I am not a bad person but, like others, I have made a fair few mistakes in my life. People have been hurt because of my actions. I know I can't keep running forever. Someday I will need to give myself up, to atone for my wrongdoing. But I have become accustomed to living my life on the edge - a lost soul struggling to eke out a path of survival in this hellhole in which I find myself.

By day, I sequester myself to the protective cover of the trees, lurking in the undergrowth, because I can move about more easily unnoticed. Cries of anguish spill from the mouths of the many nameless, faceless beings exchanging painful thrust and parry, just beyond the timberline. Sometimes, however, my need to seek refuge is overcome by a greater desire to be free from the invisible shackles that bind me. The sun occasionally slices through the forest canopy, shafts of filtered light thrown from the Heavens to the woodland floor. Sometimes I am brave and I sneak out into the clearing and bask in the warmth of its radiance for just a few minutes, longing for a more permanent solution to my stasis.

By night, the flashlights make their way across the barren wasteland... this place where I survive under the cover of darkness. They seek out the survivors, the ones intent on evading capture by either side, the undecided... the vulnerable... easy prey for the wolves.

There is a certain je ne sais quoi that eludes me... and I am searching for it, one day at a time. The world I live in feels foreign. There is a nothingness that consumes the scorched and bereft landscape. Devastation and death appear in abundance. The stench is unbearable. A senseless loss of life and meaning. I question whether the truth could honestly be this unwelcoming.

I look at the last tally scribbled furiously in my notebook, retrieved momentarily from inside my breast pocket. The numbers are escalating. I keep track. It's one of the things I do. I must retain a purpose. Fragmented memories burn through time. The devil lies in the detail... I am fairly certain of that. I just need to make sense of it all.

I pull out a creased and torn page and slowly unfold it taking care not to do more damage. I found it flapping in the breeze amongst the rubble one evening, a paper butterfly in the ruins, and hastily retrieved it before fleeing the onslaught. It's fragility is no match for the beauty it contains. I now keep it safely tucked between the worn pages of my thoughts. It is the only reading material available to me outside of what I have written myself. I am still not sure exactly what it all means, but I know somehow that it is important, and so I keep it safe.

---

I hear the rider before I see him. He gallops past and then, leaning into his mighty stallion, tugging gently on the reins, he rounds on himself. As he slowly approaches the thicket where I am hiding, his horse's ears prick with curiosity and uncertainty, perhaps sensing my concealed presence, mere feet from where they come to a standstill. I am quite surprised to see a living animal in these parts, let alone one so majestic in stature, regal in nature, but I have heard that a few of the soldiers have them.

Now that he is so close to me, I can see that the rider is in fact a soldier, and seemingly of high rank and nobility, for he wears a fine robe, albeit bloodied in battle, and carries a royal scepter. He dismounts and whispers something to the gentle beast. Through the tangled branches I can just make out its brilliant white mane in the halfmoon light as the stallion nuzzles his head into his master, before wandering off in obedience.

The soldier kneels down carefully, and peers through the low-hanging branches. Then he shines his torch into the undergrowth, picking out the form of my body, and scanning slowly over my entire being. I try to hug the tree to escape the beams, but my efforts are futile and what is more, I find myself instead drawn to the light.

In that moment, I find it quite beautiful, bright but not blinding; a still comfort.

I remain tentative, silent, but then something moves and grows inside of me... his voice is kind, calm. His movements slow, graceful.

Hey there

He ventures,

meet me halfway...

I know you are scared but..."the space between your heart and mind, is a space we'll fill with time". source

And then it hits me. Despite everything I have done to remain a fugitive, choosing to live my life in the shadows, unseen, unheard, somewhere on the spectrum between wrong and right, the light has still found me in the space between. The choice to surrender was never mine to make. The time had arrived.

Edging closer, he reaches out with his hand, and this time, whispers my name softly... before adding,

it is ok, you are safe with me, you can come out now. I am not here to hurt you, but to save you.

My jaw drops. I have no words. Nobody knows who I am. But here is this person, this stranger to me, calling me by my name. What does it mean? How does he know who I am? Who has sent him? My mind is racing... so many questions. Despite my confusion, for the first time in my life, I no longer want to be hiding in the shadows. I am tired of waiting. Tired of the voices within me engaged in a tug of war with my soul, merely existing in what is left of our world, and I know at that moment that it is finally safe to come out of the dark; to put my faith in this stranger who feels so very familiar to me.

I very much want to crawl out from that point of indecision and despair, to wrap my arms around him in gratitude, and to live freely in the light of day.

As I make my way, on bended knee towards the source of the beam, my heart at peace, and step out into the hallowed light dancing on the edge of the treeline, I look up into his face, and at that moment, surprising myself, I reach back, as echos of the words adorning that torn scrap of paper resound in my head:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.