She did not hear the alarm. Resting stretched out on a suede love seat, in a one bed room apartment, Mary readied herself for the  nightly ritual. With a heavy blue patchwork quilt draped over and a brittle paperback book in her hand, Mary took a deep breath. The Lord only knew how right it felt, especially on a cold night like that. Every book read, she immersed herself within the fiction. Deep brown eyes scanned the words on the page consuming minute details bound within each sentence. Each page turned, blocked out reality and replaced it with the rich fictional setting.


In minutes, she was fully enveloped by the futuristic setting of her current novel. The smell of smoke, replaced by a musty odor of the future  and the sound of the sirens were non-existent. The pounding at the door went unheard as did the screams of terror emitted by the neighbors. The tragic occurrence of her reality ignored as smoke entered through the nose choking her. Flames licked her body searing flesh and muscle and embers danced throughout the room before exploding in a frenzy. All that remained was an agonizing scream heard by everyone but Mary.

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