The Disciple

  Samuel lifted the axe above his head and let it drop, crashing upon the small chunk of wood he had positioned on the chopping block. The wood splintered in two pieces and fell to the ground as the axe sliced through it. Samuel pried the axe from the tree stump, leaned over and grabbed another piece of wood from the large pile next to him. 

     Sweat accumulated in beads on his forehead, dripping in streams down the side of his face. He used the sleeve of his flannel jacket to wipe what he could away. Samuel sat the ill-fated block down where the other had been and readied the axe for another clean swipe. The clearing he was in, what him and his father called the “Ready Place”, basically because that was where they spent most of every day getting ready for winter, was always strangely quiet. There were no sounds to be heard deep within the expanses of forest to both sides of the valley. His father had made it this way, so that they would be able to hear anybody who trespassed upon their land.

     He would be able to hear the steady footsteps, clumsily brushing through the leaves that accumulated in blankets on the forest floor; even their stupid breathing, the rapid inhale and exhaling noisily, like a trumpet sounding their approach. Samuel had now been able to tone his senses to tell if these men were so many miles away, if they carried guns, or if they were just hikers cutting through to find a path back to where they came. The hikers were okay, father said, but the men with guns they would find and punish. Most of the time they would only take the guns away and let them loose without their instruments to find their way back home. But there were sometimes when the men were hostile towards them, father would knife them in the back or hide in the wooded brush and slit their throats while they were sleeping.

      Samuel heard nothing now, only the quiet of the woods, the sounds of the forest breathing, the wind calmly soughing through the leaves.

      He let the axe drop like a pendulum onto the wood block with fierce accuracy. The two halves shot out in opposite directions. He thought about grabbing the gloves he had brought with him, letting the axe down and resting it on the chopping block he went to pick the brown leather gloves.

      “I don’t think so, son.” A voice came out of nowhere. Samuel shot up, already reaching for the axe before he realized that it was his father. He had somehow crept up out of the forest and was now standing only inches away from the pile of firewood, two or three feet away from where Samuel was standing.

      His father, or if he ever dared call him by his real name, Daniel Pierce. He had never gotten that name from his father himself, the utter lack of respect that came with a student like Samuel calling his master by his real name was indefinable rudeness. He had come across it accidentally while his father was in the woods hunting. Samuel had stayed home from a bit of an upset stomach, and the man had told him to stay in bed until the afternoon when he got back. The house was huge, and made noises when you stepped in certain places, so he made sure his father was deep into the woods before he made his way into the master bedroom upstairs, where his father slept. 

     The door was not locked, he opened it and the hinges made a loud squealing noise. Samuel cringed at the sound and continued. He found the papers in a drawer of his father’s study desk. One needed a key, that was the first one from the top, but he opened the second easily. He couldn’t read the typed words on any of the papers, but he could make out a name that occurred on almost all of them, in bold black lettering on the top right hand corner. He knew that was the name of his father, because he had been taught to write his own name on the right hand corner of papers just like that.

      He was proud of himself for the knowledge he had obtained, although it was wrong for him to know something and to keep it a secret from his father. It was like a little fire set into a closed space, it was his, and he loved it just as he loved the man who taught him everything he needed to know in life and beyond that.

     The man now stood, his thick wool coat bundled close to his body, his long black hair swung to and fro in the wind that steadily blew against them. His eyes, like emerald blue, like the oceans they had once talked about, piercing and cutting when they had to be, just like now. The golden cross that his father had always worn hung around his neck, swinging back and forth across his chest, it shone magically, glowing like the spirit of God that it emanated.

      He stepped slowly, but fluidly over to Samuel like he was made of water, towering over Samuel in a way that a bear standing on its hind legs would tower over its victim. 

      “What have I told you before.” His father said, it was not a question. He knew the answer, and so did Samuel, so the need for questioning was overruled by the rhetorical tone his father used often.

      Samuel hung his head. He was ashamed. 

      “Speak up, son.”

      Finally, Samuel said as if he were reading lines in a book or practicing a speech he had prepared in front of a group of people, “I mustn’t give myself to weakness, for the glory of God shall give me the strength to do whatsoever I need done,” he sniffled, a steady stream of tears cascading down his face, “ and I shall always do whatever I can to strengthen my body as well as my soul… and I am sorry father.”

      The man stood there for a long time, not saying a word. Finally he knelt down and picked up the gloves and thrust them forth to where they were only inches away from Samuels face. Samuel’s glistening tears intensified but his eyes remained open, because in all truth he wanted to see what his father had to teach him. 

      “Everything these gloves can do, your hands can become twice as strong and can do more. These my son are made by man,” he grabbed Samuel’s wrist with his free hand, “ this is something that was made by God to be vastly better than anything your gloves can be. Do you understand me Samuel?”

      He nodded his head twice and let it fall down to his chest in shame. The man threw the gloves on the ground and began to walk towards the shed on the other side of the clearing where they kept all of their tools and utensils. On the other side of the shed was an awning of only tin nailed down to the wooden rafters where they put the cut wood when they were done with them. Samuel watched his father open the door to the shed and enter inside it, he was afraid to move, was unsure if his father wanted him to do so. In times like these, in learning times as he had come to know them, he would always find it best to wait until the man told him to do something. A few minutes later he came out of the shed and closed the door firmly behind him, he had tucked the gold cross into his coat, where the only bit of it Samuel could see was a sliver of the chain that the coat’s collar didn’t cover up. In the man’s hand was a long piece of wood, what appeared to be a baseball bat, but was flattened at one end.

      A cold terror swept over him as he realized what was in his father’s hand. There was a fleeting thought that told him to run, but that thought only bumped up against a brick wall and he stayed still. Where would he run? There was nowhere through the woods that he could go besides back to the house. There was no place to hide. No way to escape what was about to happen. His father cleared the gap in between them faster than Samuel hoped; Samuel’s hands trembled, his chest heaved in and out with preparatory breaths, pumping his blood faster through his veins. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his body with every tumultuous breath.

      The man, who was called Daniel only by himself and a few others, stopped with only about a yard in between him and his son. He gripped the hard tempered wood, angling the flattened part to resist the wind that wouldn’t slip through the evenly spaced out holes even more so.

      Samuel breathed in and held it in his lungs.

      With one swift movement, the man swung the board upward where it met Samuel’s chin. There was a wet cracking sound and Samuel fell back a few steps but didn’t fall down. He caught himself and then his father brought the flattened part of the board back across and it smacked the side of his face. Darkness enveloped his vision, there were colors, like electricity dancing in front of him in the black void. There was a dull thud and ripping as Samuel’s cheekbone was separated from the meat of his jaw. Blood sprayed in a mist out of his mouth and nose and he fell to the ground. 

      The breath that he had kept in his lungs shot out of him in a series of violent coughs. Blood oozed from his right eye which was already beginning to swell. Samuel spat bits of bone and meaty tissue onto the dirt. He still could see nothing, nor could he hear anything except for a distant ringing. All of a sudden there was a feeling of weightlessness and he thought, I am finally dead, going to heaven, but he could feel the heavy wool of his father’s coat as he picked Samuel up and heaved him over his shoulder.

