Twilight broke. Albert was jostled awake by a tugging at the shiny steel telescopic pole attached to an even shinier belt on his hip. He shot up and saw his prisoner chewing on his own beard and maneuvering a long, dull, ashen, hooked stick of a broken tree branch around Albert’s end of the pole that connected them. Albert rose and the prisoner fell back onto the ground. Albert stood over him and pressed the red button on the hilt of the pole. The murderer seized up and shook, writhing on the ground like he was having a seizure. When the current dissipated, he sat back up and stared at Albert with fire in his eyes. Albert stared back with a vacant, uncaring expression, wiggling his thumb over the button. 

His prisoner’s fire dissipated and that slight smile, sly, and maybe a little flirtatious, returned to his countenance. “Five days of walking and you’re running low on my rations,” he said. “Can’t blame a rascal for trying to cut and run.” 

“If the fugitive makes two or more attempts to escape custody during transit, Marshals are within their rights to use lethal force to subdue them, provided their remains are turned over to the Washington Burst Survivor Community Council,” Albert said.

“Who will lethally subdue me anyway,” the prisoner said, chuckling. 

Albert didn’t argue with this criminal. He reached up with his wrinkled hand and pulled on the nylon shade of his tent. It furled to the plastic rod holding it up, and revealed the gray waste of northern Ohio, painted by scattered light throwing sour pinks and deadly reds over a once-green-and-lush countryside, reduced to ash and death by a random and unpredictable cosmic event. Nothing in the sky but the bleak sun, and all that remained of the wavy midwestern meadows, bountiful corn fields, and flocculent forests were bare, stripped trees and bushes stuck in the white ground like burnt candles in a birthday cake. 

He hadn’t been this far from DC in thirty years, but he still had memories of driving I-90 with his wife and daughter, stopping at a rest stop, where his wife would delay them further by sitting on a bench and staring at the corn fields and blue skies, and singing hymns low and sweet so his heart rate would fall and the hairs on his arms would stand up. This place had changed so much. 

The whole country had changed so much. Many people died during the Burst, many right after in the ensuing breakdown. Within a couple months the cancers began to kill the bulk of the world’s population, then the starvation and suicides took their toll. Now there was no United States, nor any other country. There was nothing passing for civilization, Albert thought, except for the Washington Burst Survivor Community. They had codified laws, elected representatives, those who administered those representatives’ authority, like him, and they had order. People could get food and shelter, most of the time, without resorting to murder or cannibalism. A man could sit in his dwelling and eat dinner with his wife and daughter, without fear.

Albert had changed very much as well. Thirty years ago he was a bookkeeper, aspiring to no higher ideal than to be home for dinner with his wife and daughter. What aspirations did he need before the Burst? Justice was not a myth. They were good times because an enlightened justice was served by strong men. Now Albert had to be one of those strong men. He had to be the Council’s justice, and the Council’s justice had to extend to Chicago, where his current prisoner had murdered a Council diplomat. The farther justice traveled, the more people would believe in it. 

At nearly sixty, such a trek had made him weaker than he’d hoped. And his prisoner was correct that rations were running low. This potential failure disenchanted Albert. He’d been doing this job for years, but since the world had fallen so low, it would perhaps take men much stronger than him to elevate it back to the necessary heights. 

Albert reached into his canvas backpack and pulled out two small measuring cups, one marked “M” for Marshal and one marked “F” for fugitive. Then he pulled out a dirty glass cylinder, one quarter full of dead American cockroaches. He dumped all that remained in the cylinder into the cups. 

“Eat now,” Albert said, and placed the “F” cup in front of his prisoner. 

The prisoner stared at him. His prisoner seemed remarkably shrewd for someone who, by all witness reports, spent nearly all of his time alone. “Why?” the prisoner asked. “Fugitive rations must be administered at a minimum frequency of every forty-eight hours.” 

“But these are our last. We should take greater care.”

“It is not the practice of the Marshal service of the Washington Burst Survivor Community to ration food for fugitives to this extent, and we apologize,” Albert replied. “Your council should apologize to you as well, Albert,” the prisoner remarked. “You look worse than I.” He sipped on his roaches and chewed slowly. “In fact, unless you are completely captivated by the prospect of giving your own life for the chance to take mine, I would say your best chance at survival would be to release me from this strange contraption.” He grabbed and shook the pole lightly. 

Albert ignored his prisoner and didn’t bother to inform him that that contraption developed by the Burst Community’s engineers only detached using a special key held by an officer in DC. It could be forced open, but any human capable of producing two thousand pounds of force who didn’t die in the Burst was surely too poorly nourished to do so now. 

