RAY WENCK

He had a new job. He had money for the first time. He thought about buying a car. Life was looking up. Then the meteor struck. The world changed and sixteen-year-old Nino Paschal had barely learned how the world operated before having to face it on his own.

Nino didn’t come from a happy home. His mother was an addict and gone for long periods. Her new boyfriend was a drunk and abusive. Street gangs wandered his neighborhood. His future was bleak. He was determined not to let the cycle continue. To do that, he needed one thing, a job.

He stumbled on a job at a hospital, lied about his age, and with the help of a woman he met on the bus and the hospital’s desperate need of help he was hired as a transporter. He couldn’t believe his luck but needed to be careful around his mother’s boyfriend as he could smell money.

After a fight that resulted in a serious injury to the boyfriend, Nino found a secret spot in the subbasement of the hospital and took up residence. All went well until the meteor came. With chaos and panic all around him, he settled into his new home to wait it out. Years later, out of food, he had a choice die of starvation or go outside and freeze to death. He chose to face the frigid climate but what he discovered was beyond his wildest imagination.