      He carried Samuel back home and laid him down on his bed. The man had taken the axe, along with the widened board which was now gleaming with Samuel’s blood and rested them both in the doorway.

      Minutes later, Samuel couldn’t tell how many minutes, just that his father had left for a little while and came back with a cup of tea and a folded piece of cloth that stank of alcohol. Samuel, barely able to move his muscles, managed to be guided upward to a seating position. The man raised the cup of steaming tea up to Samuel’s lips and tilted it just enough so that the scolding hot liquid passed his lips. 

      Samuel winced, but his father kept pouring it down until only a few drops were left in the cup. He sat it back down on the saucer he had brought it in on, and picked up the stinking cloth. When he picked it up, Samuel saw out of his diminished vision the needles and thread underneath.

      “This will only hurt for a minute.” His father said as he dabbed the cloth soaked in alcohol and brought one already threaded needle to the side of his face that resembled a slab of meat that had been puffed up with air and began suturing back the long bloody tear that traveled from the top of his forehead down to where he had been struck at the bottom of his right ear.

      Pain, worse than that of the two blows he had received by his father in the clearing, coursed through his head and traveled like electric down his neck and throbbed horridly down through his entire body. Nevertheless, Samuel understood why, he had disobeyed his father, his master, the one who cared for him more than anyone ever had. He would suffer the pain he had experienced as a result of two times a day in exchange for the shame he had within him because of what he did.

      He wanted to say that he was sorry, but he was unable to, his lips had swollen to the point where he couldn’t even breathe out through his mouth, and only whispering breaths through his nostrils. 

      When the sowing was done, his father said nothing as he picked up the plate that was now filled with blood and left the room. With an excruciating amount of effort, Samuel was able to lay down on his back on the bed. Only a moment passed and he was asleep. His last thought being of pain before he drifted off. 



      He woke a little after seven the next morning. When Samuel rose from his bed, his body aching and sore all over as if the entirety of his person were covered in one gigantic bruise, there was nobody in the house. He could tell, for some reason, the vacancy as the walls had no weight to them; he knew it was weird, but that was the only way he could understand it in his mind.

      There were no memories, no recollection of the previous night. He was dead to the world. However, Samuel did remember the beating yesterday morning, and still felt the distant pang of regret, of shame. Never the gloves again, he thought as he shuffled across the room, through the open door and into the long hallway that receded into the stairs. He passed the rows and rows of pictures, some the black and white portraits of unknown family members, some were replications of famous paintings. Samuel had once inquired about some of these portraits, not remembering any of them. Daniel, his father, had responded with a grunt of disapproval and told him to worry about those people because they were in heaven, with God. There were other pictures as well, in his father’s study, but those were more recent colored photographs. Men and women in nice clothing, some normal looking like them, but some were dark skinned and slanted narrow eyes. 

      He had not asked his father about these, mainly because he was not supposed to be in that room in the first place, but also because he didn’t want to, those people made him afraid. It was their eyes, he thought, soulless and empty.

      The stairs were not so far down, because the house was not too terribly high, not nearly as much so as it is wide. Samuel used to think so, when he was a small child. He was about twenty four now, and much of the big things that used to scare him when he was little were no longer a bother. Still, he kept a hand on the railing as he stepped down into the study. The plush carpet felt good on his feet, as he stood there in the middle of the room, staring at the thousands of books, rows and rows of shelves packed full of bound writing. He had never read any of these, of course except the Good Book, of which he had a copy of in his bedroom. The Good Book he read every night, and had read it front to back several times since he was old enough to read. He even knew that he was named after the prophet, whom had become of all the characters in all the stories his favorite because he felt closer to that one person for some reason. He thought it was because they shared the same name, but it was also the man’s demeanor and appearance that struck Samuel as oddly similar.

      There were chairs in the study, but he did not want to sit down. He had been off his feet for the past day and wanted to be up and about, regardless of how bad he hurt. From the study there were two doorways, one that went straight into the kitchen and the other, the opposite, led into the living room where he two would circle around and join. Samuel went into the living room and approached the front door.

      He stopped. There were faint voices coming from just beyond the porch, he could hear the back and forth conversation, but could make out no words. Samuel carefully slid his finger into the curtain of the window beside the door just enough so he could see through it. There they were, right there in the open, two men. One was his father, the other was a man he had never seen before. Occasionally they would have visitors, often times they were unwelcome and they would have to force them away. But some, however, were friends of his father, who came by sometimes to talk, although Samuel was never allowed to be seen by these people, Daniel strictly forbade him to do so. He watched and tried to hear the muffled conversation without much success.

      The man wore a tan suit and matching slacks, the white shirt underneath was unbuttoned at the neck and a gold chain hung unmoving against the man’s exposed chest. He had short, styled, black hair and sharp facial features that were so defined you could probably used his chin as a blade. His eyes. His eyes were the same as those in the photographs. Samuel shuddered. He knew he needed to stop, to step back and return to his bedroom and pretend like he were sleeping.

      But something made him stay. He did not move, perhaps out of mere curiosity, perhaps he was too afraid to let go of the curtain, that it would fall to quickly and they would see. Daniel wouldn’t have cared if Samuel watched, as long as the man did not know he was there. As long as Samuel did not exist, that was what his father had said.

      They nodded heads in agreement to something. The stranger held out his hand, thrusting it out like he were shoving out a sword to stab Daniel with. His father took the other man’s hand and they gave one good shake. Just like that the man was walking away. As soon as his back was turned, Samuel retreated into the other room and up the stairs. He got to the top and was almost in the hallway when he heard his father’s voice booming from the doorway. 

      “Samuel, come down here!” he said.

      Hesitating, Samuel did what his father asked him to do. He did not want to be beaten again, didn’t think he would be able to stand another one. When he made it downstairs, Daniel was in the study, standing with his arms crossed in the middle of the room.

      “I have to talk to you about something.”

      Terror struck Samuel, like a million icicles piercing his entire body. He couldn’t help it, but he was shaking tremendously.

      Daniel gave him a look of disgust, laced with only a minute amount of love. His father demanded love towards him, making the same sort of compassion to Samuel unnecessary. He was his father, Samuel knew, so that meant he would never do anything to hurt him. Samuel trusted the man, with his entire soul.

      “Sit down, please,” He said.

      Samuel gave him one quick nod and sat on one of the leather recliners. Daniel sat down on one facing his son.

      “First of all, I know you were watching me and that man outside. I won’t lie, I don’t blame you for being curious. And I know you’re wondering who he is. That I cannot tell you, and I’m afraid you will never know. We all have a purpose on this earth, Samuel, and sometimes that purpose is make yourself happy, sometimes it is to make others happy and safe. Sometimes though, your purpose as set out by God is to protect others from getting hurt. To sacrifice yourself as Christ sacrificed himself to save our sins.”

      Samuel listened with the intent of a student given a lecture, mentally taking notes on everything his father said. He made no sound, not even the slightest movement.