“Unsanctioned detours may be taken to remedy such shortages. In this case, to Cleveland, to seek arthropod colonies along Lake Erie.” 

“Ah, Cleveland. The so-called Pasture of the Bright Horses,” the prisoner replied solemnly, but mockingly so. 

“The Bright Pasture,” Albert corrected, absentmindedly. 

“Oh, well forgive me, Albert. The Bright Pasture of the Bright Horses. The only horses to survive the gamma ray burst, by coming out of that cataclysmic event feeding on their own radiation, their manes full of fire, their spirits more wild and fiercer than any animal still alive, maybe even than any that ever existed. Even more impressive are their Riders, men strong of body and of will, capable of taming such fiery beasts. Men who don’t need to eat, but when they do, they

subsist on the irradiated flesh of their own horses. Men who will save us, waiting for our resonant call for a return to order from the darkness.” 

“We need food,” Albert said. “There’s food at Lake Erie, everyone says so. Shut up.” Albert upended his cup and ingested his entire portion at once. He gagged severely as the flaky exoskeletons and slimy innards of these vermin hit the back of his throat. 

The prisoner guffawed. “You elders, living whole lives before the Burst. You still have your old weakness,” he said. “I don’t judge. I have my own. A weakness for vengeance. Look where that landed me. You’re lucky we’re still miles from the Bright Pasture. You don’t want your saviors to see you go green eating roaches. You might face culling.” 

Albert jabbed the prisoner with the pole. 

After they’d finished eating, Albert wasted no time taking down his tent, folding the nylon sheets into precise two-by-two squares, and collapsing the plastic rods into each other so they fit in one twelve-inch tube. He then slid the sheets and the tube into the proper outer compartments on his backpack. 

He had raised an objection with the Council’s subcommittee on the Marshal Service before over the fact that these materials were to be stored on the outside of the Marshals’ backpacks during transit. In a world where the ozone layer was decimated and would not replenish itself within a dozen lifetimes, shelter from UV radiation was worth more than anything that could be stored inside Alfred’s backpack. A gust of wind, a rambunctious prisoner, or a trip and fall could knock the sheets or tube out of their compartments and into a patch of irradiated sand or just a rock or stick that could tear them. Then, if Albert could find shelter, such as in a major urban ruin, the

location and quality would not be of his choosing, and therefore not ideal for security or proper rest. The subcommittee said they take the input of Marshals very seriously, and would take this into consideration. That was nearly two years ago. 

Albert pushed the yellow button on the hilt of the pole, and it extended out to 15 feet in length, hurrying the prisoner along. They walked the road to Cleveland in silence for over an hour. Silence was best, especially so near to a major urban center where the BC didn’t have jurisdiction, and in fact no one had jurisdiction, so there was no one to reason with. 

The ruins of Walmarts, Targets, gas stations, urgent care clinics, and fast food joints were more frequent now. They needed to get closer to the water to make any stop worth it. Albert’s weary mind took these landmarks as signs of success, and his left eye drooped and his right leg buckled. 

The prisoner jerked to a halt and looked back, by which time Albert was already back upright and in motion. They walked on. “Don’t you dare go into darkness on me, Albert,” the prisoner said. He was a highly expressive man, and since his hands were bound and covered, he used his neck and his head to gesticulate. “You are as much my albatross as I am yours.” After saying this, he gesticulated with his behind, shaking the pole that connected them. 

Albert kept his head on a swivel, always watching the tree line, and the exits of any structures. He swiveled it past his prisoner and saw the man sulk. 

“Your community, your life, is shrouded in rules and regimentations,” he said. “You leave no room for humanity and emotion. How can such a person be so foolish as to believe in the Bright Horses?”

“I never said I believed,” Albert replied. 

“Do you?” 

“I’ve met a lot of people who’ve seen them,” Albert said. 

“Have you!” exclaimed the prisoner, again mockingly. “Good thing you didn’t actually see them yourself. You’d have abandoned your post and become their court jester.” “You don’t know shit,” Albert wheezed with a jab. “You were born after the burst, weened on these fucking bugs. We used to eat meat, fresh vegetables. When we were strong we were really something. Why wouldn’t the Burst change the horses? Why wouldn’t these Riders exist?” Albert let out a groan under the weight of his backpack and his words. “It made sense to believe. It made sense to have hope. In my book it still does.” 

