest infections were the crackling sound of death. It had been 63 years since The Fall, as it is known. That was a time the older generation tried their hardest to forget. But to the younger generation, the dark concrete dungeons was the only life they knew. Hunger, cold and disease took their toll on the people. The nightmares were like an infection too. Fear spread like an incurable virus attacking the minds, bodies and spirit of the community. Very few spoke of survival or the future. Hope was buried under the toxic rubble above ground. Hope was the cold, white ash that had no chance of reigniting.

Amaia was well known for sleepwalking. She walked most nights and held quite full-on conversations with whoever came to her in her dreams. Some amongst the community feared her strange behaviour. But most only feared she would fall and injure herself. She never bumped into anything or stumbled. She had this uncanny ability to roam in the pitch of the night wandering the cavernous dungeons by a subliminal memory. Like the owl did when hunting. Still, to some, Amaia’s night walking wasn’t seen as an ability. It was seen as a liability. 

Most hadn’t seen an owl or any sort of bird. They were part of the many stories told around the plastic fuelled fires. Living in the dark left a lot of space for your imagination. And there was no imagination bigger than Amaia’s.

She had wandered into the community when she was an infant. No one knew who she was or where she came from. Everyone knew her family were most likely dead. She was a bubbly child who talked a lot. 

When Amaia was thirteen something happened that changed the community forever. She became the answer to the non-existent hope that clouded everyone’s vision. Amaia was gifted and her status within the community rose to the level of rangatira, a chief and the top accolade anyone received for the generations that followed. Because Amaia had a vision. A vision that saved what was left of civilisation.

It was a night like any other. After eating the daily broth the small group gathered around the fire to listen to stories, sing songs and play games to keep their spirits up. Stories about the The Fall were unavoidable and were told in a matter fact way so the younger ones weren’t frightened. 


“Corruption ruled the old world. The divide between the haves and have nots led to a revolution. The people were against the all-powerful rulers. And powerful the rulers were. They controlled every aspect of people’s lives. While the masses struggled to make ends meet the elite sipped wine in mansions within the walls created to ‘keep them safe’.”

“The unrest was organised through the dark web and the upheaval grew at an alarming rate. Even countries and Governments that were former enemies united against the common cause, which was to forcibly oppress their own people. Their response was swift. Civil unrest turned into a war of the world. The Rulers used satellites to position their weapons and systematically destroyed rebel strongholds, villages, towns. Cities. Then the armies would move in with their scorched the earth policy. Death spread across the West and East on a scale never seen before.”

“In one last act, the revolutionaries spread a computer virus that effectively shut down the internet across the globe. Suddenly communication was impossible. There was no electricity to power their hi-tech weapons. No gas to run their backup tanks and ships. Once the virus reached the satellites the Rulers knew it was the end game. The powerful became powerless. What followed was mayhem, starvation and disease.

The Fall of Civilisation was inevitable. And it was quick.”

The story had been told many times around the plastic fuelled fires in Amaia's underground world. Natural fuel was used to cook. But to keep warm anything flammable would do. The cold would kill you much quicker than the fumes. The people would lie on the ground around the toxic fires to try and avoid the fumes but gain the heat. Amaia would stare up the concrete graffiti-covered ceilings while listening to the stories.

"How were the graffiti designs created?"

"With paint," she was told.

"But who did them and what do they mean?"

The walls and ceilings were soot and dirt covered. The designs were beautiful and mysterious.


 On this night in the year 63, Amaia was dreaming of a beautiful valley, by an ocean and surrounded by bush-covered hills and a magnificent mountainous range. There were animals and birds in the valleys. In the centre of a settlement, people were gathered around a huge tower made of plastic that glowed white in the sun. It was a beautiful place. A paradise.

From this dream, Amaia woke with a start. She was no longer surrounded by the dank, soot-covered walls. She was above the basements of home, having sleepwalked to the outside world. It was dark and desolate. But she was alive and the air was clean and crisp.

She looked up to the night sky. She had learned about planets, stars, satellites and galaxies but had never seen them. The sky was beautiful, amazing and mesmerising.

Amongst the millions of stars, she noticed a light moving slowly across the night sky. 

It took some time for her to figure out it wasn’t a star or planet. It was a satellite.

Amaia’s understanding was sudden! It hit her with such a force she had to steady herself. Her dream of a paradise. The clear sky and satellite moving ever so slowly across the heavens, leading her eye to the horizon. She knew that to survive her people needed to go to the above world and follow this ‘metal planet’ to find the new land she had dreamed of. She knew it with absolutely everything she had. She returned underground, telling the people of her vision. She gifted the community hope and from that day on she became known as Amaia Nightwalker.

The people left the basements and car parks and headed South, the direction of the satellite in search of this new land. Their hope of finding other survivors was dashed pretty quickly. There was no trace of life. Everywhere they travelled was desolate land, toxic rivers, shells of houses and rusted, burned-out cars. There were skeletons with their jaws in a clenched grimace, or mouths wide open. Like death was painful and slow.

Trees and shrubs that grew out of collapsed buildings bore no fruit. They collected plastic bottles and containers to catch the rainwater to drink. Ate wild cats, dogs, sheep and shrubs, whatever they could scavenge. For a year they travelled until they neared the end of the land itself. Exhausted and near starving the people were once again faced with little hope.

But the scouts had spotted a valley with the remains of a town set by a harbour. Storm clouds were forming on the horizon so the people headed to the town to shelter. To most the town was like the many others they had come across. But to Amaia, there was something familiar about it. As the people piled their plastic containers together to catch the rainwater, Amaia wandered through the downpour toward the beach. The sight of waves was always enthralling. There was a reef further out covered in whitewash. She looked along the colourless coastline and back to the hills. The sky was heavy, the roar of waves deafening. She felt completely engulfed by her surroundings. She also felt power emanating from the land, sea and sky.

Amaia returned to the village and when she saw the pile of containers catching the rain her vision of the plastic tower glowing white in the sun returned. This was the place for her people. This was the paradise of her dream. 

Amaia's people settled in the town that they named The Valley. There was only one surviving road sign that pointed toward the hills that read ‘Valley Road’. It was as good a name as any.

The generations that followed survived on crops, fish, seafood and farmed animals. It was a harsh but peaceful life. It was a life no one could have dreamed of. 

It was a life.