The Banshee

This is a story that I've been writing for … um … carry the three … well, since I came up with the idea in my last year of university. It was an assignment to write a first chapter of a novel that brought you into a place with a character, one of two (the other one is pure fan fiction that I might yet still get around to). I might have left it at that, had my instructor, Prof. Catherine Schryer, suggested that I could play off the idea of a banshee, and that it didn't need to be wholly phantom in nature.

Although a long writing process, I completed this during the COVID pandemic of 2020 (with edits in 2021). So at least one good thing came of all of that...

Warning: This story is not for children.

Joanna Maria de Leon is one of the Engineers, a group of former engineering students who built the last known pocket of survivors of the Apocalypse. Ten years after the world collapsed around them, their shelter -- the ARCH -- is also falling apart, both the physical structure, and what remains of their civility. Jo clings to hope, willing it to last long enough for their escape, but can she save everyone, let alone herself?