Joisco/RoyalRoad · Datasets at Hugging Face

## Apocalypse Parenting - 300YearOldMagician ##

Apocalypse Parenting by 300YearOldMagician

Category: Original

Genre: Adventure, Artificial Intelligence, Fantasy, Female Lead, LitRPG, Post Apocalyptic, Progression, Sci-fi, Urban Fantasy

Status: Stub

Published: 2021-10-14

Updated: 2024-05-28

Packaged: 2024-05-29 20:27:31

Chapters: 4

Words: 7,474

Publisher: www.royalroad.com

Summary: A few minutes ago, Meghan Moretti’s biggest concern was getting the kids’ athletic clothes washed in time for practice this evening. Now, it seems that Earth has been forced into participating in some high-stakes intergalactic reality television. All electrical wiring has been slagged, and most combustibles neutralized. Some kind of evil space rodents are appearing on the front lawn, too.

Like any parent, Meghan’s first instinct is to keep her young kids safely away from the monsters, but an odd stroke of luck has her coming into some advanced information about this dangerous game. She learns that her kids will have to fight too.

What’s a mom to do?

Updates Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Find Book 1: Time to Play on Amazon and Audible

and

Book 2: Making Friends on Amazon and Audible

There's also Engineer's Odyssey, a standalone in the Apocalypse Parenting universe I intend to leave on Royal Road indefinitely. It's intended to be a good starting point, but if you're already an Apocalypse Parenting fan, you'd probably enjoy reading it between books 3 & 4 of the main series.

You can also sign up for my mailing list to receive a free 15,000-word short story set in the Apocalypse Parenting universe.

Chapter 1 - What is going on?!

A note from 300YearOldMagician

This is a preview of Apocalypse Parenting: Time to Play, the first book in the Apocalypse Parenting series. It's available on Amazon now!

I was on my way to cycle the laundry into the dryer when the power went out. The lights flickered off. The whirr of the air cleaner silenced. Somewhere, an electronic beeped as it lost power.

Great, now I’d have to hang the laundry up to dry, even though everything in there would tolerate the dryer. How obnoxious. Oh, and Gavin’s gi pants were in there too, and he needed those for aikido tonight. Would they dry in time hanging up in the laundry room? I doubted it. Maybe if I hung them outside? Frowning, I pulled my phone from my back pocket to see how many hours we had before we’d have to leave.

My phone didn’t turn on. I mashed the power button several times to no avail. Maybe it was my case? I took it off to push the button directly, but it still didn’t work.

I started to feel alarmed. Had there been a major solar flare? A regular power outage wouldn’t get to a phone, and there’d been over 60% power left a few minutes before. I scooped the kids’ toy camera off the ground as I made my way to the back door. It didn’t turn on either, but that could be because they’d left it on to let the batteries drain - not uncommon. Still, that would be a lot of coincidences.

I tried to remember what I’d read about solar flares. I knew they made a big electromagnetic pulse that fried electronics, but were they instantaneous, or did it happen over a few minutes? Were there other kinds of radiation?

I opened the back door. “Kids? Come in, please. We’re going to have lunch soon.” I didn’t want to alarm them. Micah was definitely the kind of kid who would panic at the idea of a solar flare, and none of them would take the possibility that all the electronics had been fried very well. Still, better to get them inside, just in case.

Cassie was the first in the door. “I am soooo messy!” she said, the faux-concern in her voice not quite masking the delight as she dripped water onto the floor.

“I tried to tell her to stay out of the mud, but she wouldn’t listen,” Micah told me, his voice thick with disapproval. He’d never appreciated mess. Even as a baby, he’d rarely gotten more than his fingertips messy.

“Don’t worry, Mommy, I washed her off with the hose!” Gavin gave me his patented get-out-of-trouble dimpled grin framed by two thumbs up.

“How… helpful. Thank you, boys.” I rubbed my forehead, taking a deep breath. Alright. I yanked Cassie’s sopping clothes off her body and handed them to Gavin. “Can you put these in front of the washing machine for me? I have a clean load in there right now, so I’ll have to put them in later. Micah, could you help her get some dry clothes on? I need to check on something before I make lunch.”

“Yep!”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Nooooo! I will pick my own clothes!” Cassie streaked off toward her bedroom.

Micah gave me a look of dismay and I shook my head in sympathy. “Just do your best. I’ll be there to help in a minute.”

“Okay,” he said doubtfully, and turned to trudge off toward his sister’s room.

I headed the other way. I had an eReader in my room. That thing had a charge that would last over a week, and I’d just topped it up yesterday. At this point, everything could be freak accidents and weird coincidences, but if my eReader wouldn’t turn on either, something was very wrong.

It didn’t turn on.

I paused for a second.

This wasn’t good.

A major solar flare could affect a big area of the country, I thought. We could be without power for weeks. Should I just pack the kids up and drive to my parents’ house? Or my brother’s place? I’d have to find a neighbor who still had a landline so I could call first, to see if either or both were outside the impacted area. Did the Masons have a landline? I wasn’t sure. I knew Sheila Berry did, but she’d be at work right now. Her husband might be home. Still, she was only a couple minutes drive away. Probably the best bet.

I sighed. I needed more information to make plans, and I couldn’t really leave the kids alone while I went to get it. Lunch first, catastrophe later. Dragging kids around the neighborhood would be far easier if they weren’t hungry.