🐍 Hell is empty

and

all the devils

are here. 🐍

--- *** ---
--- A Few Hours Later or So ---

Once you arrived on the workplace and you were almost on the verge to be fired after your manager desiderated to pay a visit to his office for an exceedingly formal and professional conversation with the escorting sequence of despondence and mild irritation, anyway you were released from your manager's office shortly afterwards.

Within your very presence slowly but surely bled into the perpetual shift in the bar with serving diligently the rich variety of ocean of clients, either satisfied or dissatisfied, you kept your work with your co-workers that were in the same shift as well.

Once the daily episode's progression was smoothly gradual and chromatically illustrating the rich nuances embellishing of the daylight, suddenly for your surprise one of the recent customers was nobody else than a priest.

The devotional clergyman's physique differed from Timothy that was dully apparent, nevertheless, their age range interpreted the closeness of their tiny age gap the both gentlemen indisputably traded.

Within the bizarre, lukewarm presence of Father James seating in complete solicitude in the profoundest corners of the cafeteria by judging his respectful ecclesiastic title and presumable characteristical nature, incarnating the genuine notion of his solicitude appreciation, it still bizarrely astounded you even though he's presumed to be a plain customer like the others, regardless their occupation, status and so forth factors.

"I can see you're slipping away from me and you're so afraid that I'll plead with you to stay! But I'm gonna be strong and let you go your way!" The cafeteria's background slowly but surely fell a victim under the lull of the recent song that was playing on the speakers Gonna Be Strong by Gene Pitney, tingling its discreetly silver-tongued tunes into the dwellers' vulnerable ears. The mass of the clients wasn't enormous, nor compulsively small at the moment at all. The early November noon's celestially aureate sun filtered violently, promisingly with its saturating patchy mantle the façade's interior.

When you approached the solicitude territory of the redhead who was sitting by himself and his pristinely potent fingers fixing his priest collar neatly beneath the discreetly soothing touch of his fingertips slugging onto the featherly soft fabric, an unnerved heavy sigh flushed his tiny, flexible nostrils.

The opulent vast fragrance of freshly brewed coffee, tea, food and diversity of beverages wafted past your nose for hours with headstrongly manipulating your muscles to roam around and carry either full trays of food and beverages of the customers or on the contrary already emptied dishes, mugs and glasses with its leftovers chunks, populating the tray's surface.

"Good day, Father! Here's the menu." Trading richly broad, slightly prim sympathetic smiles, tattooed on your faces with its beautifully esthetic golden curtain of sunlight, mystically illuminating partly your profiles and saturating your facial features, whereas your once persistently stubbornly dainty fingers bracing the menu with its leather material battering your digits and fingertips, subsequently you handed it to the redhead during the strong maintenance of friendly, glowing eye contact.

"Good day, Miss! Thank you!" Nodding humbly, meekly your head to indicate your politeness as James earned successfully his menu, in order to choose anything to order for himself and thereafter somehow pamper himself during his brief stay. The honeyed softness of his Irish lilt didn't cease to amaze you at first sight, in spite of you have never encountered or had any interactions with him ever before even like brief conversations for a handful of minutes with swapping a couple of words.

When the older gentleman's virginally parchment, dexterous fingers neatly smart flipped the very first page of the menu with the starter menu and beverages, highly recommended for every customer as his hazelish-brown embers eagerly studious scanned the ink, smirching with galore of letters its food and drinks' original names, within your retire back to the interact with other recently arrived customers.

Shortly after you gave the menus to the currently arrived clients and professionally accept Father James's order a freshly brewed green tea, consequently when your femininely elvish, creamy hands warily carried the freshly brewed, steamy brewed green tea to the most far cafeteria's corners to serve presentably, graciously to the holy man his mug of steamy hot beverage, on your way to business the awkwardness of his gruffily cleared throat with a muffled cough requested your attention promptly.

"My child, can we discuss something in private for a minute," All of the sudden, his graciously honest honey brown jewels imbibed your youthful grace and physique with a mere gaze, begging you to still your attention to him without retreating to service formally the other mercurially anticipating customers with their empty tables. The oddness sending you icy chills in your spine to have a private conversation with nobody else than a devotional man of the cloth scarcely diminished your interest, howsoever, it didn't plummet down the sentiment of cowing you to trade for a few minutes a couple of words with the stranger priest. The sole speculation that crossed your hurricane of thoughts was that there are possible chances the ginger to be a co-worker with Timothy. "If you don't have a lot of work to maintain this place?" The stark politeness unmasked the real identity of the ginger and invitingly maintaining an appropriate, profound eye contact without breaking it off brassly unimaginable, inappropriately.