      “I have raised you to be trusting, to be understanding, and to be a servant of God and Christ, who are one in the same. There are bad people, Samuel, bad people that want to hurt the lives of other’s that follow in the footsteps of Christ. These people want not only to hurt us, but they want to destroy our religion, our faith. I’m telling you this now, because I believe you are old enough to understand the implications of this, and that you are ready to step up to the task of reclaiming God’s glory.”

      Silence, for a long time there were no sounds. To Samuel, who digested his fathers words, soaked every letter he spoke like a sponge, everything was still and took on an odd distant quality. He didn’t know what to think. Samuel’s life was to serve God, and his father, to do whatever his father told him to do because he knew it was God’s will. Samuel, the curled up boy, sheltered from the world, kept from learning some things, but taught others in replace, was not in the least bit stupid. He knew what his father meant when he spoke of sacrifice. He knew that Christ had sacrificed himself to save all others after him, and it was the greatest thing he had ever done. But there was something in the back of his mind, in that dark narrow corridor, the recess not often explored that offered a small amount of self thinking, that told him to run away. It was specific, that voice, telling him to run, to pack up everything he had close to him and go as far away as possible. But there was nothing he could do, the other part of him, the part that had been conditioned so much overwhelmed the sense of self. I did not matter now, it was only he and him that constructed Samuel, the name that he had understood to be. He did not create himself, so he was not free to control what became of his life, that was up to God and his father.

      “Do you understand, Samuel?”

      For the first time in days (weeks?) Samuel said with a hoarse and sore throat, “Yes. Father. I understand.”

      Daniel smiled, although Samuel knew the smile meant nothing, “I’m going to get you some water. I want you to go and retrieve your Bible from your room and come back here and read Revelations to me.

      “Yes. Sir.” Samuel said vacantly. 

      “Good.”

      Samuel went to get his bible, it was lying on the nightstand next to his bed. He wanted to sleep, but knew he wouldn’t be able to even if he tried. After he came back to where he was sitting before in the study, he opened the last book of the holy scripture and began recounting it word after word in a dry monotone. The book was full of odd visions, and beasts and dragons, scary things that would give him nightmares sometimes. His father told him before that the beasts were real and would come up from the sea and from the earth and ravage mankind for a thousand years. Then Jesus could come down and smite them with his horde of angels. 

      He had no reason to believe these things would not happen, because he believed the bible, and every thing it said. But there was something about all of it that seemed vaguely like a story he sometimes made up in his head, stories that were similar to his real life, but different so that he could mirror the things he dealt with in his own life, but as if it were the lives of other people with different names and faces. That was what he thought the last book was like, someone trying to tell a story, but in a way as so that only he and some people would understand. It was a secret, like the fact that he knew his fathers name, that it felt good to him, but didn’t want him or anyone to know of the secret.

      That night he lay in bed watching the stars from the window. He normally kept the curtain closed, but tonight he wanted to dream of good things. Samuel didn’t want to think of what his purpose was, or how glorious it was that he had been picked to carry out God’s will. That night he prayed, not as he usually did, but while laying atop the covers, staring at the black canopy riddled with thousands of blazing lights. 

      He was taken somewhere, although where he was not sure. It was a place where nothing mattered, where he was small and large at the same time, where he resided among the stars. This was a safe place, away from purpose and meaning.

      If his father wanted him to do something for God’s followers, he would do so. If God wanted him to do it, he would without a thought about it.

      He would die, if chosen.



      The next morning, Samuel rose out of bed. His bones ached a little less and it was considerably easier to carry himself down the steps to the kitchen where he found his father frying up eggs and sausage on the large cast iron skillet. Samuel couldn’t remember the last time his father had done this, fix breakfast for the both of them. Usually Samuel was expected do all the minor chores as well as help with all of the major ones. He sat down with a look of astonishment on his face.

      Daniel must have seen the pure perplexity, because he craned his neck towards Samuel, when he pretended to only now notice his son. Samuel wasn’t ignorant to the fact that his father was much more perceptive, quick and with the exception of strength, his father and mentor capitalized on just about everything. He raised his eyebrows at Samuel.

      “Good morning.”

      Samuel didn’t know how to respond. There was already a plate and a fork on the table, a tall glass of milk sat near where his right hand rested. He grabbed the glass of milk and raised it up to his lips. He hadn’t had milk in what could very well have been years. Samuel let the cold, creamy, liquid run into his mouth and down his throat. He swallowed. Good. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and was glad Daniel didn’t see him do so or all of this would have been gone in an instant. Samuel tucked the sleeve with the milk on it underneath the table, letting the tablecloth cover it as soon as his father came around with the giant skillet and placed it in the middle of the table on a rounded block of wood.

      Samuel waited, not knowing what to do. When had his father been so kind to serve breakfast for the both of them? Never he had thought. His father was a good man, it was through his lessons that he taught Samuel which told him so. Stern and rough, but never bad. And yes, there were times when he thought about running away, making thorough plans on how to do so, none of them never reaching anything close to realistic. But for the most part, Samuel loved his life, and mostly loved his father.

      Daniel, not sitting down yet slid a few strips of bacon, two links of sausage and flipped two eggs on both of their plates. Samuel began eating immediately, but before he could let the bit of egg he had on his fork get to his mouth his father grunted loudly as he sat.

      “Now, you know this. I know you do.” He bowed his head. Samuel didn’t think that the day would go on like it had, with no lessons to be taught. He bowed his head, imitating what his father did, and said, “Our lord in heav’n, give us daily bread, for might we see that you gave your flesh for us. And of wine we partake, let us know that you gave your blood. For us, in Jesus Christ name, we pray, Amen.”

      He lifted his head, in time to see his father raising his. 

      Samuel waited to eat the little bit of egg he had gathered on his fork, for his father to start eating. When Daniel speared a piece of sausage and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth, Samuel followed with forking almost all of the egg into his mouth all at one time. Mostly, he kept his head down, staring at the rapidly diminishing plate. Every once in a while he could feel his father’s eyes upon him, although he did not look up to meet them. There was something about this morning, he thought to himself, something that was too good to be true for him. Sunlight spilled into the kitchen in beams past the curtains that were slightly drawn. He could see motes of dust, floating in the cascading light, like planets in the vastness of space. Daniel didn’t know that Samuel knew about planets, didn’t know half of what his son knew, or at least Samuel didn’t think he knew. There were times when Samuel thought that his father would go through his things in the room, and although the volumes of science and history books were hidden quite well, he wondered if his father knew about them. That was a scary thought. There were beatings for small things, quaint things, but for something like that, for the secrets that Samuel often shared with none but himself, there would come something much worse.

      He watched the strings and specks of dust, moving, as if moving consciously to some destination.

      His father got up abruptly, leaving only a bit of brown grease along the sides of the plate. Samuel shoveled in the rest of what was left on his plate and picked it up, along with the empty glass. He lay his father’s plate on his and brought them to the sink where he began washing them, not saying a word. He heard absently the grinding of the chair against the wood floor as his father pushed the chair back and footsteps as he walked across the room.

