4 Weird Post-Apocalypses

[1] Psychic Apocalypse

The world is full of ideas, and with so many brains around the ideas were practically physical things. The energy produced from the multitude of human minds pressed from all sides, and with the increasing levels of intelligence and abstract thought in the world from advanced technology and longer lifespans, and with ever increasing levels of population, the world's walls began to shiver.

Then, they fell.

The great catastrophe happened at the speed of thought. It was as though everything was fine and then, in one instant, everyone just felt that something was wrong. Almost everyone started to go mad and start killing each other, destroying things. Newfound
powers were emitted by these beings. Many of these psychic beings tore themselves apart in their power, but the ones who were stable enough became the creatures we now call fiends. On top of this, locations and objects were imbued with minds of their owns; psychic residue touched everything as the static of ten-and-a-half billion minds shreds through matter with tangible force. Otherwise serene city parks can be filled with an unbearable heat just an inch above its highest blades of grass- your clothes ignite just a bit before your hair and skin. Or a parked car with perfect paint and chrome shine is liable to make anyone who touches it trapped within a time loop that drives them mad over a dozen centuries of seconds of repetition. At least that one you can see coming pretty easily- survivors know well not to judge anything by appearances.

Now, long after the sky has lost its red hue and the psychic storms have ceased, the survivors pick through the rubble. Every group carries guns and spears, but along with everybody needs at least one psychic. Carrying a conductive bit of metal piping or wearing a copper torch twisted from now dead wiring; these people are vital to avoiding the worst psychic hotspots and to press their powers to stop the more enigmatic fiends who cannot be put down with bullets and fire. While many humans exterminate these monsters relentlessly, they can never be truly free of the danger as anyone who is isolated, depressed, or goes mad in the stress of the apocalypse can and will turn into a fiend.

[2] “Fluid” Apocalypse

In the far flung future, the striving for perfect socioeconomic and biological liberty were successful. Nobody is born with a gender anymore, race has been eradicated totally. All people are now known as “Fluids”, a quasi state of permanent, near immortal adolescence before their assignment. Children are only allowed to be born in vats, which collect an assortment of randomly selected screened genetic codes to create new young. Everyone is born with random skin colors and features that make races obsolete; some may be born with rosettes of darker skin along their otherwise pale bodies. Some are born with perfectly vertical split of two distinct, pre-Fluid racial identities. Children are all raised communally and fed from a mixture of soy and pasteurized hormone packets which, later in life, can be activated with special machines to change your form. Your body is yours to sculpt; from choosing your sex with total control over your hormonal profile, to growing extra limbs or enhancing your physical and mental abilities, to even mutating your body totally into a new species- people willingly became dogs for a sense of freedom and joyful bliss.

But as time went on, the knowledge of how these machines function was lost. The hormonal cocktails that allowed people to mature and choose what they would be have long since depleted; now they must be scavenged from ancient ruins or ingested off the cuff from the various plants and animals in the world; it's hellish to digest meat or dairy in these bodies, but the plant-protein farms are all barren and the mechanical robots that once ran them are dead or aimless. You don't have much of a choice- fight with spear and sling to either hunt or protect yourself. Due to tribe having no race or gender, they instead work purely off of numbers and ideological power. The birthing pods are patrolled and young taken as soon as they are able to be raised as the perfect soldiers.

But the birthing pods are starting to lose their power sources too. The oldest genetic codes are starting to get used up, and the machines know it. The computers have been birthing strange beings; those with an 'excess' or 'recess' between their legs. They aren't fully functional in this generation, but with enough hormones it may be so- this is the final failsafe. If the “old ways of life” are not rediscovered, then our species will die.

