Hello fellow survivalists,

We hope everything is fine for you, it's already February, so it's time for a new update ;)

Our team is working on the Universe layout, the most complex of both books. Here are some preview from the English, work-in-progress layout:

Finally, I would like to add a short extract from the manuscript that I liked very much...

Our ruins are traps: we used to be the only ones able to manipulate them, and now, they kill us. I never thought that a dam could… overfill. With no one to open the floodgates, the water pressure could grow too strong. Moreover, this one bore a long black trail resulting from a fire, or an explosion. I didn’t think about it. Probably an ecoterrorist act from the days of the collapse. Whatever it might have been—perhaps the world’s last flier plummeting to their death on that concrete wall—the damage must have weakened the dam… and the weight of water did the rest. It had rained the night before. Not that much, not that hard. But it had rained. One time too many.
I noticed the crack, and I wondered if it had always been there. I stopped to think about it, which is probably what saved me.

Everything broke apart at once, and the water poured with a violence I could never have imagined. I leapt, I ran, I scrambled up the side of the valley, grasping at trees, bushes, rocks. I cut my hands down to the sinews on brambles, lost several nails. I saw an opening into a cave, and had to fight off the primal urge to scurry in there to huddle. I knew that if I did, I
would be dooming myself. I knew it, but my body did not believe me. I kept going. I knew that each extra foot of distance would make all the difference. Feeling the wave rush at me, I took a huge breath, closed my eyes, and was swept away from everything, from the ground, from the branches I was clinging to. The water let go of me at the bottom of the valley. I knew in advance that my bags would be torn, my clothes in tatters, and my skin deeply cut. What I didn’t expect was that I would
keep tasting dirt for several days.

There were the pilgrims. Caught by an ice storm in the middle of summer. They had been frozen as they stood, their skin black, bloated, blistered. In walking order, all in a row. I don’t know whether they had obstinately decided to keep going in the hope of making it through the hurricane, or whether they had just chosen to accept their fate. Seeing them, I remembered frozen mammoths with mouths still full of grass. One of the men had a dandelion between his lips. The flower was yellow, the only bright spot on all this cold-cooked meat. I had faced an echo of this tempest in the form of a formidable, violent hailstorm. It had been three days prio. The sun had returned, beating down on the pilgrims and thawing pieces of them: their hands, their skulls, their shoulders. Bones were poking through, white, gnawed, scratched. It was the rats. They had come to drink, enjoying the fresh sustenance.

After reading this part, I bet you're now inspired to build your shelter right now... isn't it? 



Here's the updated production planning:

Thanks again for your support, see you next month, survivors, and be careful of vermin, big, small or human!

— Vincent, Batro and the whole Vermin 2047 team