BEYOND INFERNAL: The Divine Soldiers of The Living and The Dead

1 - CLOAKS

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Pardon the grammar lapses and redundancies as I wrote each chapter as I thought of it, without copy-editing before publishing. I decided to publish it without editing because I want the story to progress as fast as it does in my mind.

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Comments, suggestions and opinions are most welcome. I will keep an open-mind to satisfy my readers. ;)

Xo, Wanderingpen

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Today is really gloomy and I don’t like gloomy day. It’s early afternoon and I feel like I’m in a 20’s movie where everything is black and white. The sun is nowhere to be seen and it makes me sad. The wind starts to blow harder, and it sends chills into my skin. I think it’s going to rain; I have to find a shed because I don’t like the idea of getting wet. I move my eyes from left to right but this place seems not familiar to me. I don’t know this old but magnificent church in front of me - I haven’t been here before. Where am I?  I felt a drop of water trickled down my nose and I look up to see where it came from, and there goes another drop into my cheek, and then another.  It’s raining. Now, I have to find a shed.

The interior of the old but magnificent church fascinates me. It looks small from the outside but surprisingly grand inside. The foyer is made entirely of pure white marble and on the two corners, just before the big open door entrance to the main church are two identical life-sized angel statues made of gold.  Both are holding a small transparent basin with water, holy water (I think).  At the upper sides of the foyer are to two large mosaic glass images of angels, the one on the left is an angel with a long brown hair, his wings spread in an upward motion, he’s holding a sword directly pointed to a defeated demon under his feet.   At the upper right is an angel, ascending mightily from a group of arms of different shapes and sizes burning in raging flame trying to reach for him, (I guess) and his right hand is raised holding a gold thunderbolt. I have read that Demons and fire symbolizes Satan.   But, Satan?...Do churches really display these kinds of symbolisms? Maybe?  I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t just observant enough to see it on the churches I’ve been to before.

The foyer alone is an extraordinary place, but there is something more fascinating than the foyer of the church. Across the big entrance where the two gold angels stand, I can see a big shiny cross in the distance. Mindlessly, I take a few steps to get closer to the shiny cross. I am a few meters away when I figured out what makes it so shiny. The cross is made up of tiny pieces of diamonds, its brightness is almost blinding, but I simply can’t take my eyes off it (I don’t know why). That’s when I heard a very loud scream; I turned to see who or what it is.

That’s when I realized that there are people standing in front of me. Below the big diamond cross are two straight lines of people facing each other about six feet apart. They are all wearing identical black cloaks, their heads bowed down and synchronously chanting in a language I couldn’t understand. Floating around them are gold candles with red candle wax dripping that forms a circular shape. But what caught my attention was the girl floating in the middle of it. She’s wearing a pure white cloak, her head bowed down and arms spread wide open. Was she the one I heard screaming? But how could that be, she looked lifeless floating in there. She wasn’t bright and shiny like the big diamond cross, but somehow I find it hard to look away. I am curious.

I took one step forward. I am halfway my second step but I stopped, the girl started to move from one side to another, like someone was pulling her hands on each side simultaneously. Her movements stopped as I halted my step.

“Who are you”, I whispered. That’s when I realize that my heart is pounding too fast, if that’s because I am scared or nervous, I don’t know. I just want to know who she is, if she’s okay, I want to see her face. I am intensely curious about what will I see.

Then her shoulders start to move, up-down, up-down, gradually moving faster, as if she was laughing and if she is, I wonder why can’t I hear it? My heart pounded harder and faster that I almost cannot hear the hard downpour outside, and somehow I am beginning to think that my heart and her shoulders are moving in rhythm.

“Who are you? I want to know. Please”, I whispered, desperately wanting to satisfy my curiosity.

Her head tilted slightly to the right side and her shoulders’ movement began to move slower. When it finally stopped, a gold candle started floating towards me and now I have my full attention to it, wondering why it is coming towards me. Mindlessly I wanted to reach for it, I am like a moth flying too close to a bulb, deep down I know it will cause me danger, but at this moment I just want to feed my inquisitive mind. I give it a go, moving my hand and extending it forward to hold the candle. When I was about to touch it, I suddenly can’t move my hand, I am frozen and I don’t know why. The candle moved closer, almost close to the edge of my nose and in a blink of my eye, the girl is now in front of me.  We are too close, too close that our noses are almost touching each other.  I see her face now, her head now up straight to face me but her eyes remained closed. My eyes got wider, in fear? In shock? I am not sure. So I whispered again.“W-who are you?”

She smirked, an evil smirk and slowly opened her eyes to look at me. She grabbed my neck and screamed

THEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

“Theaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Get up! You’re going to miss your bus!”

I got up out of bed panting and sweating really cold and woke up with goose bumps are all over me.

“Are you awake now!!!!????” I hear my mama Elena, shouting from downstairs.

“I am mama!”, I shouted back.

“Finally!”