"S-Sure, why not, Father?" Lingering your honeyed Maryland lilt to puncture your rhetorical stutters, inching meagerly the table with your petite frame was close enough space for you and James's voices to be genuinely discernible with reproducing each other's elaborated syllables and vowels into rationally constructed utterances.

"Love is gone! There's no sense in holding on and your pity now! Would be more than I could bare! But I'm gonna be strong and pretend I don't care!"

"I didn't mean to be nosey, but," Shortly before his berry-coloured, wet tongue to craft the imminent utterance with its fizzling chance of eloquence due to his obvious distress, unwelcomingly stern contouring his facial attributes, meanwhile, his manly marbled fingers danced around the mug of green tea's handle and afterward lifting it to gulp tiny, guiltless sips from the liquid. You momentarily registered to squeeze your naturally cherub, mauve lips in a thoughtful, cautious purse, being all ears to assimilate fully the redhead's enquiry. "But do you know Monsignor Timothy Howard?" Despite how amicable the unknown member of the clergy appeared to be, the enquiry almost bestowed you a heart attack as the thin, flimsily rusty elasticity of your frail heart thudding in your ribcage leaped and raced in the same time, synchronizing multiple violently frosty chills, sedating your bones and muscles due to the unpredictability of the older gentleman's posed question, begging for an immediate answer.

Reconsidering his posed question for a quarter a minute without averting your gaze from his that speared yours magnetically, straightforwardly, a bittersweet lump bulged into your feminine Adam's apple and subsequently managing to swig it after flexing lazily your throat muscles.

In spite of the level of its informality, the enquiry somehow struck you bolt from the blue.

"Y-Yes, Father! I know him." Despite the short length of your elaborated response, the series of stammers was inevitable. A heavy sigh unloaded your ribcage after conjugating the fresh oxygen and inhaling then exhaling. "Why are you asking?" Then no response, nor any single motion curled its own muscle to affirm your inquiry. "Do you know him also personally?"

"Well, we work together,"

"Mhm!" Manifesting to bob your head in solemn agreement, you lingered the seized purse of your naturally mauve lips thoughtfully.

"And he has told me a lot of things about you." Suddenly another soar lump seethed your throat, anticipating for a buoyant, ferocious vouch, throughout gulping sluggishly, due to the fact, Father James personally knew the British compatriot and their mutual daily conversations situated its own trade inside the chapel or whenever they had the chance to swap a couple of words. "You used to be committed to Briarcliff against your will and he got you out."

"It's true!" Without any single doubt, lacing sweetly your Maryland lilt indicated your emphatic revelation shortly after a bashfully rueful smile, weak enough to blur any skeptical hints flourished upon your mouth."I was falsely committed to that mental institution and he was the only one who granted me the freedom I deserved in the range of days."

"He's doubtlessly a good guy," Beamingly content grin curved his mouth into a soft O with his bared, tea-stained ivory teeth, glimmering with their brilliantly youthful, neat glossiness past your {E/C} bijous, despite the wee hints of woefulness donned up in its beaming pattern. "But in the last past days, you know, how tough they become after Halloween!" Delivering the exact sequel to his monologue with twisting a grotesquely bleak frown, blurring any patterns of mirth to embellish his facial attributes and the still brilliantly aesthetic sunny cloak's illumination, curtaining his façade haphazardly didn't cease to linger the spotlight of its darkness as addition decoration and the medley of strawberry red strands under its thickly dispersing accent of the early November sun.

"Yes, the exorcism of that teenage boy and the blackout!" Maneuvering your head to nod modestly, woefully, lingering your pensively pursed lips. The heartbreaking topic was actually raised in the cafeteria and in the middle of nowhere with nobody else than Father James that's actually one of the priests that collaborates with the British compatriot. Even a simple discussion with a stranger especially a religious clergyman was a medley of disquietude, sheer heartache and coyly formidable. You deeply knew you weren't the only one who was highly affected by his spiritual possession and having a potent impact on your physical and mental stamina. You weren't the only one who was candidly concerned for Timothy and his condition in general. "Yes! It's quite distressing all this and I'm really sorry to hear about it, Father!"

