CINDERFALL: THE STRAIT

When nuclear war erases the Northern Hemisphere in a matter of hours, the most remote country on Earth becomes the last viable nation. Survivors from every continent begin the desperate journey south — across irradiated oceans, through pirate-infested waters, and into a land that never asked to carry the weight of the world.

Maria Santos, a Filipino nurse stranded on Palawan, boards a cargo ship bound for New Zealand with hundreds of strangers and one impossible task: keep them alive. From Shanghai to Sydney, Tokyo to Lagos, thirteen cities experience the same terrible morning — and the handful who escape must cross the deadliest ocean on Earth to reach the only shore still standing.

But New Zealand is fracturing. The Cook Strait — the turbulent 22-kilometre channel between the North and South Islands — becomes more than geography. It becomes a border between two visions of survival: one that opens its arms, and one that closes its doors.

As refugees flood the North Island and the South retreats behind quotas and patrols, families are torn apart, alliances are tested, and ordinary people are forced to answer an extraordinary question:

When you're the last safe place on Earth, what do you owe to everyone else?