Hora Mortis Nostrae (pt 3)

Well, before we get back into the story, I have to tell you guys about my life so that I can ask for advice. OK? Ok.

So two nights ago, I hung out with Wsb for the first time. What started as a smoothie run turned into us hanging out for 14 hours straight. We smoked and drove around and avoided the cops like 5 times in a row. Seriously, what the hell does Hicktown PD think is gonna happen on a Wednesday night? There were patrol cars everywhere. We ended up at his house, where we talked and listened to Pink Floyd on vinyl all night. After getting donuts in the morning, we parted ways and crashed all day.

Then, last night, we had a late night dinner, stargazed in a field, smoked, and talked more, but I went home at 3 a.m. because his mom woke up and wondered why there was a blonde girl in her house at 3 a.m. Now I think she think's that I'm sleeping with her son, but actually the only even remotely romantic contact I've had with him was running my fingers through his hair while he lay on my lap while we were talking.

Few and foreign followers, help. I don't know what to think. I've spent a fuck-ton of time with this kid, and yet I've known him for all of about 72 hours now. Do I smell insta-romance, or just a really tight friendship? Gahhh I'm so lost.

Anyway! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Recap: Gabrielle and Felix are now in a city above the clouds, which we're all just going to assume is Heaven (or what you will). Gabrielle has led Felix into an executive-looking conference room in an executive-looking building, and Jesus has just walked through the door.

Part Three

"Yes?" he answered blithely.
I've just spoken to Jesus... and... and he heard me. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow at my stunned silence in response to his question. Gabrielle pipes up.
"Jeezy, this is Felix. Felix, meet Jesus Christ, former peace activist."
Oh my God, she calls him 'Jeezy'. Like, as a nickname. I get the feeling that she's the only one who's allowed to do that, so i extend my hand and somehow manage to squeeze out a semi-coherent "Nice to meet you, Mr. Christ."

Jesus looks me very seriously in the face and firmly shakes my hand. Then he and Gabrielle burst out laughing. She laughs so hard that she doesn't seem to notice the random white feather caught in her hair. I shyly try to tell her she's got a feather in her hair, but she's laughing too hard to notice.
"Erm, you've got a... well, there's a little.. er..." I motion at her hair and she brushes her fingers through it, freeing the feather, which floats to the ground.

"Shedding again, Gabby?" Jesus chuckles. He collects himself then turns to me. "Welcome to Heaven Inc, Felix. Sorry about that, after two thousand years of watching over people, meeting them in person still never gets old. Anyway, we're going to take you to see the boss, and she'll explain some things to you. But, here are the basics: You're dead. The form you're in right now is the imprint of your body, which your soul is using as a container.
"Here at Heaven Inc, we catalogue all incoming and outgoing souls. During their time on Earth, souls create a sort of tally of good vs. bad, and based on the amount of marks on their tally, once dead, the souls return here fore a certain period of time, resting, recuperating, and cleansing themselves before being chosen (by a lottery system... well, ok it's more like a Bingo spinner) to be sent back to Earth to inhabit the body of a newborn baby and start the whole process again. The Hindus had the basic theory right, except humans only reincarnate as humans.
"Like I said before, souls accumulate a tally during their lives. Souls with more marks on the bad side stay up here for longer, and if you pass a certain amount of bad marks, your soul is kept up here indefinitely. So, you don't have to worry about Hitler coming back. We, here at Heaven Inc. measure the tallies, run the soul lottery, cleanse the souls for recycling, and transport souls back and forth. We run the show." Jesus leads us out of the conference room and down to the end of the hall.

A stark black door with no handle appears before us. Jesus presses his palms into the center and the door glides open, revealing a white room with glass furniture and a large window on the opposite wall. "And now, you're going to meet the one who's in charge of it all. Her title is God, but her name," he pulls me into the room, and in front on a large glass desk, with a white leather chair facing away from us. The chair rotates towards us. "Her name is Fiona."

Reclining in this massive white leather swivel chair is a tall woman with long dark hair and olive skin. Her icy blue eyes are wide but heavily lidded, and a faint smile plays around her perfectly formed lips. She is wearing a flowing red wrap dress with nude patent heels. She leans her chin onto her hand and smiles at me.

And that's when it hits me. I'm looking into the eyes of God. And she's a woman, the woman.

She speaks in this deep, melodious voice, but her tones are extremely authoritative. She knows who she is. “I need you to deliver a message,” she says. “And to deliver the reply. I’d go myself, however, for diplomatic reasons, I’d prefer not to enter the public sector at this time.”

“Uh, ok, yeah I’ll go. I’ll do it.” I stammer. I feel like an idiot. I’m talking to God and I can barely form full, cohesive sentences.

