Fiction Survival Stories

Cat’s hacking skills weren’t enough to keep her from losing everything - her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She’s trapped and alone, but she’s survived this long, and she’s not giving up without a fight. Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged - one that’s taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity’s future.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother. But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

Whalen Vankin is the world's greatest wizard, and he has only ever personally trained two other wizards. One is Alexander Taylor, a young man who has earned a reputation as a brave adventurer, a warrior, and man of honor. The other is Jabez, Vankin's nephew and a man whose choices have led him down a different, darker path. Dark magic has covered Westland, and evil is stirring.

Having narrowly escaped a pack of vicious wolves, canine heroes Max, Rocky, and Gizmo are happy to find a moment of peace as they travel down the mighty river. Soon, the trio come across a lavish boat moored close to shore. They're wary of facing another community of dogs, but when they climb on board, they discover that things are different on this ship. These dogs aren't like the power-hungry ones they've encountered in the past. Food is plentiful and rationed fairly. Plus...they've seen humans, who Max, Rocky, and Gizmo thought had disappeared without a trace.

Hawk doesn't know her real name. She doesn't know who her family was, or where they went. The only thing she remembers is that she was told to wait on a specific street corner, at a specific time, until her parents came back for her. She stays under the radar to survive...until a destiny that's perilously close to Maximum Ride's forces her to take flight. Someone is coming for her. But it's not a rescue mission. It's an execution.

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel". They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers.

Lily, Simon, and Michael are still trapped in their Minecraft game, but with new friends and a better understanding of their arch enemy, Mr. Anarchy, they're getting closer to finding a way home. But before they can fight the evil griefer and escape the game, the friends need to replenish their resources - and that means trekking deeper into the Overworld. When their mining party is attacked and hostile mobs reveal surprising new powers, it looks like the end for the trio - and for all their friends in town.

As a lethal plague sweeps through the land, Ani Mells is shocked when she is unexpectedly captured by the governor's wardens and forced to submit to a test for the deadly Scourge. She is even more surprised when the test results come back positive, and she is sent to Attic Island, a former prison turned refuge - and quarantine colony - for the ill. The Scourge's victims, Ani now among them, can expect only to live out short, painful lives there.

Twelve-year-old Zola thinks she has the perfect life. She thinks everyone does, now that it’s 2193, and humanity has solved all its problems. Insta-Closets deliver new clothes every morning, Insta-Ovens deliver gourmet meals on demand, and virtual reality goggles let her have any adventure she wants, with friends from all over the world. Then one day Zola finds a handwritten note in her Insta-Closet: If you want to see things as they really are, come find me. What if Zola’s wrong about everything—even the year?

Join 11-year-old Josh as he leaves his affluent New Jersey home for the rural Northern California town where his mother was born and raised. Still reeling from the life-changing challenges that propelled him and his mother across the country, Josh struggles to adapt to a more rustic, down-to-earth lifestyle. Josh and his cousin Eleanor bond during an overnight camping trip. But they suddenly find themselves in the path of a fast-moving firestorm, a super-heated monster that will soon lay waste to millions of acres of wilderness.

Bick Kidd and his globe-trotting siblings Beck, Storm and Tommy may have completed their first treasure hunt after their father was lost at sea, but their kidnapped mother is still in the hands of nasty pirates. Their search for a rescue plan takes them down the Nile river in Africa, where they'll have to navigate everything from Egyptian pyramids in the desert to wet-and-wild jungles—not to mention life-threatening encounters with wilderness diseases, angry hippos and some seriously bad guys—in order to find the treasure and save the day.

A mining colony on the moon. A deadly mission. And a secret bigger than two worlds. Sixteen-year-old Crater Trueblood loves his job as a Helium-3 miner. But when he saves a fellow miner, his life changes forever. Impressed by his heroism, the owner of the mine orders Crater to undertake a dangerous mission. Crater doesn't think he can do it, but he has no choice. He must go. With the help of Maria, the mine owner's frustrating but gorgeous granddaughter, and his gillie - a sometimes insubordinate clump of slime mold cells - Crater must fight both human and subhuman enemies.

Twelve thousand years ago, they came. They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire, and created humanity and gave us rules to live by. They needed gold and they built our earliest civilizations to mine it for them. When they had what they needed, they left. But before they left, they told us someday they would come back, and when they did, a game would be played. A game that would determine our future. This is Endgame.

Having survived sinister scarecrows and the malevolent smiling man in Small Spaces, newly minted best friends Ollie, Coco, and Brian are ready to spend a relaxing winter break skiing together with their parents at Mount Hemlock Resort. But when a snowstorm sets in, causing the power to flicker out and the cold to creep closer and closer, the three are forced to settle for hot chocolate and board games by the fire. Ollie, Coco, and Brian are determined to make the best of being snowed in, but odd things keep happening.

Kira Walker has found the cure for RM, but the battle for the survival of humans and Partials is just beginning. Kira has left East Meadow in a desperate search for clues to who she is. That the Partials themselves hold the cure for RM in their blood cannot be a coincidence - it must be part of a larger plan, a plan that involves Kira, a plan that could save both races. Her companions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and former employee of ParaGen, and Samm and Heron, the Partials who betrayed her and saved her life, the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Something was coming. Arlo felt certain about that. For Arlo Finch and the Rangers of Pine Mountain Company, summer camp is more than canoeing and hiking. It's also a chance to search for ancient forest spirits and discover mysterious messages encoded in tree bark. But when Arlo and his best friends Indra and Wu stumble upon clues about the long-lost Yellow Patrol, Arlo uncovers a stunning history that leads right back to his very own family.

It was supposed to be a vacation - and a chance to get to know one another better. But when a massive storm sets in without warning, four kids are shipwrecked alone on a rocky, jungle island in the middle of the South Pacific. No adults. No instructions. Nobody to rely on but themselves. Can they make it home alive? A week ago, the biggest challenge Vanessa, Buzz, Carter, and Jane had was learning to live as a new, blended family. Now the four siblings must find a way to work together if they're going to make it off the island. But first they've got to learn to survive one another.

A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief - she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust, but no people...and no answers.

The world is different now. There are no rules, no governments, and no guarantees that you'll be saved. Rival factions have taken over, fighting each other for survival with no loyalty to anyone but their own. At 21, Hayden has taken over Blackwing and is one of the youngest leaders in the area. In protecting his camp from starvation, raids from other factions and the threat of being kidnapped, he has enough to worry about before he finds Grace. The daughter of the head of the rival camp Greystone, she is slow to trust anyone, much less the leader of those she has been trained to kill.

When 11-year-old Jack Martel crawls out of his pup tent on the first morning of his camping trip with his mom in Acadia National Park, he notices right away that something isn’t right. Where is his mom’s tent, and their rental car? And where is his mom? Any other kid might panic, might even go to the police. But Jack isn’t like other kids. And his mom isn’t like other moms. Jack knows that it’s up to him to find his mom before someone figures out what’s happened and separates them forever.