      “Come, Samuel. This is the first day of your new life. Your life as God’s warrior.”

      A deep sinking feeling fell into Samuel’s stomach. Today? Maybe he meant something else. Samuel knew what was inevitable, but would never be quite ready for it when it came. 

      He finished drying off the two plates and the glass and placed them in the far right cabinet, along with the other plates and glasses. After that he followed where his father had left, through the house and then out the open door. He stood on the porch, looking around, but there were no signs of his father anywhere. 

      It was a beautiful morning. One that made every single blade of grass and every color of the trees beyond scream it’s radiance. The wind blew slightly, as March month normally did, warm and inviting.

      Samuel took a deep breath and walked down the steps off of the porch and onto the grass. He closed his eyes, knowing a lesson when he felt it like a distant humming deep within himself. There were colors dancing around, like neon lights, against the shudders of his eyelids. He could still taste the milk and the eggs, intertwined with bacon on his lips, the saltiness of it causing his taste buds to intensify. It was almost like eating them all over again. Those lights, those blues and greens and bright yellows, whipping around in pencil-thin lines; they were like snakes with no heads slithering around rapidly.

      He stepped forward. He could feel the grass, and the dew that had clung to the blades, cold and wet. A line of green and blue, that ran parallel to each other ran off to the left side of the blackness. And there rose to the right a thick, bold red-dotted line streak across toward the center of his vision. At that moment he dipped his head to the side and threw his hand up to block his father’s blow, which would have met him dead center on his chin. 

      He opened his eyes just in time to see a palm crushing down on top of him. This time the punch was successful and it landed on the soft spot in between Samuel’s neck and shoulder. He crumbled to his knees. The pain was almost nonexistent. There had been too many blows like this from his father, who always applied the same amount of force to the same techniques all the time. They worked, but Samuel had learned from his father’s monotonous fighting and had been calloused to endure all of the hits he could produce. That first blow would have knocked Samuel unconscious. He thought that the second was just for being stupid enough to let Daniel get so close. 

       Samuel threw his body back and rolled to the side where he could pick himself up without losing any ground, or revealing any vitals that his father would graciously take advantage of. He scooped down low as soon as his father ran toward him, and, gaining momentum brought both his fists upward, crashing into the man’s sternum. Daniel didn’t flinch, only letting the breath that rushed out of him escape in one loud grunting exhale. He moved with Samuel’s punch, which was of such tremendous power that the energy that Samuel exerted, Daniel was able to use to his advantage. 

      Daniel flipped over Samuel, landing roughly on his feet, allowing only half a second to maintain his balance and swiped the back of Samuel’s neck with one clean, swift, action. 

      Samuel’s vision blurred, the once vibrant colors obscuring so that he couldn’t make out anything at all in any corresponding order. The bushes blended in with the grass and the sky all in one, like an abstract watercolor. Snot ran down from his nose and around his mouth. His body gave one large shudder and he collapsed face first onto a patch of dirt.

      He lay there, one thought floating through his mind. That was new. 

      “You have to learn to use your energy like it is the last bottle of water in the world and you are walking through the desert.”

      Samuel could barely hear his voice, somewhere far off in the distance behind him. He could taste dirt and sweat, could smell his own odor mixing with the earthy aroma of soil and grass.

      His father walked around him, knelt down and grabbed him by his wrist and yanked so hard Samuel thought his arm was going to pop out of socket. He managed to pick himself up with his father’s help. He didn’t bother wiping away the dirt off of his face, just stood, facing his father with a look of astonished awe. 

      Daniel sighed, “You will be leaving off in two days. We have arranged everything. I do not believe you are physically ready for what lie in the place you are going, but if everything goes well, you will not have to fight with anyone there. It will be over in a matter of hours. You will board the plane to a city called Istanbul. Don’t worry about anything, you will be escorted the entire way by someone who will claim to be your brother. You are sight seeing, taking a vacation because you have just finished college. There you will be taken in a van to a place where you will stay for the night."

      His fathers words swam past Samuel like a school of exotic fish. Istanbul. College. Planes. Everything that he was saying intertwined with everything else and none of it that Samuel could understand.

      He continued, “This is not a good town, this is a bad place and this is where you will make your stand as a warrior of God. You will pick up a package, a duffel bag, and inside it there will be a bunch of wires, and a red flashing light. This is important my son, this red flashing light will be what you know as the place where the button will be under, press the button. There will be a lot of people, but all of these are followers of the Devil, not of God.”

      The sun was now in its high place in the sky. Samuel tried to look up, but his eyes stung with sweat and all he could manage to see was his father’s figure standing before him. He heard everything that his father was saying, understood little of it, but he thought he understood enough to see the implications of the task before him.

      The chores that usually took up his day were set aside for more training. They both went inside for a quick break, where Samuel downed a glass of tea and nibbled on the sandwich he had made himself. His father came and went periodically. When he was gone, Samuel couldn’t tell if he was actually just watching him from an unseen place in the woods. Sometimes he would come back with boxes, which he would tote inside without saying a word to Samuel. He wondered what was in those boxes that were almost too big for his father to carry. 

      No sleep came to Samuel the next two nights. The day after what appeared to be his initiation into some group that his father spoke with often, they traveled into the woods; not to the clearing but to some remote place where the trees blocked out the sun overhead.

      They stood in shade, an almost palpable darkness. Samuel felt as If he could reach out and grab a bit of it and stuff it in his pockets. Silver things hung from the branches of the trees, suspended in the air a few feet above their heads, twirling and glistening in the nearly nonexistent light. The ground below his feet was soft with leaves and straw. It felt as though he were standing on a soft, feathery bed. His father paced around, walking from one end of the small clearing that was almost a meadow but dead, without life to grant it that name that would normally suggest a place beautiful and colorful. 

      “You are already gone.” His father spoke the words as if he were a different person, detached and unfeeling. The tone he used was one of an apathetic man, witnessing the death of another, but only walking by without so much as a glance in his direction.

      He continued, “Already dead. I want you to say it boy.” 

      Not Samuel, or Son, but boy is what he called him. Something struck Samuel, like a pang deep in his side, as if someone had just plowed into him from every direction. He made an effort to make it so that his father would not notice, if the person standing before him was his father at all anymore. Something was different about him, that much was sure. 

      The man pulled something out from behind him, an object that seemed just as threatening as it was strange. It shimmered like the silver disc-like objects hanging above them. Samuel had never seen anything like it in his life, but it appeared to be a small hand-held rifle. He pointed the gun at Samuel’s head. Samuel could see the barrel of the monstrous object, like staring into a pitch black tunnel. Fear gripped him, held him to where he was so he was unable to move. His practiced hands trembled slightly. His eyes were wide open, the pupils in the center of them were fully dilated, like an oculus swimming in a vast expanse of white. The man held the gun there a moment longer, he seemed to be on the verge of something, to say something, or to do something Samuel was unsure, like a thing were about to burst out of him any second. 

