by Ollie Middlebrooks

Created on: July 23, 2008

"I need sanctuary."

The cry came softly, forced as it was past a raw throat and trembling lips. The words might have echoed in the otherwise cavernous cathedral but with the whole of the congregation amassed together for midnight mass, the desperate statement faded quickly under the onslaught and died.

Panic made itself known by the faint quickening of the woman's heart, the cold sweat that broke out on her forehead and lower back. She felt trapped, cornered. As if the power of the sanctuary would mean nothing unless her plea was heard. She pushed her way past the two large oaken doors that made up the entrance and began to make her way down the aisle.

She was ignored for the most part, but every now and then she would pass a pew and a curious individual would raise their heads from their bibles and pause in their recitation of the scripture.

Salin paid them no mind. Her head was lowered; chin almost touching her chest and her shoulders hunched in as if to protect herself from a blow. A lone tear escaped when she closed her eyes as she whispered under the onslaught of the faithful, "He comes, the Eater of Sin. The devil, the demon, the darkness." As she spoke, the panic that had slicked her back with sweat and pushed her heart almost to the breaking point now seemed to be clawing inside of her gut like a live thing. Her breathing quickened as she began to realize that she was almost out of time. He was here, coming for her, and she had to move.

With a strangled sob Salin broke out into a run. Now more and more churchgoers were turning not only to glance at her but to stare. She was sobbing openly when she finally had the courage to glance over her shoulder. An inky blackness was slowly seeping past the double doors of the Cathedral.

He was inside.

It was too late, much much too late.

In one last desperate attempt Salin fell to her knees, sliding a little on the smooth marble floor. Her hands came together, clenched at her chest as if in prayer. Her voice when it came this time was raw and thick with fear, tears, and a wild, almost animal like desperation to be heard.

"I SEEK SANCTUARY!"

*

Fendora Robinson sat next to her husband in the front row. The sugar free gum that she was currently plastering to the roof of her mouth with her tongue had lost its flavor a long time ago. Fendora didn't pay attention so much to the sermon as she did to the heavens. Her eyes rose as if seeking divine intervention from the sky above and her hands folded demurely in her lap. Or rather

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