“To hope that there are mystical, powerful men, strong enough to take the reins, as it were. Strong enough to build a better world, to give you back what your pathetic bureaucracy cannot.” “You’re just a fucking kid,” Albert said. “Nothing matters to you. No code, no sense of justice. You kill and spew poison worse than the sun.” Albert saw the prisoner tense his neck and seethe. “The world doesn’t matter to you because you have no home, no community, no family. You need the Riders of the Bright Horses to be a myth. Otherwise you’d be too scared of your own fucking weakness.” 

“I had a family!” The prisoner’s voice boomed over the desolate landscape. He turned abruptly and stared daggers at Albert, his eyes as powerful as the moonlight. Albert hovered his finger over the red button. “Go on,” the prisoner continued. “Get your shocks in. Show me hope,

show me belief. Show me your justice!” He kicked at the dirt like a horse. Albert didn’t move. Not his feet, his thumb, or his eyes. 

“I had my lover. I had the woman I would lie next to under the shadows of great rocks. The woman who would shelter me when I was weak, who loved me enough to accept food when she was weak. Your men came to Chicago to talk this shit about law and order. One of them was lonely. She rebuffed him. So he broke her neck. So I killed him. Would you not do the same? What was this monster to you? A stranger. And yet you kill for him? Is that strength? Is that justice?” 

Albert fell silent and his eyes paused in their scan. They landed on a surprisingly tall and thick tree just off the road. It was decaying, but slower than the rest. It had several healthy, hearty branches whose bark looked, in the vibrant moonlight, to have the color of bark storing moisture. Albert saw a flit of a wasp’s wings landing on the largest branch. 

“What did they tell you?” his prisoner asked. “I assume you didn’t know.” 

Albert went back to scanning the area. He pushed the prisoner forward. “I don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter.” 

“It surely doesn’t,” the prisoner said. “You will try me, sentence me, and execute me, because you surely don’t have the resources to jail me like they did before the Burst. Just as I am not strong enough to resist vengeance, like you all were before the Burst.” 

Without proper rest and nutrition, the mind too fell weak to defend against invasive thoughts. Albert felt such contempt for this man. Not for the life he’d taken, but because in this moment, he’d reminded Albert of all the times he’d looked at his wife and been certain of what his

love for her had made him capable of. He didn’t want to think of his wife in the presence of this man. 

“So your man killed my family, I killed him, you kill me,” the prisoner continued. “My friends will come for you, Marshal Albert. Who will come kill my friends after that? I could find no closure, your Council provides no justice. There is no justice anymore. This is what life is now. If you have a family, or friends, when we reach DC you should prepare them for a lifetime of vengeance.” 

They took a few more steps, and perhaps out of an innate competition, not wanting this man to have the last word, Albert spoke, albeit feebly. 

“I still have hope we can make it better,” he said. 

The prisoner wouldn’t let that linger. “Oh, certainly. The Riders of your Bright Horses are probably such angels, none of them would ever take a shot at my wife!” He bellowed the last phrase as though he was shaming Albert in front of an audience. 

“Shut the fuck up!” Albert bellowed in return. 

As the last sound of the last syllable dissipated in the distance, another sound bounced back at them. They stopped dead in their tracks. A moment of adrenaline kicked in, and Albert’s senses were on high alert. There was a fifty-fifty shot it was just their own screams echoing off of the distant steel and concrete, and not something threatening. 

When he didn’t hear any other sounds, not words, not footsteps, not the flit of a wasp’s wings, for five more whole minutes, he said, “Continue in silence. Get off the main road when we can.”

Neither of them made another sound for hours as they approached Cleveland. As they made their way deep into the city and down to the shore, Albert felt that he was on high alert for no good reason. This place was so desolate. No signs of human life at all. He’d forgotten just how many people the Burst had killed. Cities became uncanny places. They inherently signified dense, bright, blazing, brilliant life, symbols of how far humanity had come, seen for miles around, but no more populated than the countryside, even despite being hotspots for arthropod colonies. Albert was reminded of what DC had looked like before the community had formed. Monuments were shelters, reminiscent of homeless encampments, or they were nothing. He felt a bit better about what they’d accomplished after seeing Cleveland. 

“Your Bright Pasture, Albert,” the prisoner said. 

The moon had reached its peak, but Cleveland was not brighter than any other moonlit metropolis. Many of its structures had crumbled into the dirt, but none had seemed to sprout a verdant pasture in their place. There was no life at all, much less great horses with blinding manes. Despite the human heart beating fifteen feet in front of him, Albert had the uncanny feeling of being completely alone in a city. 

