*beams* Sorry for the belated answer, but thank you so much for the wonderful comments! I'm sorry to have given you nightmares (had a few of those myself during the writing!), but I'm thrilled that you liked the story enough to read it again anyway! I'm particularly thrilled that you liked Merlin's character, since he spent a long time refusing to talk to me! *g*

As for your question, I think most of the African continent survived, but most of the rest of the world was pretty much wiped out. Certainly North and South America seemed like the first ones to go, so I doubt there were many survivors there since they were caught by surprise. :-( But I remember reading something from the film makers saying that there might be pockets of survivors here and there, so for the purposes of this story, I'll go with that theory!

Thanks again for reading and for the great feedback! :-D