Desolate Horizon, The

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. The morning sun cast long shadows across the ruins of what had once been Amsterdam, its golden rays filtering through the skeletal remains of buildings that reached toward the sky like the bones of ancient giants. Maya Chen pressed her back against the crumbling brick wall of a former café, listening intently for any sound that might betray the presence of others. In this new world, other people were often more dangerous than the radiation storms that swept across the continent with increasing frequency. It had been three years since the Convergence, the catastrophic event that had simultaneously triggered nuclear disasters, climate collapse, and social breakdown across the globe. Scientists called it a cascade failure, a domino effect that had toppled civilization in a matter of months. Maya called it hell. She adjusted the respirator mask that covered the lower half of her face, a necessity in the perpetually dust-laden air. The Geiger counter clipped to her worn leather jacket clicked steadily, a metallic heartbeat that had become the soundtrack to her existence. The radiation levels here were manageable, at least for short periods, but she knew better than to linger. Maya's fingers traced the outline of the photograph in her jacket pocket, the edges worn smooth from countless moments of desperate hope. Her daughter Lila smiled back at her from the image, gap-toothed and innocent, captured in a moment before the world had ended. Before Maya had failed to protect her. The memory struck her like a physical blow. The evacuation centers had been overwhelmed, families separated in the chaos. Maya had spent precious minutes securing supplies, believing the authorities when they said children would be safe in the designated areas. When she returned, Lila was gone, swept away in a tide of panicked humanity fleeing the approaching radiation clouds.