They reached the shores of Erie without incident after several hours. Albert’s knees and ankles were sore. The sun was a couple of hours away, and the deepest cold of the night had arrived. He rubbed his arms and his chest with what little strength he had. He grabbed the hilt of the pole on his hip to steady himself, but the steel was cold, and his hand recoiled. The prisoner stopped, which he was not supposed to do with instruction, but Albert welcomed the respite.

He stared at the great lake. The moon poured down like milk and made steely honey of the wild water. Not a drop to drink, not a fish to catch, no croaking frogs or slithering snakes, no fowl silhouetted against the night sky. 

The process for gathering any extant arthropods, usually cockroaches and/or fruit flies, from areas adjacent to large bodies of water was a simple yet arduous one. Gatherers, or in this case Marshals, were to follow the shoreline, watching for any pipes or junctions still holding water, or concentrations of tree litter, such as leaves or mulch material. If they come across any of these that appeared to house nests, they sucked up what specimens they could using the glass storage cylinders’ vacuum function. 

Albert removed a cylinder from his backpack with an overtly belabored grunt. He and the night were both on their last legs. He remembered how long it could take to find food using this process, and was dispirited. He had not felt so nearly empty since the Burst. He felt as if this journey from DC to Chicago and back had filled those thirty years. He was tired of this process, tired of scouring the shore of a dead, poisoned lake for cockroaches to eat and share with a ragged stranger attached to him by some law he fought for. He was tired of not being warm, not being with his wife and daughter, of living at night and fearing the sun. He was tired of the way things were. 

After only a few minutes of scouring, his prisoner appeared to share that sentiment. The man fell to his knees in the sand, right next to a rather large irradiated patch, and then sat down. “Get up.” Albert’s voice cracked.

“I think not,” the prisoner said. “If you’re to lead me to my ultimate death, whether from starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, or execution, it might as well be here. It’s a nice spot. If your Bright Horses come along, ask them to save you.” He sighed loudly. 

The new angle of the pole pulled Albert down, and he fell to his knees. His eyelids gave way to gravity, and he noticed the sky getting brighter. His vision filled with myths. In place of an empty lake he saw one lit up with vibrant seaweed and shimmering scaly fish. In place of what was once Cleveland he beheld the Garden, all trees from palm to pine, fruits of precious pigment, and all animals, known and unknown, extant and extinct, performing a processional promenade with polite precision. He saw his wife and daughter running through streams and dancing. But they kept stopping to stare at Albert and point to the right. 

Albert opened his eyes. The colors faded except for one: red. There was a plastic trash can fifty feet in front of him on the beach, piled high with what looked like wood and bark. And leaves? He sprang up with renewed energy. He sprinted halfway there and then was tugged back by the prisoner’s stagnancy. He pressed the yellow button on the hilt of the pole, and the prisoner slid through the sand toward Albert, their distance reduced to five feet, but he never rose. Albert summoned all his remaining strength, like water from a stone. His legs felt as dead and burned as the countryside, but he pulled, never looking down at the man sliding across the sand, obstinate in his acquiescence. 

With strength of mind giving strength to his body, he made it to the trash can. It was mulch. Someone had gathered what leaves and healthy wood they could and made mulch, teaming with cockroaches and even a few ants! Albert knew there was something special about Cleveland!

“Here!” he shouted. He aimed the cylinder all around the pile and gathered as many specimens as he could as they scattered. Bits of wood and leaves got sucked up too. He didn’t care. He unscrewed the top and devoured the contents. His hunger didn’t stop him from gagging as his only chance at survival crawled across his tongue and squirmed in his esophagus. 

His prisoner appeared beside him, the very form of gaunt and haggard. Albert looked at him with a sense of shared triumph that the man did not return. He just held out his hands. Albert fed him, and he ate stoically. 

A screeching noise filled the air around them. A noise Albert had not heard since the Burst, and had heard only a handful of times before it. Metal skidding across metal, but metal made of flesh and blood. 

“What was that,” the prisoner slurred. 

Albert whispered, “A horse.” 

After a few seconds, they heard hooves on pavement, moving at a gallop. Albert closed his eyes and said a prayer. He opened them and saw a glow, its source shielded by the cracked cement sloping up toward the city. His prisoner started laughing. A low growl at first, then a heartier cackle. An absurd laugh. He’d heard the funniest joke, and he’d heard it before many times. 