“Good, good. Jesus here will accompany you,” Fiona hands me an envelope. “Deliver this to a being named Kale. You’ll have to get past his seven pets first, but you should be able to manage that in due time. Kale lives on the top floor of the Hell building. Jesus knows the way there. Go now, little darlings. Oh, but Gabrielle, stay here, we have to discuss something.” She smiles and turns back towards the giant window behind her.


I take that as my cue to get out. I exit the room and Jesus follows me back out into the dark hallway. He snatches the envelope from my hands and hides it in the folds of his robes. I look at him and raise a quizzical eyebrow.

“That envelope contains a message from God, you can’t just go waving it around in public, people will get violent trying to find out what it says. I should know.” He chuckles darkly, but I get it. We’re on a top-secret mission for Fiona. Jesus turns on his heel and leads me out of the building.

We walk through the placid night air for a few blocks, and then we turn onto Hell Street. The placidity of the night evaporates instantly as the scene of the street unfurls before my eyes. Hell Street is essentially Times Square on monkey crack. The streets are lined with nightclubs, bars, theaters, and bright lights. There are drunk people everywhere having a good time, and from what I can see, Hell Street is basically a non-stop party.

There is a gap in the lights on the left side of the street, which we walk towards. The gap turns out to be a building with no exterior lights. All the partiers walk past as though it doesn’t exist, but I can tell from their tiny sidelong glances at the building that it’s something they fear. The general agreement seems to be to simply pretend as if the Hell building isn’t there and just party on past it.

But Jesus and I walk right up to it. It’s nowhere near as tall as Heaven Inc, but it’s just as black, shiny, and ominous. It looks as though there are only about eight or nine floors. I see the address modestly posted in silver lettering next to the door: 7 Hell Street

Jesus pushes open the door and I follow him in.
We are in a large, grey room, lit with nastily fluorescent bulbs. There is a doll-like girl perched on the arm of a dentists chair in the middle of the room, her eyes are closed, but she’s smiling mischeviously. She’s wearing a greying, raggedy ballgown, but the front of the skirt has been torn so much that her spindly legs can be seen.

She flicks open her eyes and I see that they are completely black, all pupil, no whites. Her eyes snap and connect with mine and I stare deep into the dark pit that is this doll girl. She rises and begins to walk towards me.

She stares at us with shiny, wide, jet black eyes. Her dirty cheeks pull her torn lips into a smile. Her head cocks to the side like she's some puppet. She starts to speak with this creepadelic disembodied child's voice. "Welcome to Hell. We've been waiting for you. If you can get past myself and my six brethren, then you get to talk to master. But it won't be easy. At all."

The sight of her up close is terrifying. Her skin is yellowy like parchment and shining like porcelain, her mouth is closed but still smiling with vermillion lips, her entire body is standing gracefully, but her torn up grayish bloodstained ragged dress show sorrow. She’s horrifically beautiful.

The pliers in her dainty hand don’t help much.

“Time to scream,” she giggles at us. She grabs me by the neck and drags me towards the dentist’s chair. Jesus tries to follow, but metal bars sprout from the linoleum floor and wrap around his legs, holding him fast. All he can do is watch as the girl settles me into the chair.

“Polly, stop it, we’ve been sent b—“ Jesus screams, but a metal bar wrap around his mouth and cuts him off.

I’m sitting in the chair, frozen by fear, and Polly examines my face. Her eyes lock on something just above my left eye, and it dawns on me. I have an eyebrow piercing, a slim silver ring. In fact, I have lots or piercings (all above the neck) and I’m suddenly regretting them.

A small, disgusting smile spreads across her lips as she raises the pliers. She clamps them around my eyebrow piercing, beginning to twist them around. As she twists she starts to pull, slowly and a searing pain takes over that half of my face. She continues to pull and twist the piercing, stretching my skin painfully outward, grinning at my hard breathing and steady grimace. When my skin can stretch no farther, I feel ripping and a pain that I can’t even describe.

I scream, I can’t help it. Her hand jerks back, the pliers still tightly holding my eyebrow ring. I’m breathing heavily, staring at the small ring held by the pliers, trying to comprehend what just happened. She just tore it out of my face.

She begins to laugh as if nothing could have given her greater joy then watching me scream. I think I want to vomit. I can feel blood starting to flow over my face, getting in my mouth and running down onto my shirt. She sees the blood also. It is running over her hand and down her arm, just a few little trickles. I can’t look at her so I glance away.

Jesus is looking horrified as the girl appraises the rest of my head looking for another piercing. “Look at me, ” she hisses. “Look into my eyes.” I obey her. “You are going to die here, in this building.“

I’m in Hell.



Muahaha. To be continued.
Julia