      Finally, he said, “Your physical training is over. I’m going to now show you how to die, while still being able to do your job.”

      What job? Samuel thought to himself. He was afraid, there was no doubt about it, although he knew that he would not be killed by this stranger before him, not yet anyways. 

      “You will be surprised how hard it will be to this thing, while you feel your life draining away from you, knowing and expecting death to come.”

      The man took one step forward. The gun was still pointed at Samuel. He did not blink, the man, nor did he seem to breathe, as he were a statue of flesh and bone. Samuel’s heart raced inside his chest, as if it were trying vigorously to escape. He took another step, his feet making no sound on the soft blanket they stood on. The man closed the distance in between them slowly, creeping toward Samuel, the gun floating in his eyes like no one were holding it, motivated and powered by its own magnificence.

      Now the gun was only about six inches away from Samuel’s face. The world slowed down around him, time becoming something nonexistent. He knew his father would not do this, but the man standing there was not his father, but someone else entirely different. Samuel felt his eyes water, stinging the bridge of his nose as he tried his hardest to hold it in.

      He pulled the trigger.

      Nothing.

      There was, in the far off of his mind, a metallic click and all at once he opened his eyes without even knowing that he had closed them in the first place. His heart thumped and jerked violently. He almost fell over, but held firmly on his feet.

      The man lowered the object and returned it to the waste band of his pants. Samuel hadn’t noticed it there before. His head swam. He felt detached from the world, as if the things around him no longer mattered.

      “Say it.” Firm. Strict. Inhuman.

      Samuel gulped, swallowing down a hard knot in his throat, “I. Am. Dead.”

      The man smiled a grim satisfactory smile. The golden cross hung unhidden atop the charcoal gray shirt he wore. 

      Faith to God, obeisance to the Lord. Samuel had always known that he was different, although he rarely had anyone around him to compare himself to, so he supposed that he differentiated himself with his father. Prayer to him was more than just prayer, it was deep and emotional. He always felt a wondrous spiritual connection between him and God. He knew there was a purpose for him somewhere on this earth, something that was different than the life he had been given. To be thrust into something that he knew to be the will of God, was both terrifying and exhilarating. He understood now, the gun that his father had, represented the fear that grew inside of him, the uncertainty of what he knew had to be done. He had conquered his test, rose above fear and shadowed over it. He would do it again, for the last time, he would prove himself worthy.



     Men came and went the last day. More than Samuel had ever seen in his life. Some of them stayed for tea, and one asked to see the boy. His father led him downstairs to meet the man who had asked for him. He was tall, bald headed and wore a black suit that was white at the collar. He shook Samuel’s hand and they sat in the living room for a while, the two of them talking and drinking their tea.

     Before the man in the suit left he shook Samuel’s hand again and wished him luck. 

     Samuel fixed dinner and washed the dishes when they were done eating. For a few hours they had no more visits. The day was growing late. Samuel could feel the light receding even though the shades were drawn and the bright artificial lights were on inside. He cleaned and swept and dusted. Things that he was used to doing, things that he had always done and were usual to him. He tried hard not to think of what would happen the next day. His father went over with him again what he should do, stressing at all the important parts. 

      After he was done with his chores, he went upstairs and took a shower. He stayed in there for a long time, letting the scolding hot water run over his body. He traced his fingers along the numerous scars on his legs and thigh. He knew this was the last day of his life, the last time he would feel water, the last night he would spend in his own bed.

      He turned the water off, stepped out of the bathtub and got dressed. Jeans and a T-shirt, which were much more comfortable than the flannel button ups his father sometimes made him wear. He wanted to be comfortable, to feel the cotton against his skin. He lay in bed, for the last time, with the curtain pulled completely away from the window.

      The stars were bright and numerous. Shining more intensely than he had ever seen them before, glaring fires in the sky.

      He felt brushed away by them, lost in the vastness of it all. He wondered what heaven was like, what it would be like to stand amongst the angels of God. Fear he supposed was something that had to be felt, to prove your worth, that if you might transcend mere thought you could achieve miraculous things. His father said these were enemies of God, and enemies of Christianity. But he wondered what they did to become enemies. Weren’t we all children of God? He wondered this as he gazed out the window. In the Good book, weren’t we all son’s and daughters of God almighty? He thought so. He didn’t know these people, didn’t know what they had done to deserve to be punished.

     He thought about this as he drifted to sleep. 




      There were strange sounds, coming from everywhere all at once. Samuel was half asleep and half awake, part of him knowing what was happening, but a sliver of his consciousness continued to dream. He dreamt of stars and birds; in one he was a bird flying amongst the stars, hopping from each one like a blue jay hopping from branch to branch. 

      He felt tugging, someone pulling him to a sitting position. There were muffled voices, incoherent and rushed. None of them were talking to him, he thought, but that was his other self his bird-self, his dream-self. Something nudged him in the shoulder and that was what woke him up fully. Samuel groggily looked around the room, nothing was the same; there were men moving back and forth in and out of the door, taking things. Men with gloves were dusting the walls and some people were even moving the bed while he was sitting on it. Nothing made sense. He looked around for his father, but he was nowhere to be seen, and he thought that he would never see him again, that this was it. That this was the end.

      His head hurt. A painful throbbing throughout his entire skull as if someone were continuously beating him with a hammer. There was the bald man. He stood out of the way from the other men mostly, sometimes giving them orders, pointing with his finger. An air of authority surrounded him, and Samuel wondered in some deep part of his mind if he were the person who was running all of this. He thought so. His eyes met Samuel’s for a brief second, they were somehow linked together in that instance as if they both shared thoughts. 

      Another shove. This time from the opposite direction, pushing him off of the bed. Samuel caught himself before he could fall, wavering on one foot, trying to balance himself. All of a sudden everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, noticing for the first time that he was awake. Two men on both sides of him wrapped their arms under his and held him firm while another stranger stood in front of him, cupping his hand under Samuel’s chin as if they thought he would bite them or something. 

      Then everything went dark as a piece of black cloth covered his face. He felt more tugging and pushing, someone behind him hit his back to get him to move forward. Samuel began stepping, being guided by the two men on both sides of him. He could feel the stairs, and the carpet below. There were more voices, the house was full of people, he could tell by the cacophony of sounds and the heat of the room that emanated off of their excited bodies. His trick wouldn’t work, there were no lights to signify where everyone was. He was truly blind, seeing only darkness, but even more so, like staring into nothing itself, a place that was indefinable and nonexistent. He wanted badly to see the stars again, one last time. That was the only thing he thought about, the way they hung motionless in the sky, unaware of anything happening below. He wanted to be like that, and in some ways he was, unknowing, ignorant of things going on, being pushed and shoved somewhere he knew nothing about. Then there was cool air, night air, and he knew they were outside now. They kept moving, not stopping for anything and in no time at all he was pushed inside something. He heard a door shut beside him, and an unbearably loud noise somewhere ahead. He was sitting on a soft chair of some sort, leather he could definitely tell, and a stench of smoke lingering in the air. Someone was sitting beside him, he could feel the man’s heat, and the smell of sweat wafting off of him.

