Into the Light

The end

Chapter: 37

Once upon a midnight dreary...

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

One of those who have capitalized is Darius and he does not mind the attention or the money. Interviews from prison and a commuted sentence hurdle him over the mountains of anonymity and into the skies of celebrity. He was a victim and brainwashed, as he tells anyone who will listen, and talks to the press with the most sincere of tears falling on his sunken cheeks. He never hurt a soul. He was susceptible to manipulation and exploitation because of the trauma of his kidnapping, or so he tells anyone who will listen.

The talk show circuit, book deals and movie rights make him a hero, or as much as pathetic victim of circumstance can be in the teary cataract eyes of sensationalism and exploitation. He regains come credibility in academia as a book tour begins after a few more lectures and signings. Funds are needed to pay the lawyers.

A year later, summer bites down the end of spring and Darius, in his two thousand-dollar black suit, signs mounds of books at a store in Boston a few blocks from Harvard. He twirls a silver pen between his fingers. A young white man, no more than twenty, with a gray hooded sweatshirt, struts up to the desk with a book in hand. His eyes are blood shot, streaked with broken capillaries. The eyes are the window to the soul.

"Who can I sign this one to?"

"Just your signature would be great," the young man says and pulls up his sleeves to reveal tattoos.

"Fine," Darius says.

"Listen, Professor Haddad. I've been up for a week and I need your help. I can see them too. And I think they're after you."

"Who?" Darius asks and the young man turns out his hands to reveal his wrists. The stigmata wounds are tattooed in red and black.

"The Masked Ones."

Well my dirty dirty apes, it's been fun and I'm glad you stuck it out. It was an odd story but you need to be brought into the light. Time to go, and always know, I am with you.

The end is but a beginning.