The figure emerged all at once atop the cement embankment. The horse had no burning mane or glowing irradiated flesh, but Albert’s mind still worked fast enough to be astounded that such a healthy mammal was alive in this new world. A magnificent white steed, strong as any pre-Burst horse. Even its nostrils were so forceful that when it snorted its contentment, Albert felt knocked back a step.

And its Rider was no less surprising. While he didn’t resemble mythical figures like Achilles or Ajax, he had the strong physique and alert senses of a pre-Burst military leader. He’d adorned his fingers, wrists, arms, and neck in various gold rings, old Rolex watches, and gold bands and chains, all shining from the light of the burning torch he carried in his right hand. He was alert, but not frenetic. He wore a smug, collected look. 

“I’ve waited a long time for a chance at this glory,” the Rider said. He had a thick Mediterranean accent, Greek or Turkish. He rolled over his R’s and grunted his vowels like he spoke the language of human history and glory. The prisoner stopped laughing. “You are not mere vagabonds,” he stated, matter-of-factly. 

“My… my name…” Albert stuttered, hoarse. “My name, is Albert. I am a Marshal with the Washington Burst Survivor Community, and I am transporting-” 

“This gives you the right to steal from the Riders of the Bright Horses?” the Rider asked. Albert paused and looked away, shamefully. He should have realized this makeshift smorgasbord would have a vigilant owner. But his accuser was a man of justice, and Albert was on a mission of justice, so his appeal would be sound. 

“Sir, I have no excuse,” Albert said. “Like you said, we’re not just moochers or scavengers. I’m charged by my leaders with serving justice to a murderer. I hope you can understand how important it is that I keep my strength up. I hope you can show mercy.” 

The Rider casually looked from Albert to the prisoner and raised his eyebrows. “This man committed a murder? What will you do with him?” 

“He’ll be afforded a trial, and sentenced if found guilty.”

The Rider scoffed and shook his head. “Your Council is ridiculous. You travel hundreds of miles, bind this murderer to you, give him precious food and shelter, even stealing ours to do so?” The Rider dug his heels into the belly of his horse. The beast leapt down off the embankment and landed gracefully in the sand below, two or three yards from the prisoner. “Such practices would never keep your strength up,” he said. “And you ask me to show mercy for such weakness?” 

Albert looked at the prisoner. His smug, cynical scowl was evident even through his exhaustion. “Save us,” Albert whispered. Then, louder, “Save us.” The prisoner looked at him as though he was mad. Albert accepted the implicit accusation, then turned to the Rider. “We traveled the stars. Now we scrounge in the dirt. We’re not supposed to be like the roaches. I couldn’t face my wife in heaven if she knew I died without hope. We tried to build something bigger, but you’re right, we’re weak. So save us. Please.” Albert felt tears stream down his cheek. “That’s what we hear. The Riders of the Bright Horses will save us!” he shouted, accusatorily, angry at the Rider for not already turning the world to the Eden he saw in his haze and setting his wife back by his side. He looked at the prisoner. His eyes lacked their former light. He looked at Albert, and then they simultaneously lowered their heads, and it felt like solidarity to Albert. 

The Rider looked at him like an old dog needing to be put down. He and his horse exhaled, so heavy, like they were heaving fate into Lake Erie. 

“We will save you, when the time comes,” the Rider said, calmly. “But not with the creature comforts of the old world. Your hope is small. Human aspiration is forever changed. In this time of

death, glory never dies. I am equipped with the spirits of the Riders and old world warriors before me.” He brandished his torch, and the jewelry on his fingers and wrist clinked together. “You are both insufferable fools,” croaked the prisoner. He kicked the ground and sand shot up into the air. Albert saw every grain. First light had come. 

The prisoner spoke with strength he had not displayed in days, with the volume to issue his challenge to all the Riders in the Bright Pasture. “Hope is not for your aspirations, it is for sustenance. When everything around you is blackness and perdition, to persist with poetry in your heart and to push back, to lift what is too heavy, and rise, and to hold each other through the fear of a bright, full sun. This world, any world, becomes sufficient. That is hope. When we cower at dawn, we do so together. When we cheer as twilight breaks, we do that together. Humanity doesn’t need glory or godhood. You old worlders raised humanity as high as we would go, and the cosmos slapped us down. Yet we still fight?” 

