It was finally over. The world had ended.

Looking around the cramped fallout shelter, your eyes came to rest on your father in the other bunk, and you guiltily remember all the times you had mocked him for buying into all this survivalist crap.

You had laughed when he had bought all that tinned food. You had laughed when he had dug that well. You had even laughed when he'd had this shelter constructed (the shelter that was now keeping you alive).

You wished you had the courage to speak up now and apologise, because he had been right all along.

It had all started months ago. At first it was just business as usual - the West had complained about suspicious troop movements, China didn't care. Things quickly escalated however, and before long your father had started taking notice as the world came ever closer to the brink of war.

That brink had finally been reached when America tried to protect its ally Taiwan from Chinese invasion. The nukes had been launched, and in a few minutes your old life ended as you, your mother and your two sisters had been dragged down into the shelter.

And here you had stayed, as the rest of the world had been turned to ash and glass in the nuclear inferno. Physically protected from the radiation, but mentally assaulted by the knowledge that your family might be part of only a very few survivors in a dead world.

As you contemplate your position, you're suddenly struck by the silence. For hours the walls had shook as warhead after warhead had pulverised the country above.

Now everything was quiet, as you sit up in the bunk you had been using and begin to look around.

Your eldest sister Tracy was on the bunk below yours. Craning your neck, you look around the cramped shelter and see Mom and your other sister Milly in the bunks opposite your own. Your father is lying on his bunk on the other side of the shelter.

Deciding that the danger was over, you swing your legs over the side of your bunk and jump down to check on your family members.