Hell: A Planned Community

Chapter Two: I’m a Fucking Wizard

It all happened so fast. For a moment there was a weird rush I could feel through my bloodstream. The rivers in my veins crashed and reversed, the inside of my skin tingled as the voices took a deep breath.

Everything felt right. It was unexplainable, unnatural, but it just felt right. I clutched my own arm and drew blood with my fingernails after finding the strength to push my father aside. Anything I wanted could be mine, including justice. I looked at my dad with a silent glare, and I saw fear in his eyes. Suddenly my dad backed away and screamed grabbing the attention of the priests. There were three of them standing by Father Dennis’s side and one of them walked towards me. It felt like something was trapped inside, beating its fists against a cage of skin; I needed to let it free.

“Are you alright?” he asked. Without hesitation I turned around and lunged at the priest, digging my hands into his throat like a rabid animal… I had claws. It just felt normal, he deserved it, they all did. The two others tried to stop me, one pulling me away but it was too late. Their friend was clutching his throat, blood pouring from the cracks between his fingers as he gasped for his last breath.

I heard the words again. ‘Ear Sto Kell’. The words morphed and swirled in my head, a language that I never knew I could understand. It was a tongue long buried, an un-nurtured instinct screaming to be recognized. “Return home” I said. “Open the gates”.

Father Dennis pushed past the other two priests and grabbed me by the throat as the rest of the church looked on in horror, Hidy stopping at the exit. There was a flash of dark scratches and blood, and then a heavy blink left in the blackness as I smiled and my will was made manifest.

I could feel the dead priest’s soul in my hands. ‘Fuel for my will’ my own mind whispered. ‘What power do I seek?’ It was all instinct, putting words to simple reflex. I couldn’t claim to truly understand any of this, but someone else did. In the blink of an eye the entire church flashed red and black like a blood soaked flickering disco ball. The words inside my head simply wouldn’t cease, and in that moment I involuntarily yelled at the top of my lunges.

“Ear sto kell!” I shouted, the priest’s corpse now laying on the altar floor, his body turned into an unnatural puddle of red goo. The entire church screamed in terror and ran for the doors, only to be stopped by two massive hands of stone blocking the exit. Little surges of emotions and flashes of light ran through in my eyes, all of it came from those words as I let my will be known. “Noral Cora Noral!” ‘The invisible Guillotine’.

The two remaining priest’s heads popped like water balloons filled with salsa after the second word. With a sickening twitch they stood for a few seconds before falling lifelessly to the floor. Their bodies quickly decayed into red goo and another flash of light streaked across my eyes leaving only Father Dennis still breathing. Their blood rose and flew across the church in a maelstrom of chaos, soaking everyone trapped inside the building in viscera.

I suddenly starting chuckling to myself, again, I didn’t know why. My skin was coated red, my clothes drenched in other people’s blood and soon small black spikes grew out of my forearms.

My nails became talons, my teeth equally as sharp. My skin turned bright red and my veins glowed black. It all felt like it was on fire, my nerves screaming and my bones pushing against my own flesh, splintering and reshaping with a painful crunch.

A euphoric rush took over and whatever lingering sense of stability I had in this world died with a cough. I could have anything, be anything, everything was at my fingertips. It felt good, troublingly good. I was in another world now, I was in Hell, I was home.

There were two others like me in this place, an impish creature with similar crimson skin and glowing black veins standing behind me, clutching her face with her claws and crying madly, it was Hidy. “…No, no, no, no…” she muttered. The second stood in front of me, he still had his face but now… now he was like me; Father Dennis. “What have you done!?” he cried, his voice distorted and his mouth dripping black puss and blood.

“I am home…” I said the first thing that came to me, the first words I’ve ever really spoken. It felt like I had just been born, sights and sounds focusing before me now, what once blurred so strongly now became so clear.

“What did you do to me!?” Father Dennis demanded to know as he grabbed me by the shoulders, kneeling. “We’re home…” I smiled. I looked up, seeing a floating storm of blood and body parts gathering and forming a second sky of eviscerated meat as more and more stone hands grew from the walls of the church.

“God is blind, he always has been” I said. I could hear bells in the distance, lulled to a bass tone, terrifying beasts roaring with an echo in this new world. I saw just beyond the cracks of the destroyed church a castle in the distance, blood as light as mist pouring past me carried by the warm winds.

“The Shroud Realm…” Hidy giggled in her maddening cries. “This isn’t right, stop this at once!” Father Dennis demanded. I didn’t know what he wanted me to stop exactly, I only smiled some more. “This is where we all belong” Hidy muttered and shook.

“It used to be so quiet, but now…” I turned around and walked towards the gibbering imp behind me. I held out my hand, helping the blood-soaked monster onto her feet. She still shook, looking back towards the huddled group of cowering church-goers. “It… it’s so loud…” she said.