"Needless to be sorry for anything, my child!" As soon as the recurring dance of his virginally potent, stubbornly smooth fingers waltzed around the cup's handle to lift it and gulp the green liquid into tiny, delightfully soothing sips to hydrate his organs and anatomy along with faintly searing his tongue, thereafter a wry chuckle clicked the roof of his mouth. "It's also a tough experience for me that a close friend of mine is being through this," Another stutter limped awkwardly forward and backward on his tongue tip restlessly, ruthlessly. "Obnoxious spiritual possession. It's not his fault at all as well!"

"Well, exorcism will help him to get rid off the demon,"

"I'm gonna be strong and stand as tall as I can! I'm gonna be strong
And let you go along! And take it like a man! When you say it's the end!"

"You're actually right, but he will acknowledge that we're organizing a conspiracy against him behind his back!"

"Who cares what the demon thinks about it?" In the interval, a crystal, vibrantly wry tear besprinkled your lower eyelid abruptly at the thought of the demarcation between the sacred life and the unholy death if an exorcism is performed on the British aristocrat to bash the invincible demon out of his frail skeleton. Even though you and Timothy were scarcely friends or on the contrary deeming your platonic relationship just as acquaintances solely, nevertheless, his demise somehow would highly affect your physical and mental stamina with tempest of hysterical sobs and numbness just after everything he's done for you. You dearly treasured every ounce of his benevolence and deeds, altruistically sacrificing for your freedom and ethereally unexplainable felicity. "He better know what we're going to do to save his fragile soul rather than watching him suffer with that demon inside him and commanding him to torture in the most possible sadistic way with every ounce of his being."

"If you're still asking yourself who will bash the demon out of him, I won't do it on my own."

"Then with who?"

"With our mentor Father Malachi." All of a sudden, strangely clawing lazily unknowledgeable the rim of the table with your spidery delicate fingers, a pair of oddly secure, reassuring fingers of larger hand pawed yours, offering you a benevolently comforting smile, flexing the redhead's jaw as your {E/C} cabochons landed on the heartwarming prospect. "Moreover, you're invited to the church special event tomorrow where there is going to be a surprise!"

"Father, I haven't attended church for a few years," A radiantly changeable its patterns smirk blossomed upon your mouth, spearing with your stare his caramel brown cabochons as your heart skipped series of beats due to the heartwarming touch, lingering its comforting warmness to swaddle your brittle flesh. "However, I'll come to that church special event tomorrow. What time is going to be?" Meanwhile, the sheepishness of its heat warming the pit of your stomach slightly startled you, collaborating with sedating your muscles and bones under the spellbinding

"It's going to be approximately eight and a half o'clock in the morning. It's going to start with a mass and therefore with games and other entertaining stuff, taking its place in the local church."

--- *** ---

--- Later that Day ---

When the daylight episode became a bloodthirstily infernal victim of the day's evolution and bled into night time with its unceasingly darkening outdoors realistic illustration, your shift in the cafeteria was almost on verge to be finished along with the quantity of the clients diminishing throughout the advancing evolution of the day.

In spite of your atheism or at least absence of piousness, interpreting your actual religion and beliefs, it didn't cease your emphatic decision to be enforced to go to the church due to its prominently promising event tomorrow.

What it struck you first about Father James was his bountiful benevolence and open-mindedness, welling in his frail skeleton under the form of a hallowed fountain of hopes, sympathy and brilliantly good vibes, gracing you with uncommon comfort while maintaining a platonic proximity with him.

The uneasiness of the wall clock ticking and calculating the exact time as if the demise was anticipating eagerly, thirstily for its impending prey to vanish in the thin air jingled its alarming tones into your vulnerable ears, additionally paired in the evening prospect of a handful of random customers occupying the building's interior with their very presences and either drinking or eating as you were absent-mindedly pondering abysmally in your thoughts and questioning the entire day's dynamic roller coaster.

In the meanwhile, your glassily jaded gaze, bewitchingly imbibing the ginormous gap of customers and the wall clock insanely drained almost every cell of your vortex of thoughts with pondering and tarrying into the patchy hollow, barely burdening and registering any motion of your muscles.

At the moment, reassuringly ambient classic music was playing on loop in the background, opting to be an entertaining distraction for its recent visitors, regardless their music taste.

In the earlier hours of the day, the music's opulence altered into vintage and jazz and any other music genre that consisted lyrics unlike the wee hours of the evening with its welcoming, nonchalantly soothing, hair-rising classical music, esthetically tingling its melodiously abstract, expressive tunes in its instrumental only.