[3] Dry Ocean Apocalypse

The oceans were dying a long time ago, but then they started to dry up. Easy desalination to create drinking water and water for crops and swimming pools meant it was essentially inexhaustible; after all, it is the ocean. But the ocean was drained dry over many decades. The sand beaches and shores became like cliffs that went down into rubble and vast desert wilderness- the salt plains stretch on so far as to be uncrossable. The planet's thermoregulation was thrown off; killing off all life in higher elevation from the constant shifts between hot and cold without water to act as the great planetary temperature stabilizer. This, in turn with the vastness of the new ocean-floor desert waste, meant that almost everyone died.

But in a few places, life survives. In the deepest part of the world; the Marianas Sea with its pitch black water is the last place on Earth where people can live. Exclusively fed from the fish and great squiding and whaling professions; the last few villages built from ancient fallen shipwreckes and coral shelves offer only the most pitiful of lighthouses to guide those plucky sailors. Only rarely does a brief, merciful rain come. But all those in the villages who collect the water silently fear their men and boys out on the ships; because the rain is when the hagfish come out.

Nobody knows quite how the creatures remain alive down there; without the immense pressure of the ocean above their habitat would be little more then a great lake. But it is not so. The deepest darkest depths of the ocean are abuzz with life, still, however glacial it may be. In recent years, the new abundance of food from both the draining oceans above and the few wars of conquest dropping dead sailors in the water has caused an explosion of life. Gulper eels big enough to swallow a man; dark black skinned sperm whales, the last of their kind, have lost their empathetic eyes and attack ships and men as though they know humans are to blame. Giant squids are the worst of all; krakens with huge eyes that stalk boats by day, and wait until the night to attack and rip sailors off the deck for lunch.

Technology has too regressed to a point where it the age of sail all over again. The last few companies of merchants of salvage and fishing industries try to ferry their goods across the tiny sea. The navies of what may now be considered nations try to protect them, and patrol the water from the great pirates of the blackest sea. Despite the metals once belonging to advanced automobiles and infrastructure of the old world; now they are warped into cannons and black powder made from the explosive remains of long since decayed algal blooms from the sands of the great wastes is used to propel shot between ships. Fights are closed with boarders; pirates and marines with sword and axe in hand to protect what little there is left to fight for.

[4] Devil's Fog Apocalypse
The Bible got it wrong. Not everything- God is real, the rapture happened, and Jesus Christ is lord of all creation. But what happens after? They didn't get that quite right. Maybe somebody translated something wrong, or people had really wrong impressions on God's plan.

See, when God left the Earth with his flock, the book of revelations didn't happen. The Apocalypse never came. No trumpets sounded. Instead, the world was filled with silence and fog. The forests grew back, the wilderness grew in, and the worshipers of Satan were left to inherit the Earth. The animals and plants have grown out all twisted- the devil's playthings. Crossbreeds and hybrids born of homosexual unions and bestiality stalk the woods, as the dark fog has replaced the rain; it is like the great flood of Noah never happened, the antediluvian times have come again. It doesn't rain anymore, unless God opens the gates again and purges the world of its sinful nature.

Almost everyone left is a sinful worshiper of Satan- they wear twigs and leaves to make grotesque masks while they prance around the woods naked, offering sacrifices and dark pacts with their dark lord. These sinners have magic; many can fly, or command the beasts, or even control the elements. These people would just be able to enjoy their sinful evil and separation from the Almighty forever- if it wasn't for the remains.

Those left behind, the virtuous, live in a world filled with sin, evil, and fear. The endless maw of the black forest around them threatens to swallow them whole. The only defense against such a constant threat are the golems. Standing on average about 20 feet in height; the golems are battle machines. Most are bipedal, and can seat one to two drivers. The golems can only be made by those who study the good book, and pray for aide against the forces of darkness. It is unknown if these prayers are being heard, or if some remaining power left in the world, or if it just the hatred that the devil has for these things is what causes them to walk. But walk they do, inscribed with the names of God from the old Jewish tales. Survivors live in tiny colonies or underground hideouts, only able to leave their places of worship in their golems- ferrying goods or hunting for food in the yet corrupted forests that was once the Garden of Eden.