Hora Mortis Nostrae (pt 4)

I've decided to simply start every story post with a little update , because I can't put my life on hold for the story. I mean, this blog is more for life documentation than for literary explosions, so I guess right now it'll just have to handle both.

Nothing's really changed with Wsb, although due to my busy work schedule, I'll be seeing much less of him this week. It's so crazy to think that I haven't even known him for an entire week, and yet I've learned about his soul, and he's learned about mine. And let it be stated for the record that I have had more sex in the past 3 days than in all the other days of summer combined. Good lord, I don't know how he does it.

God, why did you put this boy in my path? What are you trying to get me to learn here? And why did you have to make him smell so good?


Anyway! Back to the story, yes?

Recap: Felix and Jesus have been sent on a divine mission to deliver a message to the top of the Hell building. In order to get to the top, they have to make their way through the first seven floors, battling Kale's pets. Immediately after entering floor one, Felix has already been attacked by the first pet: Polly.


Part Four


She holds the eye contact for an agonizing second then begins to look around the rest of my face, searching for another ring or stud. The girl is toying with me, playing with her food. I look into her empty eyes again, searching for any sliver of compassion. I can’t see any. All I see is black and it’s disgusting.

I feel her fingers brush against my jaw. Oh God, she’s found it. That last piercing, that stupid fucking piercing. She caresses my bottom lip with her finger, giggling maniacally. Her fingers press down on my lip ring, turning it from side to side. Her touch is so gentle and so fearsome. She raises the pliers so close to my mouth that I can almost taste the rusty metal.

I feel the tugging and twisting again as she begins to inflict her wrath upon my last piercing. It’s so light at first, barely even noticeable. Then it turns harder, and I can feel the twisting and my skin starting to stretch. But it’s only when she pulls outward, still not far enough, that I let out an animal-like cry. She’s pulling and twisting, pulling and twisting, so close to it being far enough to tear away, but not quite crossing the threshold.

She continues twisting, bringing her grasp down to just a gentle touch again. Is she going to spare this last piercing? Is she taking pity on m—

I scream loudly when she rips out the lip ring. I can taste my blood gushing from the tear. Half of my face is now covered in blood. My shirt is stained from the shoulder to the bottom of my ribcage on one side. I can feel hot blood adhering my shirt to my body. It hurts. Oh God, it hurts.

She draws her face up to mine, barely two inches away. Her disgusting, glossy black pupils meet my own. “And now you get to witness a crucifixion, little boy.”

Jesus’s eyes widen. As she turns and slowly walks towards him, the metal bar covering his mouth loosens and disappears. “I want to hear you scream, savior,” Polly sighs, almost seductively. Jesus’s eyes narrow and he says simply, “Fiona’s got a message.”

Polly stops, stares him straight in the face, and then catches fire. Her entire body just burst into flames, her face curling up like paper when it’s burned. The flames roar for just a second, and then they disappear in a wisp of smoke, taking Polly with them.

The metal bars fall away from Jesus and he rushes over to me, still crumpled on the dentist’s chair. “Felix, can you walk?” he says gently. I realize how terrible I must look, all covered in blood. I nod, and Jesus pulls out a bottle of Aquafina from inside his robes. I offer a tiny, bemused smile and glance at the bottle of water.

“What, your Lord and Savior has to drink only biblical church wine?” He grins. “Hell no, I like my purified spring water, thank you very much.” He starts pour the water over my head to wash off the blood. I suppose it’s the ultimate baptism.

When Jesus has decided I look presentable enough, we continue through the doors that lie on the opposite side of the room. We end up in a tight staircase, and go up until we find another door. Jesus is about to push it open, but I stop him.

“I don’t know if I can do this. I didn’t sign up for torture! She was only the first out of how many was it, seven? That was level one. I don’t think I can take much more of this.” I’m beginning to sound hysterical.

Jesus looks me dead in the eye. “You got through that, that’s enough. Polly’s duty is eliminate liabilities so that her brothers and sisters don’t have to deal with as many people. She’s a sadistic, terrifying little creature, but as soon as she realized who sent us, she gave up. That was the fire thing. She’s probably upstairs telling Kale we’re here.” He said bracingly. “But I know you can do this. Gabrielle wouldn’t have brought you back if you couldn’t.”

I sigh, defeated, motion for him to open the door, which he does.

We are in a giant library, full to bursting with books. Where they can’t fit on the shelves, they’re piled high on tables, chairs, even random spots on the floor. A strapping young man, around age 20, steps out from behind a bookshelf. He looks like he’s from 19th century England. Jesus smiles at him, but he just scowls. We begin to walk forward, I expect him to jump in front of us and like whack me with a big book, but he just looks at us go.