During the peacefully elating moments when you could catch a glimpse of your clients' humors whilst drinking, eating, trading with one another diversity of words or at least maintaining an eye contact, the haphazardness of the ringing phone, battered to the wall caught you off guard and snapping you out of your reverie realm as in first place one of your elvish, weathered hands grappled the retro onyx black earpiece to accept directly the phone call, due to its urgency.

"H-Hello!"

The abruptness of the rustily blood-curdling pip noise ruthlessly throbbing into your ear as your spidery creamy fingers waltzed in tandem around the earpiece's material didn't fail to surprise you, factly, you've encountered somewhat similar cases to wrong phone calls that seemed to have their own importance at first until their owners just either tricked you or at least accidentally called the wrong person.

"Y/N, I know who was in the cafeteria earlier today!"

"I didn't see you in the cafeteria earlier today, Timothy!" The trembling motion of your fingers and the humdrum chatter of your balefully gritted firm, ivory teeth indicated the genuine symptoms of your formidable apprehension from the British aristocrat with the vile essence, populating his frail skeleton. Meantime, you shot your {E/C} gemstones fleetly at the clients and the front door, swallowing hard, whereas a deeply, steamily raspy snicker emanated from the earpiece, veiling your forehead and palm with thick, generous layer of perspiration, glinting beneath the dim light's illumination of the interior. "I'm sincerely sorry."

"I don't need to be there always so that to know who's visiting your workplace, Miss Y/N! Was there a priest,"

"W-What?" Cutting him curtly short with stark perplexion, accenting your brief posed question dimly spoke emotions into your voice and body language and nauseous chilliness battered in the pit of your stomach brashly as if you had just received a phone call from nobody else than a nefarious serial killer, still wanted with his rich criminal history, despite the fact, Timothy wasn't even a serial killer and accused in any vicious homicide of a guiltless soul.

"That's right! Was there a priest on your workplace earlier today?"

"W-Why you're asking this?" The odd change in the ambitious Monsignor's demeanor didn't fail to sinfully bewilder you. It was pretty evident the vile essence has already corrupted him and slowly but surely destroying him to bones. The pure, childlike naivety laced desperately your doe, meek timbre's hexed posed question.

"You're smart and objective enough to tell me the truth, Y/N!" Manifesting a humble, childlike bob of your head in solemn agreement, the sharpness of his sternness punctured his English lilt and the naked incarnation of adrenaline and mild ire hammering the vowels and syllables in the end of his utterance. "I don't want to know it on my own."

"There was a priest." In the meantime, you managed to despondently, modestly duck your head as your {E/C} jewels encountered the dull illustration of the floor and your feet, in order to conceal the invincible sultrily desperate heavy rain of fat tears trickling downward your cheeks, saltily staining your glossy facial skin without tearing off your doe voice at all. "Yeah!" When the delicately flimsy fingertips of your spidery fingers propped the bountifully thick layer of awkward clamminess, coating your forehead, thus you registered a daub with the back of your hand to regulate its moderate smoothness of your facial skin. "But please, Timothy, don't think of hurting him or me! He has done nothing wrong! There's something inside you that has changed you." All of a sudden, the phone conversation cut off as its mutual connection which you shared for a handful of minutes with the older man no longer provided you the contact you could afford with him for now until either the impending phone call or otherwise a personal encounter.

A woeful, tearfully melancholic frown creased across your youthful, fresh complexion and putting back the earpiece to the phone until your nostrils flushed a jadedly light-heavy sigh and subsequently dabbing with your digits and fingertips the translucent cataract of salty tears.

It deeply hurt you how once the ambitious Monsignor that has even sacrificed almost his life and career to get you out of the infamous, old mental institution for criminally insane has abruptly transmuted into a nightmarish incarnation of the real danger with the devil inside him. You would do anything even arrange an altruistically reliable exorcism to grant him the freedom of the unhallowed corruption and the demise, although the somewhat chances of his alive status to be erased as well.

Author's Note: I know how eerier it turns out to be this story, however, blame for that possessed Timothy! I'm just joking, of course! Anyway if you haven't read the previous chapters and you're just skipping up to this one, subsequently don't forget to take a look at the previous ones, in order to not bring a huge mass of spoilers for yourself and diminishing your interest in this story, no matter how loyal reader you're! I hope you liked and enjoyed this chapter! :))