Luke shot up in his bed as if he had just been injected with a dose of adrenaline. His heart was beating fast, and his mind was traveling at the same speed.

What I saw-that dream...it wasn't just a dream, Luke thought. It was a memory. He was gathering this memory sequence not just from the dream he had that night, but also from the visions he saw before he woke up at the hospital almost two weeks before.

The story he was putting together was just too difficult to believe. Michael, he took me to a Garden and fed me a piece of fruit. It couldn't be THE Garden?

Luke checked the time and noticed he had slept past his alarm. His first class started at 9:40 AM and it was already 9:25 AM. He shot out of bed and got ready. Kev had left the room to go get breakfast, something Luke always did before his series of classes that took him until 2 PM. He knew his stomach would produce whale mating calls throughout the day.

As he got ready and shot out the door he was trying to think through the visions he saw. The dream, it ended at the Basilica. I know it was the Basilica. I saw the painting of football Jesus on top of the back dome. It has to be a sign. The answer to what's been afflicting this campus-I can find it there.

On his way to class he pulled out his phone and saw a notification from the Tower. He clicked on it and read the headline that explained the shelter-in-place that occurred the night before.

According to the Tower, a janitor had been approached by a Middle-Eastern male who was requesting directions to the administrative building. The janitor pointed him in the direction of Leahey Hall, where the Department of Public Safety's headquarters was located. When the man left, the janitor spotted what looked like the hilt of a gun latched onto his belt. The janitor panicked and called DPS saying he spotted someone with a gun.

That's when the alarms went off and the sirens came rolling in. A bomb ordnanceunit was called in because of the description of the man and they examined the nearby buildings for any explosive materials. They found none.

The flaw that the Tower pointed out was the delay in the response from spotting the threat and alerting the campus. The threat was spotted at 7PM and the campus wasn't alerted until over an hour later. There were some pretty grim depictions of situations that could have occurred due to the slow response to alert students to shelter-in-place. Had that man actually been a shooter, students might have had to rely on the sound of gunshots to know that something was wrong.

While Luke was walking to class, he heard many discussions around him focused on the shelter-in-place. Many were scared because they were not used to any threats on their lives since they originated from suburbs that faced little conflict in their neighborhoods. Even Luke, being from a suburb of DC, was a little freaked out by the event, but he had bigger worries on his mind, especially after nearly meeting his death in the fire, and still feeling partially responsible for the death of Darryl.

And the end of that dream, along with speaking to floating shadows, proved that something sinister was happening on this campus. Luke was resolved to camp out at the Basilica after it closes and investigate whether or not his dream had actually tipped him off to the potential source of all his troubles.

After grabbing dinner at the Pryz, Luke went to the Basilica. There was a mass wrapping up, and Luke partook in the last fifteen minutes. He then explored the Basilica, it's lower church chambers filled with chapels made from different materials and decorated in various murals of the trinity, Mary, and even one mural showing various landmarks from across the globe with the most prominent one being the Statue of Liberty. Luke's favorite chapel was one made of yellow sandstone. It was a small chapel, but it felt like walking into a door that led to a different part of the world. He was in a desert now, thirsting for God.

He knelt down in the chapel, knowing he had plenty of time to kill before the Basilica was closed, and he prayed. He prayed to God for over an hour, conversing with God, and thanking Him in the end for showing him a sign.

Minutes before the Basilica was slated to close, and the security personnel were conducting a sweep of the church, Luke hid in the bathroom stall. He waited there for over an hour, mostly texting Nellie about school work and planning their next potential date that Friday, which was tomorrow. Forty minutes into his wait, he heard footsteps coming from outside the bathroom. Luke was at the furthest stall and as silently as he could, he stepped up onto the toilet seat so that no one could see his feet from the large gap American bathrooms left for people who sought privacy to move their bowels. When the security guard came in, he whistled a tune that sounded like an old Michael Jackson song. He stopped at the entrance of the bathroom, looked around and then closed the door and continued to whistle down the hall until the sound slowly faded away.

Luke breathed a sigh of relief and stepped down from the toilet seat. He waited another twenty minutes and then felt the coast was clear. He ascended upward towards the upper church and was engulfed in darkness. Except for a few dim lights at the exit points of the Basilica, the place was enshrouded in darkness. Luke could almost blend in the dark, and congratulated himself that, although he was in a rush this morning, he was also smart enough to wear black.

Luke took a pew in the middle of the Basilica and sat down waiting. He didn't dare turn on his phone, for fear that the light from it would cast a spotlight to anyone that entered into the building.

Two hours of sitting blindly in a church made Luke lose faith in the dream. No one had come, and Luke was kicking himself over the time he wasted there. Stupid! Why would the same people come back twice? Complete waste of my time.

And just as he stood up to leave he heard a door unlock. It sounded like an iron block had been shifted through a circular tunnel. The scraping noise was loud enough to send Luke's heart to drum up some suspenseful beats. He tried to pinpoint where the sound was coming from while bent down in his pew. Like a periscope, he stuck his head up atop the pew and scanned the environment.

