The Lightbringer
an excerpt

The doors were worn from the mercilessness of Mother Nature and opened rather easily. Henry found he merely had to push them open. Henry entered the old cathedral. Inside, the sound of the wind murmured like a ghost, almost mocking Henry and his new found fear of the cathedral.

There was a dark aura that emanated from the walls of the cathedral, reinforcing Henry’s feeling that the building had fallen into disuse. It no longer felt like a holy place, it was dark and foreboding. The abandoned building was poorly lit and spacious, so large shadows flickered on the obsidian walls. They danced about Henry, who suddenly felt small and insignificant. Every footstep he took hauntingly echoed along the breadth of the hall. Henry suddenly had second thoughts about hiding in the cathedral as his moves would be amplified tenfold.

However, the cathedral was sufficiently large enough to give someone Henry’s size enough feasible places to hide. Henry strode across the hall, his footsteps being multiplied to the effect of a rolling thunder, slowing decaying in volume over time. Henry approached the altar. He expected to see a statue of the crucified Christ, yet in its place stood a weeping angel with decayed wings.

It was hauntingly beautiful to Henry. The angel bore a resemblance to the angel that Henry had carved into his pocket watch. For a moment Henry had forgotten about giving his pocket watch away and had his hand in his coat pocket, fishing for something that was not there. The angel’s mystifying appearance told Harry that this was no ordinary place for worship, for these walls had always contained sorrow and pain.

Henry strode past the altar, leaving the angel behind and entered the turret at the end of the cathedral. Henry looked up the turret, squinting as the light rain fell down upon his face. He could make out the clear night sky. The rain gently cascaded off Henry’s face, glistening in the moonlight. Henry face was illuminated by a beam of moonlight and in that single moment he felt providence. It was not the holy building, but the weather that told him that something greater than himself was watching him. Henry shook off the rain in an attempt to shake off the feeling but the divine presence lingered.