      He felt movement under him, and realized that he was in some sort of wagon. A car, that’s what it is, he thought, he was in a car. There was silence for a long time; no one spoke, and the only noise was the horrible sound coming from the car that was so loud he felt he would cover his ears If he was able to.

      After a while he finally heard the noise stop and the sickening movement underneath him stopped and he heard the door open. There was a rush of cool air and he was pulled out of the car by the arm. He fumbled out, hitting his head on the roof. Someone, whom firmly held him by the wrist was guiding him somewhere. Their footsteps on what felt like tile echoed throughout the place they were in now (sometime when he was still in the house someone had slipped his shoes on him, he was still wearing the clothes he had on the day before so they didn’t have to worry about that part).

      He smelled water and didn’t know why. They walked quickly, up and down steps, turning every once in a while. He was led into a room and a door slammed behind him. The black covering was taken off, the darkness going away like night transitioning into day at the blink of an eye.

      The brightness stung, and for a few seconds he was unable to open his eyes. He squinted, barely making out the shapes of four men standing in front of him. Whoever had been guiding him had let go of his wrist, of which a soft pain was now coursing through. No one spoke, and nothing happened until Samuel was able to open his eyes fully. There was another door to his right, it was white just like the rest of the room, matching the walls around it so the only way he could actually tell it was a door was from the silver door handle in the middle. 

      “We cannot go with you any further, Samuel.” One of the men spoke.

      It was no one he had ever seen in his life, not the bald man nor was it his father, neither of whom he thought he would ever see again. This man was tall with an untidy tuft of brown hair on top of his head. He had a large forehead and eyes that were spread a good two inches apart on his pale, flat face. He spoke with an accent that Samuel could not place the origin of. The other two men beside him kept silent. The fourth stood beside the door with his arms folded across his chest.

      “You will board the plane. After that you will get off and take the black duffel bag at the receiving station, you will know what it is by the other bags like it.” The man stepped forward and handed Samuel a black leather book.

      “Inside that is your passport and identification. All of which you will need to board the plane and leave the airport at your destination. Inside the duffel bag of which you will get at the receiving station will be five thousand dollars and a device of which you will put on your person immediately after pick up. There will be a white van waiting for you outside, and a man to help you with the device.”

      Samuel noticed the man was wearing a suit, and a badge that said ‘North American Airlines’ near the collar. He assumed that the man worked at what he called the Airport and held a considerable amount of authority. Something about this felt sudden and wrong, he didn’t want to do it any longer. Where were the priests, he thought. If this was a mission from God, shouldn’t there be men of God here? He saw none though and he began to grow afraid.

      All of them had guns, so there was no possible way for him to escape.

      The man continued, either not noticing or pretending not to notice Samuel’s growing uncertainty, “Then the van will pull up to a motel, where you will be taken to your room. The window will overlook the plaza; that is where you will make your stand, to prove yourself of God’s glory,” the man stopped for a second, it seemed like he was studying Samuel, his eyes piercing him like two sharp daggers, “am I understood?”

      Samuel didn’t say anything, he only nodded vacantly. The other men were beginning to look anxious, their eyes kept glancing down at their wristwatches and at the metallic door. One of them leaned over and cupped his hand to the pale man’s ear and whispered something. The pale man nodded and motioned to the door, where the guy standing beside it with his arms crossed suddenly moved to open it.

      Something shoved Samuel with great force and they were moving again, that hand gripping his wrist as tightly as before. They didn’t throw that cover over his face, of which Samuel was glad of; he hated that darkness that made him feel so weak and inferior. He was now aware that his whole body felt numb, like he was detached from it somehow. It was the fear, which was so great it felt tangible enough to peel off, like an extra layer of skin covering him in a thick murky film. 

      There were people now, hundreds of them, more than Samuel had ever seen in his life. He all of a sudden felt a rush of panic strike him like an electric bolt coursing through his body. All those people moving back and forth so quickly it was nauseating. Samuel didn’t even know so many people existed; he had been living out in the woods for so long he had forgotten the smell that poured off of them, had forgotten the bad feeling that rose from their stinking flesh. He had grown to be an animal, in every sense of the word. His eyes darted back and forth rapidly, his body clenched so as not to touch any of the passers by.

      Samuel knew he hadn’t been raised out in woods all his life. He had been born outside of that; exactly where he wasn’t sure. There were flashes sometimes, of people scurrying about like they were now. Of a woman, her face distorted, but somehow delicate and beautiful amidst a sea of red hair that flowed around her like waves. He remembered this, but only as a memory, nothing so real as having ever touched this woman. He felt that he was not supposed to remember, something telling him that he was too young to have a memory of such things, but during his life all of his senses were intensified. That was why he was on this particular mission right now, whether or not it was a cause or an effect, Samuel was not sure. 

      He ducked and weaved around a humongous man with something dripping in his hand, eating it with the absence of a dog chewing on a bone for no reason other than just to chew on it, brown liquid ran down the sides of his mouth and steadily dripped to his black jacket. 

      Samuel felt he was going to be sick. The smells, they were horrific. He was glad when he was led through a gateway.

      “Ticket please.” A man with the same uniform on as the pale man, blocking his way into the gate, said.

      Samuel turned around and there was no one behind him. He fumbled for the black book which had somehow gotten into his front pants pocket. Samuel pulled it out and gave the man one of the pieces of paper that had a number in bold letters and the name of the airport on it. The man took it and ran it through a machine that made a weird chewing noise and handed it back to him with all sorts of writing on it.

      “You are seat 1.4.7. Move along please.”

      He did as the man said walking down a long corridor which turned left and then right. There was a doorway where a pretty blond girl in a strange dress greeted him and pointed the way to his seat. Samuel went straight there, trying not to look at anyone or anything around him. Everything was so insane, the world was full of mechanical devices and electric lights which were rare back at the house. He sat down on the plush seat that reminded him of the seat in the car. 

      The woman was his mother. He was almost positive about that. There was nothing that he could think of that would give him a reason why he knew, he just did. Like how the trees know how to grow and spread its seed to continue itself, without actually thinking the way humans do. When he thought of her it was like thinking about the stars. His outside shell prevented him from smiling, but deep down he felt happiness ease into a warm place inside. He wanted to know her name, but thought he would never find out. 

      Samuel was tired, but didn’t bother himself to go to sleep, nor would he be able to. Everyone had found their seats and was nestled comfortably In them. Several people were talking on devises they held up to their ears. Men in suits were pushing buttons rapidly on boxes they sat on their laps, there was a screen on top of it that showed a bunch of letters like those in a book but brighter. 

      He wanted to go home. Sweat dappled his forehead, falling down his face in beads. His hands trembled slightly. One of the girls came up and asked If he would like a towel, but he shook his head a little bit, not looking up at her. All of a sudden he felt the thing he was in, which he figured was called an Airplane, rising upward steadily. Slowly and gently he was pushed against his seat and after a while his the floor began to shake violently. He looked out the window and all he could see was sky. How amazing, he thought, he was flying in the sky. 

