Hold the Light Read Online Free

sprouted along the path down the roof but she pushed the mattress down the burning tiles anyway. It softly bounced and nestled up next to her chair on the grass. She ran back to her children.

    This was the only way. She looked at the huddled ball of siblings and yearned for some assurance that this would work. God, any sign would do. The idea of tossing her children out a window was heart wrenching, but they had a better chance of survival that way. Pulling and yanking on any arm she could get a grip on, she still couldn't pry them apart. With a frantic look about the room, she gave up and instead pushed the huddle of her children across the floor to the window. She tried to pry them apart again as they cried and bellowed, but they held onto each other even tighter.

    "Just please do this for mommy! I'll give you treats!"

    A hideous screech blew fire underneath the door and into the room, consuming the dresser barricade, spreading flames out like fingers. A rush of heat singed her face. The thought of her children being taken by this death garnered her strength. A rage burned within her, stronger than the blaze growing in the room. She ripped at their limbs, prying, poking yet managed to get a hold of two arms in both her hands and yanked as hard as she could. A pop came from both of the little arms that was louder than the pops of the burning bedroom. Nathaniel screamed and Mural winced.

    She heaved Mural up from underneath his armpits and looked down to the mattress. With little hesitation, she hurled him to the padding. Relieved with the success, she reached for Nathaniel and did the same. Finally, she stretched for the last little one when a hot blast of death blew the door open, destroyed the barricade, and sprung at her with blinding speed and colors. It blasted her backwards against the windowsill squarely with her backside. Her hands gripped tightly onto the shattered glass of the broken window.

    Her youngest screamed and cried. Shedding off disorientation, their mother leaped up for her daughter when the fire came with open hands.

    Wide and hungry it charged for them both. She pushed her hands out for Becca through the thick heat. Her skin bubbled and melted the closer she came to her child. Tears filled her blinded eyes, momentarily cooling them as she stumbled into the smoke.

    She called and called, "Becca! Beccaaaaa!" But she only heard her own coughs in response. Her fingers shook with the thought of her daughter burned alive and she responded with a more fevered push forward. Out of a puff of black smoke, Becca's white lace glove meekly emerged. Her little fingers wiggled for open air, barely piercing into sight through the black, reaching for mother. They were so close, mere inches from connecting, though neither could see the other. Fumbling through the smog, in an amazing moment of luck, their fingers grazed each other. Mother held her daughter's soft clothed hand and snatched at it. Relief surged through her body.

    She had her daughter with a firm grip around the wrist. With a gulp of ashen saliva, she summoned all her strength and turned for the window.

    Then, as if sent from the depths of hell, a second blast of fire shook the room and surged bright orange flames across the entire room. The fire enveloped Becca's pallid glove in the mostunnatural orange and red living flames and set her mother's once beautiful and pristine dress on fire. She stumbled backwards, desperate to extinguish herself and fell out the window.

    Chapter 4

    Nathaniel woke hours later and shrieked from the pain pulsating in his dislocated shoulder. Mural woke to his screams. Sitting in the twilight, Nathaniel sobbed and held his left arm as Mural strolled up to him.

    "Oh God, Mural. It's broken - it hurts!"

    "Come here, its not broken. Stand up," he ordered as he nursed his own shoulder. "Father taught me this."

    Mural held the pendant limb at the shoulder as Nathaniel winced and walked him a few feet towards a tree. Mural