Negotiating our way through the giant piles of books begins to get confusing. It seems as if we’ve half an hour already just trying to find our way out of the bookshelves, but it’s like those corn-mazes I went to as a kid. I’m beginning to get frustrated. Although we’ve been walking for a while it’s like we’ve only gone five feet forward, maybe.

I can still see the British guy leaning against a shelf, a smirk beginning to paint his lips. He knows something.

“Hey, what the hell is this?” I call out to him. That smirk falls off his face, but he stays quiet. It’s obvious this guy knows the way out but he won’t tell me. I can feel jealousy building inside me.
“Stop it, Felix.” Jesus says suddenly.
“Stop what, this guy is pissing me off.” I retort. Jesus turns to face me and looks straight into my eyes.
“Don’t get angry or be jealous of this guy. I forgot to tell you the most important part of this. If you commit any of the seven sins, we’re back to square one, outside on the bottom level. That’d mean we’d have to try to get past Polly again, and you don’t want that. So keep your emotions in check. Basically, you can feel sinful, but if you act upon any sinful thoughts, we’re out. It’s only the seven we have to worry about, but still, watch yourself.”

Fantastic. I look up to see the British guy still leaning on that shelf, shining his nails on his lapel.
Finally he looks up at us to realize that we’re staring at him this time. He sighs absentmindedly, and then begins to speak:
“Welcome to my library.”

He doesn’t speak with any accent, and there’s this odd undertone to his voice; a sort of unsaid want in every word.
“I am Ian, and this is my playground, a labyrinth of education and recorded catalogs. Every book ever published is in here, including every single scroll of papyrus from the library at Alexandria. But this library also contains the story of every person worthy of having one. The books of your pathetic lives are in here. In order to leave, you have to find your book and write in what happens next. I could tell you about my extensive knowledge of navigation within this library, but I won’t.“ he smirked. “You have all the time in the world, you just have to not go crazy.”

I turned to Jesus. I knew exactly what the book of his life would be. I instantly began to search, but I could find no pattern in the organization of the books in this dmaned library. There seemed to be books flung anywhere, without any rhyme or reason.
After about half an hour of looking, I saw it.

I grabbed Jesus’s and pulled him towards a table. There was a bible lying open on it. I held it up and grinned. “I found your book.”

He looked at the bible and scowled. “I hate that book, it is definitely not the book of my life.” He said. “My book would have the real stuff in it, like how I was crucified not because of my beliefs, but because of my sexuality. It would say how I was betrayed by my lover kissing me, and not simply by my friend.”

“….Oh.” I breathe. That makes sense, when you get to be a glorified as Jesus was, then people began to twist the facts around. I guess the four big gospels really screwed with his image, especially John’s.

“Let’s look for your book, “ He pipes up. “Yours is probably going to be a little easier to find than mine, and we only have to write in one of them. “

After a few more minutes of looking, I found my book. It was red leather, hard back, with gold lettering on the cover. The title (apparently my life has a title) was ‘Hora Mortis Nostrae: The Felix Donovan Story’ Huh. ‘The Hour of Our Death’ in Latin. It’s the last line of the Ave Maria. Ironic.

I opened it and flipped through the pages, looking for the last one. I didn’t even look at the writing, I just grabbed a quil pen from a nearby desk and started writing.

“Felix and Jesus quickly find Jesus’s real book, and then find the exit. And the British guy keeps his distance.” I dotted the ‘I’ in distance with a flourish, then set the quil down and closed the book.

As I looked up, I spotted a dusty black volume at the bottom of a pile of books on the floor. On the spine, in faded letters, it read “Don Anobis Pachem”.
“Give Us Peace”

I knew instantly that that was Jesus’s book. I grabbed it, knocking the whole stack over. I turned to Jesus, who was preoccupied with trying to find Judy Garland’s book. “Hey,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.” I held out the book.

Jesus’s gaze fell to the cover, and realizing what it was, his eyes began to fill with with tears. He looked up at me as I imagine countless people had once looked up at him and choked out a quiet “thank you” before taking the book and hiding it in his robes.

We climbed over a mountain of novels and Ah! At last, we found the exit. Right as we were about to leave, I turned and glanced behind us, only to see the Ian lurking behind a shelf, glaring at us. Envy spilled out of his gaze. I almost felt sorry as we closed the door behind us.



Continued soon,
Julia