      The trip was a long one. He felt himself doze off a few times, but never went fully to sleep.

      After a while, the sky began to darken and the clouds disappeared, he felt the airplane descend. His stomach dropped and he heard a baby somewhere in the back crying. He closed his eyes, but opened them again quickly as he saw the electricity dart back and forth so numerous it stung his eyes. They were red and purple. Hatred and anger and lifelessness all intertwined around each other, zipping around like neon lights against the darkness. He felt it when they stopped, the entire airplane gave one last tremendous shudder and then they were motionless again. 

      With a considerable amount of effort he unbuckled the belt he had strapped around himself. He stood, wavering a bit. The trip through the air took a toll on his equilibrium, his head swam like it was full of water. 

      There was a line and he followed the person in front of him, off the plane and into another hallway. The man was tall and lean, dark skinned, he wore a tan suit, his shoes made a uniquely audible clapping noise on the tile below. He followed him until they were in a huge place, full of more people than before, all bunched together like ants. When the man came to a gigantic machine with hundreds and hundreds of bags moving along on what he thought was a conveyor belt. He read about assembly lines and conveyor belts in one of the books his father didn’t know he had. Samuel wished all of a sudden that he had one, to bring with him as something that was his own.

      He saw the black duffel bag right away. It surprised him; he thought he would have a harder time trying to find it amidst all the others. He picked it up. It was a heavy thing and he had to sling it around his shoulders to keep it from slipping from his fingers. There was a name tag on a white piece of paper attached to one of the pockets.

      “Samuel Garrison.” Was that his name, he wondered, or was it some name that was given him to prove that he was part of the place he claimed to be coming from? He wasn’t part of that other place though. Those people who stank of sweat and grime and other stuff Samuel couldn’t even imagine, they were part of that world.

      At the front of the big building were dozens of clear glass doors that people were coming in and out of. More uniformed men and women stood at tall shielded glass desks and collected information. These people looked different from the other men and women in the other place, before he got on the plane; they had a darker tone to their skin as if they worked outside a lot, their eyes were narrow and their faces broad. Samuel had never seen the look of these people before, and then he remembered the pictures, and a few of the men who had visited his father the day before. They had actually looked exactly like these people. They spoke in a strange language which Samuel couldn’t recognize at all. Some spoke like him though; he walked up to one who stood alone, a watchful gaze was upon almost everyone who passed by. The tall man had just finished talking to woman and child, she was asking where her husband had gone, trying to describe to the tall man what he looked like. Once she realized she was going to be unsuccessful, she grabbed her son by the wrist and pulled him into the busying crowd.

      “I’m sorry sir, can you tell me where the closest motel his from here.” Samuel said to the man.

      He stiffly shook his head, “Probably two or three blocks west. There are a lot of places that way.” The man turned sideways, signifying that their conversation was over. Samuel decided not to press him, he was a guard of some sort and was to be respected, so he most likely had other more important things to do.

      Without anything to lose, Samuel started for the doors. He could barely see outside, the dark was impenetrable to about two or three inches from the glass. No one stopped him as he passed the rows of tall booths, and he continued out through one of the doors to the far right. 

      He could see a little better. There were lights, coming from the cars that buzzed by and from the windows in the tall buildings above him, as well as from tall posts that hung over the street. These were the brightest and he had to divert his eyes to avoid being blinded by them.

      He stood there on the concrete walkway, beside the road. More of the strange looking people passed by him without a second glance. He either fit in very well here, or was just so unimportant no one bothered to notice him. Either way he didn’t care, he gripped the black bag by the handle tightly. The surly man in that room told him that everything he needed was in this bag and told him there would be a black vehicle waiting for him outside of the airport. The air was warm, comfortable, the soft wind tugging at his shirt, nudging him calmly in its direction. It felt like a warm blanket covering him. He could smell salt in the air, a sterile, kind of stale feeling hung around him that he had never felt before. 

      Then there it was, on the other side of the street, parked up against the curb. Samuel immediately stepped out onto the street, being mindful of the cars that passed. When he was clear he walked speedily over to the van. He knew nothing about these things, but saw a handle on the door near the front of the vehicle. Samuel tugged on the metal handle repeatedly and stopped, fearing that he would break it. He walked around the van, there were two big doors in the back, and as soon as he reached out to open them they opened themselves and a black figure emerged out of the darkness, grabbed him by the collar and yanked him inside.

      At first it was dark, then a light came on, glaring in his eyes. He raised a hand to block the orb of light on the ceiling. There was a man inside of the black clothing who knelt in front of him. He could see his lips and eyes in the only three openings of the mask. 

      The man didn’t speak, only zipped open Samuel’s bag and pulled something that looked like a silver box, wires hung below it like intestines. He worked quickly, attaching the silver device to Samuel’s chest and plugging in all the wires. When he was done, Samuel noticed the blinking green light near the side of the device, just like the man had said, and then he saw the black button below it. 

      The black clad stranger had then pulled a tan and green patterned jacket out of the bag and threw it around Samuel. He zipped it up harshly, hiding the device inside. Samuel could feel that they were moving again, the sickening movement underneath his feet.

      Samuel noticed that this man was not like those people at the desks, or like the security guard he had spoken to. This man’s eyes were bright green. The color around his exposed lips were pale white. He wasn’t from this place either, but he was definitely from the other. When the man fell back against the wall, sitting with his knees extended in front of him, Samuel saw a golden cross on the right side of his chest, the chain tucked into one of the numerous pockets.

      The ride was rough, the van shuddered and shook violently for a while, followed by bouts of semi-smooth terrain. It had been a day and a half since he had been taken from his bed and thrust into this. Samuel was tired; more so he was exhausted beyond what his body was able to comprehend. The only thing he knew was to keep going, despite how his muscles ached and burned, his bones felt as if they would crumble with the strain of any more movement. He tried to relax, to prepare himself for his duty, or what he thought was his duty, but every time he would try to do so the van would begin trembling again. Samuel thought about his father, about his life and what It had meant to him. He had never really thought about it before, but he supposed he was comfortable, although he had no real meaning or purpose. He thought about his dreams about the woman with the wavy red hair, wished she would arrive and save him from this awful place. Mostly he pondered the stars, how bright they were and so far away in the stillness of the night sky. 

     The van stopped. Immediately the man who sat on the floor in front of him leapt forward, pulling Samuel up. He ducked, almost hitting his head on the roof. Then the doors in the back of the van opened; cold wind blew inside, and Samuel was shoved out. They were in an alleyway of some kind, in between two large rock walls. He could see the street ahead, cars passed by with no consideration of what was going on around them. 

      Two men in strange clothing, brown and tan blankets wrapped around their bodies. One of them held a large gun, nudging it at Samuel, spitting incomprehensible words toward him. They led Samuel into a doorway and up a flight of steps. The place was dark, the only light was from a small light bulb hanging from the roof above them. 

      Samuel was pushed into another room and slammed the door. He stood there, scanning the room around him, there was a mattress laying on a small box spring, a dusty cabinet and a sink that looked as if it hadn’t been used in ages. There was a window across the room, the blinds shut. 

