Darkness encased us, dancing and swirling around in varied shades of black, as if waiting for the perfect time to strike. Invisible winds blew at our clothes violently, billowing the excess fabric back and forth. Sand flew around our faces making it hard to see our next step forward. The night lasted forever in the kingdom of darkness.   "Why must we keep going? There is nowhere for us to go!" Vernan shouted over the angry howl of the wind from the middle of the line.   Each person held onto the person in front of them so as not to get lost. When walking in darkness, it was easy to lose your footing and get lost.   "We have to keep following the light! I just know it’s leading us somewhere! We just have to keep going!" I shouted back from in front of him.   Purple lightning struck a few hundred feet in front of us, and the line straightened in the direction it struck. By this point, lightning was the only thing we had left. We’d already given up and left so much behind. Our families, our friends, our livelihoods. We had nothing else left but the light. The only true light in this dark place.   A woman and a few people in front of us fell, disrupting the flow of the line and stalling our momentum. The people in front and behind her both grabbed at her, helping her back up, and making sure she was situated before the line began to move again. The lightning flashed more intensely as if urging us to keep moving.   We’d passed through multiple villages, cities, and towns filled with people who lived in this darkness. Everyone in this line had once lived in a town like the one we were currently headed into. Living lives filled with emptying nothingness. We’d also all have seen lines like ours before going through our towns.   Dim lights from the homes shed some lighting for our feet, but we stopped relying on those lights long ago. Many people who’d once been in line with us no longer were because of those lights.   A shout from a person standing in a doorway to the left of us caught my attention. Someone was trying to break the line.   "Hey, sweetheart! How about you come and spend the night with me? I’m sure you could use a break from that long walk of yours." The woman gave a charming smile as she lifted her deep red skirt up to show a bit more of her calf.   She extended her hand up to offer it to each of us as we walked past her. Each of us knew what would become of us if we accepted her offer. I could feel Varnan’s hand grip my shoulder tightly as we walked past her, fighting his desire to stop. I reached my left hand up to grasp his hand to assure him I was with him as I gripped on tighter to the woman in front of me.   More and more people from the town began to offer us things. Encouraging us to walk away from the line, take a rest, to give in. Most towns were like this when we walked through them. They were the hardest part of this walk. Having to say no when you desire something so bad was easier in the beginning because it’s all new and fresh as to why you’re doing it. But along the way, sometimes things get muddied, and you slowly begin to forget. You start to want to forget, to do what’s easier. We learned early on that it was easier when we held onto one another as we walked. It lent strength in the moments of temptation.   "No! No! Don’t go; please, Mikel, stay. What about our children? Stay! Have faith!" The shout of Mikel’s wife from behind me sounded louder than the townspeople as she begged her husband not to give in. My heart ached for her as she pleaded for him to hold on, to keep going. To endure.   Glancing back, I watched as the tall man with brown hair broke the line to take the hand of the woman in the doorway. The woman cackled as she led him into her home, slamming the door firmly behind her. The sound of the door reminded me of a gun shooting the last bullet in its chamber. I could hear the whimpers of Mikel’s wife and children as they continued to call for him, but they never broke the line. The people in front and behind her were encouraging and consoling as we kept going.   The townspeople began to become more adamant about their offers after seeing someone break the line. Offering things more adamantly and intensely than before. But they never touched us; that was the one thing we noticed earlier on as well. So long as we didn’t break the line and reach for them, they couldn’t touch us. A saving grace in all this, honestly.   A man with a long, curled mustache and a red tie made eye contact with me before walking up. In his hand, he held bread.   "Hello, beautiful one, you seem hungry and tired. Here, I offer you some of this fresh bread and water. I know how the sand can hurt your feet after walking for so long. You could even come to stay with my wife and I? We would love to host you. Don’t worry, we will allow you to come back to the line anytime you want! Of course, we expect you to work for your food if you stay, but it’s better than this endless walk, isn’t it? Food, a job, and a warm place to lay your head. What do you say?"   He offered the bread out to me, making sure to waft it so the smell of the fresh bread lingered in the air, reminding me of its taste and how easy it’d be to have it again. We’d only had herb soups with birds recently, I missed eating bread fresh from the oven.   From the corner of my eye, I watched as another person in line in front of me walked away, stopping the line for only a moment to place the person's hand from behind him onto the person's shoulder in front of him. The line continued forward. Lighting still struck. The mustache man with the red tie still walked beside me, offering the bread and wafting the smell back and forth, so there was no way to avoid him. Trying his best to convince me to leave with him.

My hand loosened on the person in front of me. Would it be so bad? Who knew when this walk would end? I am tired, and the bread looked and smelled amazing. It’d been a long time since I’d had fresh bread and a warm bed to sleep in. Was this walk what I truly wanted? My hand slid the more I thought about the man's offer until I was not holding on anymore. I could feel the line slow down behind me as I contemplated. I was about a twitch away from taking the man's hand. He smiled as if he was charming a snake, urging me to take what I wanted.   "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!" someone shouted a few people in front of me, catching everyone off guard.   The townspeople flinched back as more and more people in line began to join in singing the song. Turning away from the townspeople to face forward, encouraging the person in front of them to do the same. Vernan’s voice sounded behind me as he once again gripped my shoulder as a way of encouraging me.   The man in the red tie and mustache scoffed and turned to walk away, but not before leaving a few words first.   "You know, I used to be just like you. I walked in a line just like yours when I was younger with my brother. He believed that there was something better out there! But I knew better! I realized that we were walking nowhere and for nothing, and so I decided to saved myself! One day you’ll realize the same thing and become just like me."   The man went to say more, but the woman in front of me, Sarah, began to sing at the top of her lungs, making it harder to hear him. She was always a no-nonsense kind of person. With a screwed face, he walked away, taking a bite of his bread as he went.   The lightening continued to strike, leading us out of the town and into what looked like a forest. My belly coiled in anticipation; this is it. We’re almost there. I could feel it. The singing continued morphing into other songs; sometimes it just became a series of groans and moans as weariness began to weigh on all of us the deeper into the forest we went. But we kept going.   Someone up ahead recommended that we set up camp for the night, but most of us disagreed. We could feel it; something was about to happen. We were almost there. We just needed to keep going.   Suddenly, the lightning bolts transformed into a glowing dove and began to circle around our line before flying to the front of the line. It fluttered around happily before flying to a wall of trees, vines, and stones. The sounds of snarling could be heard from the tree lines beside us, but we could pay it no mind as we watched as the wall cracked and began to split cleanly through the middle. Light pierced through the darkness surrounding us, and a booming voice welcomed us from beyond the walls.   "WELCOME, MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS! I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU! WELCOME INTO YOUR REST." Cheers sounded all around as we gripped onto each other tightly as we rushed through, leaving the darkness behind.   We made it. We’re home. Praise God.