Hold the Light by Ryan Sherwood

be that, with as few options as he had left, Mural stumbled across the only answer left to him.

    "To Hell with Veronica, she was probably already there with the damned demon! Well over a hundred years had passed! What a fool I have been. She has to be long dead. So what is the point? I did this for her...and without her...what is the point?"

    Unsure if he feared for his immortal shattered soul or if he just had to prepare so expertly, Mural took another thirty years, in which he felt every second, to concoct his ending. Time had very much been on his side, and as good allies always do, time and Mural worked together to compose a flawless conclusion.

    Chapter 12

    As the sun blushed and sank on a dusty evening during the worst economical crisis his country had seen, and one hundred and fifty years since he found the sword in the charred remains of his childhood home, Mural wandered out past Boston's city limits with a loaf of bread in his hand and a carnal need for closure. Just as the loaf did in front of him, the city from behind slowly disappeared from sight. The horizon held a mantle of winking stars and an invigorating new moon that sped his pace. Mural almost forgot what stars looked like; he hadn't seen their twinkle in years. The bright glow that emitted from both the city and the stars was enough to distract him from the light within. His neck remained craned skyward, remembering the city from over a hundred years ago, as he approached another town. Trees replaced the buildings and dirt roads overpowered the stone and cement in this new town he approached.

    Life felt different to Mural this rural town, more alive, though ravaged by poverty and littered with pathetic beggars in food lines.

    "They're all snakes, slithering into breadlines, waiting on their bellies, flickering their tongues out to feel for meals."

    Little makeshift huts were crowded together in the outskirts as Mural passed through, maliciously chomping his bread in front of the starved. Just like the pathetic people back home, they all huddled together for heat. He scoffed at them as the last piece of bread slid down his throat, falling past the clenching gift.

    Darkness loitered heavily as midnight drew near and he came upon what appeared to be the town's center. The scattered electric lights flickered as thunder heralded an abrupt storm, spurting down sharp rain and jagged lightning nearby. The unexpected storm caught many off guard and people scurried for shelter. Mural continued to stroll down the wide street that led to a circle of buildings. Before him a cobblestone road encircled a gazebo that gently rested in the middle of a patch of green grass, slick and matted from the rain. Men and women huddled under the gazebo's roof, sheltering their expensive clothes from the rain as the more ragged individuals made for the alleys. The well-to-do people underneath the gazebo laughed and joked with each other, blissfully touching and kissing, waving

    hellos at companions hiding under an awning in front of a nearby theatre.

    Mural relentlessly sloshed through the increasing rain that had already gathered into puddles along the cobblestone road. Trudging onto the wet grass, water logging his pants below his knees, he grew angry watching the laughing people ahead. The harder the rain fell, the more enraged Mural became and he began to pick up his pace. Surrounded by wet darkness

    Mural focused in on the brightest light he could see, which was the glow from the theater, but he had to cut through the gazebo to get there. It was no matter though, the brightness drew him in; it fed his fervor and the malicious desires that bubbled up within him. He had found his spot.

    One sybarite caught the blur of Mural speeding at them, and all the onlooker could do was utter a futile and mumbled plea as the massive body barreled towards him. The others didn't see Mural coming until he was right in the middle of the huddled mass under the gazebo. He shoved through