Loveday Writing

The brief of the AWC Furious Fiction – August 2026 short story competition was as follows:

• Your story had to take place during an EXTREME/UNUSUAL WEATHER EVENT.
• Your story had to include something being lifted.
• Your story had to include the words: ZERO, ZIGZAG, and ZOOM (longer variations accepted).

***

Fleeing

“The State Emergency Service (SES) has issued an immediate evacuation order for residents and businesses in Haywood’s Cliff due to dangerous and rising floodwaters. If you are in this area, you must leave immediately. It is no longer safe to stay.”

It was never safe to stay here, but now I could finally leave and disappear forever.

I’m zooming and zigzagging my way through the lanes with the urgency needed to leave a flooding town, but hopefully not so much that the police notice and pull me over. If they do, they’ll take me right back to Nick. He’s one of them. If they do pull me over, I have zero chance at freedom.

Hopefully they’ll be too busy closing off other roads to notice me in the queue of cars leaving town.

I tried to leave him many times, but he’d always suck me back in like a tornado. Usually it was emotional manipulation, other times he’d drag me back in by my hair, most recently he recruited some of his police officer friends to be on the lookout for me, telling them he was “worried about my mental health and safety”.

Hopefully those friends of his never make detective.

I could feel my anxiety starting to lift when I saw the blue sign I was looking for.

Thank you for visiting Haywood’s Cliff. Please come again.

I’ll never be coming back, and judging by the rising floodwaters, no one will for a long time.