Four strangers in a chat group have only one thing in common -- they're the sole survivors of the apocalypse. They each wake up with nothing but their few belongings, and a phone with three unknown contacts. They must brave a lonely world with strange creatures, past mistakes, and something much, much bigger than anything they've ever known. With everything gone to pieces, there's nothing left to do but try to help each other, and find out what really happened that day. And maybe wonder exactly what that means for them, because they can't keep their secrets forever... even the ones they don't know about themselves. ```` This work is a collaboration between the two of us (Tungsten and Shrike), where we each made two characters and two locations, each with their own rough sub-plots, and reveal nothing to each other until absolutely necessary. As more information comes to light, we'll be forced to work around it and guide the plots in new directions, or even reinvent them. The work is generally themed around a sci-fi post-apocalyptic setting. It starts very light on the horror, but it's tagged anyway in anticipation of what's to come. THIS IS NOT A CHATFIC. Only interludes are in this style, which make up only ~5-10% of the work. The rest is in a more conventional writing style, with a plot progression somewhat inspired by TTRPGs. This is also the first work we've ever posted publicly, anywhere. It's been a blast to write so far. We're really excited to see where it all goes, and figured someone out there might want to see what's in store too. Thank you to everyone who decided to check us out, and we hope you have as much fun reading FLARE as we did writing it! The current upload schedule will be Thursdays and Sundays at 11:00PM EDT.  -- Tungsten ```` Hey! Thanks for checking out our work. FLARE is very character driven, as you may have picked up from the description; its all about what they’re doing, how they interact with each other, and how they react to the stuff we throw at them. Two of our four leads belong to me, and the other two belong to Tungsten.  In terms of plot, the outcomes of some encounters aren’t decided by us; for a lot of things, we use dice rolls to determine whether something happens or how well an attempt at something goes. This has led to some… interesting developments that we’ve had to work with, but hey, that just adds to the fun. And since we don't know everything about each other's characters, things may not go the way either of us expect. We do have one hard limit; nobody’s being taken out of the game permanently. Our leads are here to stay, whether they like it or not. That doesn’t mean the stakes are low, however; there are things worse than death (and you’ll probably see those things at some point). I hope you have as much fun with FLARE as we did! -- Shrike