      There were some voices behind the door, some he could understand, but most he couldn’t. After a while he stopped listening and sat down on the mattress which was as hard as the floor itself and stained with big flowery blotches of brown and yellow.

      A bible sat on the cabinet, a purple post card inserted about midway through the pages. Samuel got up and opened it up. The post card had some writing on it. Samuel read slowly, not letting the words escape his mouth:

                     Samuel, you have done well my son. I know you are scared, and confused, but I must tell you to stay the course. This is a war we have been fighting for hundreds of years, it is God’s war. It is his will that we do this. In the morning you will get up, walk straight through the front door. There will be people, but we have arranged things so that nothing will happen to you. You will go out into the plaza, where there are more people and detonate the device. Remember, you are doing this for God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be given a special place in Heaven for your good deeds of eliminating these sinful people. Abraham would have sacrificed his own son because of the will of God, but the angels stopped him. There will be no angels, Samuel, you have been chosen to be taken up. To be a warrior of God. I love you son, and Christ be with you.

      Samuel held the post card and fell down onto the bed. Tears rolled down his cheeks. The one thing in his life that he had always wanted to do was to please his father, and he had been given a chance to do so. He lay down with the letter tucked safely inside the jacket he wore. After only a few minutes he was able to fall asleep.


      In the morning, he stood in the window, peeling open the one of the blinds with his thumb and forefinger. The room overlooked the plaza, which was of stone, surrounded by buildings and areas in front of the buildings where people stood under large cloth canopies. To Samuel it looked as if they were selling things, fruits and vegetables, various items such as rugs and pots and pans.

      The sun had just come up, he had risen out of bed without the slightest bit of trouble. It was a strange thing, but he was no longer uncomfortable. He was ready for whatever he had to do, the letter that was still tucked in between the device that was attached to his chest had convinced him so. He let the blind snap shut, the room being enveloped by gray darkness that filtered only a bit of light through the closed blinds.

      He walked back and forth, from one wall to the other, preparing himself. Physically he realized he was ready, he had been taught to control his nervous system that normally would not allow him to do what he was about to do. Mentally he was prepared, his father had made that possible for him through all the years of training. The gun had taught him not to fear death. 

      He wasn’t afraid. It was time.

      Samuel zipped the jacket up to his neck, and opened the door. To his left was a long hallway, ahead the stairs that led down to the ground level. He heard some people down there, although none spoke, just the ruffling of papers and footsteps sliding across the concrete. He walked down the steps, carefully, trying not to make any more noise than he needed to.

      When he got to the bottom, he looked around, but there was no one to be seen. There was a big hole in the wall, with a chair and a desk behind. A clock ticked monotonously from somewhere in the small room. Samuel made no noise as he walked through the front door. 

      The air was impossibly hot and dry. He could feel the sand in the wind, burning his eyes; the sand was everywhere, making everything a dull yellow color. The motel stepped out directly onto the concrete stones that were interlinked together to form a gigantic circular pattern of the plaza. He saw that this was beautiful, despite the faded color and the cracked stones. 

      There were hundreds of people, scurrying about in their multicolored robes. Some wore full black garments, like walking shadows. They did not move about like those in the airport, Samuel realized, they came and went not with the busy movements of having to be somewhere, but as if they were just walking around, going about their daily routines.

      He looked around. There was nothing about these people that seemed disgusting or evil. Maybe that was the trap, he thought, maybe that is what they would like him to think. He began walking towards the center of the plaza, where the circular stones all met. That is where all the people seemed to be standing. He saw two men yelling at each other, but their faces were not filled with anger but with joy, and after looking for a little bit longer he saw that they were not arguing amongst each other, they were merely talking happily.

      Children darted in front of him. He saw more of them playing by one of the cloth canopies. A little girl with glossy black hair and two boys who were poking each other with sticks, the girl seemed concerned that they were going to hurt each other and reached out for the sticks several times. The other group that had ran in front of him had settled down on the other side of the plaza, taking turns with a large urn of what appeared to be water.

      He reached the center of the plaza. No one made any signs of recognition toward him, although he must have stuck out among them. 

      Do it for God. Do it for your father. These words continuously played over and over again in his mind. He wiped his eyes, which were burning more than ever. The world was full of laughter and lighthearted conversation. Although he could not understand any of it, he could not make out any ill attempting tones from them. He head bounced from one end to the other, trying to decide what to do, although he thought he had made up his mind before. He looked up, the sky overhead was a deep blue, a vast inverted dome over top of all of them. 

      This place is beautiful, he thought. 

      Then at that moment, something spoke to him. There were no words, no comprehensible voice that he could hear, but something indeed did speak. He could feel it, a strong gust of wind, warm and caressing blew all around him. Something filled him, a peace that he had never felt before, encompassing everything about his body, his mind. 

      Around this white presence, there were spots of blackness, of dark so horrible he felt fearful of them. 

      Samuel looked up towards the tops of the buildings and saw in the windows something glinting in the sun. Then he saw people. They were watching him. And then that is when he noticed the guns that these people in the windows had.

      The guns were pointed toward him.

      This was not his war, not his fight. He looked frantically around for any way out, but he knew if he moved, they would fire upon him. Samuel had walked into a trap, pushed into it by people he thought were there for him, people he thought that loved him. 

      He did the only thing he could think of doing. He ripped open the jacket he was wearing, and shed it to the ground. Now people were beginning to notice him, looking and staring in his direction. The device that was attached to his chest was entirely visible. 

      He reached behind him and began tugging and pulling at the wires. He heard voices, shouts coming from the buildings around him. Some afraid, some ordering, commanding. 

      Finally he found a tab on one of the plastic pieces connecting all of the wires and pushed it. The device came apart. Samuel struggled to get it off of him.

      There was a shot, loud and piercing. He didn’t notice the bullet slicing through his side until the device was off of him and laying on the ground, like some defeated insect. From it came a loud beeping noise. Pain seared through his mid-section when another shot roared, blasting into his shoulder. This knocked him backward onto the concrete, which was now sprayed with bright red blood.

      The beeping continued. 

     He scrambled to his feet, yelling, “RUN! GO AWAY! RUN!” He kept repeating these words. But no one moved, not understanding, pinned where they were by fear. He flailed his arms wildly at them, screaming.

      Blood ran down the sides of his mouth. It was everywhere, covering him, accumulating into a pool around his feet. He staggered, still screaming at the top of his lungs at the people who did nothing but stand there. Samuel looked for the children, but they were gone. That was one good thing that he saw, the children were gone.

     There was one last beep. Then the world was full of white light. A ripping, tearing sound erupted into the air. 

     The light burned. But then was over. Samuel felt himself flying through the air, weightlessness and nothing. There were no sounds, no screams, no pain. 

     He thought of the stars. Of how God spoke to him in those last few minutes. He thought of his mother, red hair flowing around her beautiful face, and how everything sort of linked together at the end. Content, he closed his eyes one last time letting the darkness rush in.