HOW TO: Survive the Apocalypse

1. Locate your preferred apocalypse. If you can’t find one naturally occurring, store bought is fine.

2. Be prepared. It’s no good hunting down a good nuclear explosion if you don’t have a biohazard suit.

3. Wait it out. Whether you are waiting for the zombies to turn on each other or for the ash clouds to settle, don’t leave that bunker too soon.

4. Find other survivors. Resist the temptation to bonk them on the head and steal everything they own.

5. Crown yourself Chief/King/Empress. If anyone questions this, abandon them on a tiny island in the middle of an acid lake.

6. Find a consort. Preferably a tall, dark, handsome stranger. If you can’t find one, fashion one from a piece of debris.

7. Survive the civil uprising. It’s no surprise perhaps, that your subjects wanted some of the “edible” food or the “clean” water.

8. Get revenge. May your enemies cower before your radiation poisoned stare.

9. Start again. Learn from your mistakes and call yourself “Elected Leader” this time.

10. Congratulations! You survived the apocalypse!

---

Need Help? We’ve all been there. Whether you want to know how to infiltrate your planetary government or how to make the perfect cheese sandwich, just sob into your pillow and we’ll write you a How To guide in the next post!

Ask Your Aunts

Drugs are Armless

Dear Aunts,

My teenage daughter is taking Zombee. I’ve tried to convince her to stop by limiting her oxygen, to no avail. I know you’ve been covering the Zombee epidemic in your magazine and I would like any advice on how to convince her that taking it is not only bad for her health but is also tearing our family apart. Just last week we buried my son’s arm! My husband was turned into a Zombie last summer and he’s always trying to pass on some of his bad habits to her between stints of attempting to eat her brain. Send help!

From Ellen, Earth 25

---

Dear Ellen,

The best way to confront these things is head on. Sit your daughter down for an intervention. Perhaps unbury your son’s arm to show her the physical extent of her actions? Ask your husband to come only if you have protective measures to keep the rest of your family safe. We wouldn’t want anything else to happen to your family. Or would we?

Best, Your Aunts

---

Need advice? Feed your letter to a chicken. Make a nice roast dinner. If you don’t have a sacrificial pyre, an oven will do. If you or any of your party choke, we’ve received your message...

If there are no chickens on your planet, too bad.

Earth 1

A Kingdom of Desolation

Imagine an immense wasteland as far as the eye can see, stretching in all directions. The air is thick with what appears to be fog but if you were to breathe in your lungs would liquify and your veins would calcify. There is no life here— crumbling buildings dot the skyline, with the immense iron skeletons of skyscrapers jutting from their hollow corpses. The earth is flat until it meets a black sea, thick as oil and twice as dark. What you might have mistaken for sand or dirt is ash. In the distance, you can see a faint brown glow rising on the horizon. You realise it is the sun, reduced to a stain against the grey sky.

This is Earth 1, home of the geniuses of our species. Once it supported life but now the only thing that speaks on the planet is the fading echo of the last transmission sent from the surface— a child, crying out for help that will never come. This transmission has run for a thousand years— we’re all taught what happened there. Yet we keep repeating our past mistakes!

There was a major disaster at Tarkina Mine in deep space today, spilling thousands of unfiltered chemicals into the atmospheres of twelve planets. Seven of these planets create 76% of all food for the systems in the Galactic Federation. The Federation knew the risk of continuing drilling in an area deemed “unstable” but they chose to put their money before the good of their people, yet again. The reported death toll on these planets continues to rise as more planets are effected. The spill is not yet contained and all citizens in quadrant 12 are advised to stay inside with the doors sealed.

Several cruisers have been lost in transit as well, one carrying 300 patients from a health centre on Tarkina’s moon. We at the Space Rock apologise for the harsh tone of this piece, but we are overwhelmed by this senseless tragedy and by the negligence and carelessness of a government that values coin over living beings.