Albert had served only the Council, never himself, for years, and aside from lacking physical comfort and fulfillment in dogged pursuit of justice, he had also deprived himself of emotional comfort and fulfillment. In this moment he remembered who he’d been before the Burst. He looked at the prisoner, both of them still nearing death from starvation and exhaustion, and now saw a man to whom he would’ve shown mercy and understanding, a man he would’ve been happy to have a drink with, a complex man whose mind did not offend, but rather offered harmony, despite his transgressions in this hard time. Albert thought of the faces of those he’d turned in who had not bothered to speak as much as this man. He looked at the trash can piled high, and again saw a wasp flit down and land on the nutritious bounty of reddish leaves.

The prisoner hung his head. The Rider sighed and shook his head. “Marshal Albert,” the Rider said. “I have decided I will show mercy. You may eat and be on your way. Go in peace. I will show true justice to this cynical degenerate.” 

The prisoner’s head shot up and he locked fearful eyes with Albert. The Rider kicked his horse, which reared up and neighed fiercely. The horse then turned around and the Rider drove his heels into it once more. Albert could see what was coming, and moved his thumb to the yellow button on the hilt of the telescopic pole connecting him to the prisoner just in time. As the horse’s rear legs flashed through the morning mist at the prisoner’s chest, the pole extended, and the horse’s back hooves collided not with flesh, but with the steel joint of the pole. The prisoner and Albert were both knocked on their backs from the immense force of the kick. 

When Albert picked his head up, he saw the prisoner free of their forced connection, and frozen on his feet, his eyes alone in flight, moving between Albert and the Rider. Albert scrambled to his feet with great difficulty. The Rider turned his horse back around. Albert tried to grab the pole and lift it, but the cold steel felt like dry ice on his old, withered, weak hands, and his hand recoiled from the sting. The prisoner took note of what Albert was attempting, and shouted “Here!” He darted towards the pole and kicked it up into the air, so that the end that had been attached to him soared towards the Rider. As it arced over the magnificent mane of the white steed, Albert pressed the red button. The end of the pole crackled in the morning mist and then made contact with the Rider’s immense chest. The Rider seized up and shook, and tumbled down off of his Bright Horse.

The prisoner mustered a weak smile and nodded at Albert, then ran, as fast as his legs would carry him, to the east along the shore, most likely in search of shelter and a way to free his arms from the prison Albert had set them in. Albert pressed the yellow button again and the pole retracted totally, no longer than a kaleidoscope. Not wanting to cross near the writhing Rider, he ran off south. It was really more of a trudge. His shin bones felt like they were made of old particleboard, and could crumble at any moment. 

He ran two whole blocks into what was once Downtown Cleveland. He looked back and couldn’t see the Rider chasing him, so he stumbled over a fallen wall into a nearby building. There were faded shards of glass all over the floor, a couple of tables and chairs strewn about, and behind the counter at the far end of the room were dusty ovens and toasters. Albert chuckled at the fact that he was about to die of starvation in an old sandwich shop. 

The air was thick and he struggled to breathe. He heard two or three voices shouting down by the lake. He took off his backpack and lay down. When the Rider knocked him over he must have fallen into that patch of irradiated sand, because globs of black cesium mud dripped from his rolled-up nylon tent. The nylon material deteriorated and disappeared quickly. The Council delayed in addressing his suggestion, and now the failure of his mission was truly certain. 

Rather than being disenchanted by his potential failure, he was now content with his certain failure. He didn’t know justice and strength beyond what the Council told him, but if that Rider was a man of justice and strength, Albert wanted no part of it. There was no harmony in bringing that prisoner in. There was no harmony in bringing any of them in. Just like his prisoner,

he had transgressed in these hard times. He was not himself. He was twilight rising and dawn falling. 

Still, his failure had been a success. The prisoner was free, and he was a true survivor. Albert hoped with all his heart that despite his transgressions in these hard times, he could still offer that harmony to a pained young man. 

Dawn broke. The deadly sun burst through the gray sky and filled the streets outside. Albert looked out the window and saw the sturdy brick wall of a church. How lucky he felt, to not have chosen this shelter, but to take what the city offered. 

His breath got shallow and his vision got blurry. The voices approached as he departed. He heard the church bells ringing, he heard his wife singing. He closed his eyes and stared into the blackness. 

Albert cast his heart into the past, with his wife and daughter, with good food and a peaceful life. With his last ounce of hope, he cast his mind into a future where he would stumble upon the true Bright Horses, prancing in their Bright Pasture, lit up by their fiery manes and wild spirits. The old world and the new would be set ablaze by the burning beasts of myth, and we could cast off the tired tasks of redeeming justice and serving aspirations, and persist with pleasant poetry in the paradise of a glorious dawn.