act42side

The gun is made, days of work done. You curl up on the sofa, and shut your eyes in slumber.

You dream of when you were small, on the road to the Holy City, as mother walked and walked, with you in her arms.

Afraid to look at anything, you listen to your surroundings—hearing talk of malice in small towns, frightening roars from the forests, as well as shrieks and screams of people being killed by robbers on the barrens.

You tremble nonstop, burying your head under your mother's wings fruitlessly in an attempt to block out the sounds, until an ear-splitting gunshot sounds—soon there is only silence around you, and you begin to calm down.

You lift your head from your mother's arms, and turn one hundred-eighty degrees to see a halo, with a long gun smoking underneath it.

You realize at once, Laterano lies right up ahead.