Alex Buscemi

From The Past, A Vicious Maw

Flames gulped with avarice at their meal of wood and kindling. Smoke trailed into the blighted, starless night. The firelight illuminated the pages of a psychology textbook Nora had recovered from the charred bones of a university library. Miraculously, the book had hidden unscathed beneath the rubble. And when she’d found it amidst the wreck, she saw herself in the browned pages. Both of them were lone survivors in a sea of ash.