Hold the Light by Ryan Sherwood Page B

him, "I will reunite with her in Hell!"

    The surrounding mob of officers and civilians disarmed Mural and beat him into the blackness he yearned for.

PART TWO

    Randy

    Chapter 13

    Sharp sunlight pounded down on Randy's window and seeped between his eyelids. He partially awoke, but fell back down to his pillow, feeling the remnants of his illness that left him unsure of where he was. The room, or wherever he was, spun, even with his eyes closed. Randy moaned and forced his eyes open, half fearing he was dead. He felt terrible enough to be.

    His head pounded and the wan light was as bright as the sun to him. The light, seemingly noticing his condition, attempted another approach and moved through Randy's small room and onto his brothers' beds, illuminating only empty mattresses. They had to be out back, picking up the slack Randy left by getting ill. Yes, that was what happened. His bearings came back to him with a twang of guilt for not helping with the farm work. He had to help. Randy braced his weight on his teenaged knees and slowly climbed from bed and began to exit his room. With his head spinning and stomach churning, each step he forced forward became immeasurably harder to keep planted. The disorientation proved to be too much for his buckling knees and forced him to rest at the doorway between his room and the small living room. Randy waited for the pounding in his skull to subside, bracing under the whirlwind of nausea - and it felt just like a wind, like a gale, and it burrowed deep into him as a terrible omen.

    He peaked through the back window to see if there was any activity. The walls seemed to close in around him and the entire wooden shack his family called home, creaked and moaned.

    A broadcast crackled from a distant speaker. All Randy heard was "I am the lantern and you are the light." Confused even further, he took one step to investigate and stopped, deterred by his illness and the garbled halt of the broadcast. The whole family used to gather around that radio for an hour every night before mother had to get a job. Ever since then it had been silent. Something wasn't right.

    Wind rattled against the windows and Randy realized that it wasn't morning. The rays of sun were not the blinding bit of dawn, but the remnants of the day dying, which meant that his family let him miss the entire day of work. Leaves shook free and branches flapped against the windowpane at increasing speeds, and beyond, a wall of black clouds frowned down.

    Hobbling as fast as the nausea would let him, Randy passed by the dinner table to the backdoor, where he could look over the whole farm. Peaking through the plaid curtains that used to be the old tablecloth, he watched the small hills of grass bend horizontally under the wind. The vast land appeared twice as large and twice as green against the dark sky. Not a single sign of life though. Randy couldn't remember a time when this backyard didn't have some life in it - a random horse or cow, mallards creating some fuss on the pond, some stupid squirrel trying to muscle his way into the bird feeder. The only motion was created by the foreboding storm, continuing its haunting of the property.
    He hobbled onto the porch, the harsh wood on his soles and creaking under his weight, and stumbled down the stairs to the lawn. The grass was soft and kind on his bare feet and the breeze, though stiff, was a cool relief on his heated forehead.

    All the flat land was empty. Even the neighbor's lot a half-mile away was still. Randy spun around and looked at his house, lumped like driftwood in the middle of a waving green sea. This small sliver hadn't even the capacity to house his family, the little dump, but it's all about location with real estate. It, and his family, was set in the middle of the best soil in the area. The Earth was a wonderful constant, but Randy couldn't live the life of a farmer for much longer; he had to leave soon. He knew he would leave soon. He wondered how they