When a deadly plague spreads like wildfire, 17-year-old Bren Watts is trapped at Ground Zero of a global pandemic. ---- Bren and his classmates are stranded in New York City, now filled with thousands of murderous infected and desperate survivors. Forced into an unlikely alliance with his school bully and former friend, Logan Hardy, the two boys must find a way back home, traversing through the ravaged landscape of the United States. With their odds stacked against them, Bren has no choice but to use the skills taught by his ex-Navy SEALs father to fight and survive. But the path ahead is bloodied and broken, and if he wants to reunite with his family, Bren must tap into his darkest heart for not only the infected are capable of hatred and violence. The Bren Watts Diaries tells a dark and gritty account of the end, all narrated in the survivor's own voice as a first-hand witness to humanity's end. The story will cover the first year of the Apocalypse, depicting the beginnings of the disease, society's war against the pandemic, and the eventual collapse of civilization. [[Current word count: 450,000 - 500,000 words]] ----- The series portrays an LGBTQ+ protagonist and numerous other characters. Violence, like any medium of zombie stories, is described in detail.

After escaping a stalled elevator into a zombie apocalypse, Emily must learn how to trust people again or risk losing everything in this terrifying world. ***** For Emily, every day of the last two years have been a blur. She keeps her head down, takes her college courses online, and only goes out to work at her mandatory internship. But all that changes on the day the office elevator breaks down, leaving her trapped when the screams begin. And when the doors finally open, revealing a dystopian world ruined by bloody teeth and disease, Emily is launched into a terrifying run for her life, caught between the strangers she's not sure she can trust and the man-eating monsters that hunger for her flesh. Now she must learn not only how to survive in this new and dangerous world, but also how to overcome her own inner demons before they cost her something more precious than her life. [[Wattys' Shortlist]] [[Promoted by AMC]] Content and/or Trigger Warning: The story contains some gore, violence, strong language, and dark themes. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]