Nothing in front of me, nothing to my left or right, oh shit!

Luke ducked below the pew as he saw a light shine from behind him. Did they see me? His heart was in his throat, and he struggled to keep his sweat from dripping down from his forehead towards the ground to create a loud drip that would echo across the silent Basilica. While lying on the ground he scooched underneath the bench to hide from view. The footsteps grew louder, and from beneath the pew he saw two candle lights fade in and out as the two people inched closer to him. Luke was covering his mouth now, trying his best to control his breathing.

The light shone like a searchlight on his pew, or maybe Luke was just overreacting. As quickly as the light focused on his pew, it disappeared and continued forward.

Luke's body shuddered at the thought of almost being spotted. Had he waited a couple of seconds longer, those lights would've illuminated his figure and he would've been caught. Who were those two people? Luke was actually hoping they were just security guards. If he got caught by security guards, the worse they could do is kick him out, maybe report him to the university or possibly arrest him for trespassing.

But if they were more sinister people, then they could do so much worse. Being arrested was preferable to being dead.

I'm leaping to conclusions. For all I know, these people aren't even that crazy. He slowly moved his way out from beneath the pew and stood up slowly. He spotted them walking up the side steps towards the back of the grand altar, right below the image of Jesus in scarlet robes. Luke tiptoed after them, but he didn't trust his shoes. He took them off and walked with his socks, trusting his stealth, since each step he took was like walking on a cloud.

He inched his way around the side of the altar and stopped as he heard a warping sound and then a beep, followed by a static filler. He saw a light shoot up from the vicinity in a flash like a smartphone screen turning on in a dark movie theater. Then the light disappeared. All that was left were two candles and the contour of two figures, one skinny, the other big and muscular.

They ran the devices along the walls and inlets that formed little private praying islands behind the altar. They followed around the semi-circle cove of private inlets and moved towards the left of the last private island.

The device started to burp, or at least that's what it sounded like to Luke. It was a robotic burp that lingered long and echoed across the cove.

"Yes," said the skinny person with a voice that sounded like a mix between an old hag and a young man fighting for control over a microphone. "At last we have located it!"

"Took long enough sister," said the other much larger person, again with two voices that seemingly bridged a young man's deep voice with an older woman's raspy hack. "When do we get to destroy it!"

"It'll take too long," the skinny one spoke. "We need a fresh night to remove the artifact."

"And then burn it to smithereens!" The large one cackled.

"Yes sister. Once it has been destroyed, our brothers and sisters can infiltrate the fortress and convert the pagans to the truth! The more followers we have, the easier it'll be to see through Gonjá's fall."

"A fall I've been waiting for since the dawn of time," the big one said. He extended his arm forward in front of his chest and sliced the air with the side of his hand. "Bakel ul Gonjá!"

"Bakel ul Gonjá!" the skinny one echoed. "We must alert Lilith of the good news."

At that, Luke hid in a chapel besides the altar and waited for them to walk by him. He peeked over and got a glimpse of the side of them. The larger fellow was built solid, with pale skin and straight hair. The skinny one was brown, with short to no hair and had a faint mustache growing.

Luke examined them closer, or as close as he could without being caught and his eyes widened. It can't be.

And then he heard, "Let's stop at 7/11 to pick up a midnight snack, I'm starving."

"You're always starving Alex."

Luke's body betrayed him. It couldn't hold in his surprise, and it escaped through a fart-just a small one, but loud enough for the others to hear.

"I hope that one doesn't stink," he heard Gio said.

"Hey that wasn't me," Alex defended himself as their voices began to trail away around a corner.

"Sure it wasn't."

Then Luke heard the side entrance to the Basilica unlock and close and he clutched his chest. The only thought that kept passing through his mind was, My suitemates are possessed.

*________________________________________________*

Author's Note

Boom. Did you see it coming (honestly)? If you did see it coming, then explain what gave it away before today (a comment written before this chapter was published might help your case). If you didn't see it coming, why did it take you by surprise? Did you trust Alex and Gio? Can you trust them now?

Real talk, what would you do if you found out that the people you were living with were possessed by demons? I know if I found out, my local church would have a sudden shortage of holy water....

Oh, and just as a heads up, I've recently published another story entitled The Real "Bloody Mary." It is a nonfiction story that seeks to unveil the truth behind "Bloody Mary" and why she's mislabeled as a the "most evil queen in history." The work will take you into her childhood and how she was bastardized by her father, betrayed by those around her, belittled by her own half-brother, and always seen as inferior to her half-sister Elizabeth, whom we all know and love. If you're a fan of Medieval history and want to learn more about the First Queen of England Mary Tudor, feel free to check out the story under my profile: BronxCrusader.

And with that I'll see you next time. Don't forget to hit that little ⭐️ button to give this chapter a vote if you liked it. Every vote/like is appreciated! 😁

- L. A. Rivera