“I know…” I said to her. “The gates have been opened”. “We’ve been born again…” Hidy whispered with a worried tone. “The Dark One sees us in his light, and the False God is blind once more”.

“This is blasphemy!” Father Dennis said as he knelt in front of the altar, caked in blood. “I am a servant of God, a true man of faith; I will not be turned by the Devil’s tricks!”

“There is no God here” Hidy said. “You did this to me, you!” Father Dennis cried and pointed to me. “I won’t let you turn me from his light, I won’t!” The priest turned monster suddenly ran towards me, digging his sharpened, bestial talons into my skin and tearing away chunks of flesh. I fought back. I swiped at him with my own sharp, bladed nails, punching through his stomach and thinning the flesh from his arm.

I could see just on the outskirts of my peripheral vision the black book lying in a puddle of blood and sliced flesh. My family was cowering in the corner of the church along with the rest of the mortals, watching helplessly as I fought the priest.

I grabbed Father Dennis’s arm and soon cut through his tendon, weakening it and tearing it from its joints. I laughed as the Priest fell backwards in pain, gripping his socket and screaming. “Lord, if you can still hear me, please help!” he yelled. “Please, I have served you faithfully my entire life, and I will never turn from your light!” “Kill this unholy monster for me, please!” “SAVE ME!”

“…Okay, I think I see the problem here…” a calm, calculated voice said just behind me, finally quieting the insane laughter and voices. “Excuse me…!?” I turned around towards the source of the voice. There was a man standing not too far from me dressed in an unremarkable grey suit completely free of bloodstains, bearing a strange third eye tattoo on his forehead. There were several rats following him at his feet and soon he bent down and picked one up.

“NIa Storal Storal” he said, holding the twitching rat in his right hand. “Certal Ulam” he said something else, holding a shining gold cross he got from his pocket in his left hand. I heard two more phrases in my head; ‘weaken the soul’ and ‘scour the tongue’.

The rat melted into red goo as he calmly held a small pocketknife to its throat and swiftly killed it. The cross faded into white dust just as quickly as he threw it to the ground. I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my skull and fell to my knees in pain. “Ahh, what have you done!?” I demanded to know.

“Government issue class seven combination school spell A-010A” the man responded as he put away the knife and grabbed a small notepad and pen from his back pocket. “The Shroud Realm Gateway spell is under the illegal new Dark Arts catalog under both the AOCS and the First One’s Court authority respectively and has now been stripped from your mystical vocabulary”. Both Father Dennis and my friend soon fell in pain as well.

“You and your now recently awakened colleagues are also in clear violation of the ‘Bright Realm Religion rights’ laws passed recently by the AOCS and your containment order as well as rehabilitation have been authorized as of… now”.

“We apologize for any and all inconveniences you and your ties to Hell and the Dark One may have experienced” the man said as I continued writhing in pain.

“Rest assured we at the AOCS will be making any and all necessary preparations in the future to warn otherworldly entities such as yourselves of all recent laws and that your usual fines will be waved for this incident due to unfair short notice”.

“I… you… can’t… do this to me!” I struggled to say. “Again, apologies but the Shroud Realm is under an isolationist body of governance at the moment and trans-dimensional travel is still strictly illegal even to other extranormal beings barring government representatives”.

“Thank you for your cooperation, if future plans for public displays of Dark Art aptitude come up please let our organization know before conscription or further violation will be risked to you and your minions of Hell” the man responded as he continued writing in his notebook and the monster inside finally… went… quiet.

I slowly regained control as my body returned to normal. “I… I… wha… what just happened?” I asked in a daze. The man who brought me back to reality extended a hand to help me up.

The man’s right hand had a cross marked on it and his left had a weird upside-down star on it. Both his wrists had bright red veins in the shape of interlocking chains. His skin was pale and grey, both his eyes were hollow and white and yet little of that scared me, not sure if anything could scare me worse at this point. I looked down, seeing the black book ripped and coated in blood at my feet before taking the man’s hand nervously.

“Standard global apocalypse protocol, violation in the ethereal balance” he said as I noticed the sky had returned to normal and the stone hands were gone. I looked behind him as he headed towards Hidy laying in the middle of the church.

“Oh my God!” I gasped. The man helped her to her feet. “What just happened?” she asked, rubbing her forehead. “Standard global apocalypse protocol, violation in the ethereal balance” he repeated.

“If you two would stand here, hands to your sides” he pointed in front of himself. Me and Hidy took only a single, uncomfortable glance at each other before deciding to cooperate. He took out his notepad and peered into our eyes. “Hmm…” he scribbled down God only knows what. “Interesting…” he mumbled, gently grabbing my chin as he did. He turned my head side to side and then did the same with Hidy. “As expected…” he muttered.

“Nothing abnormal, standard early post-puberty symbiotic demon possession, permanent mark of the Dark one recognized, possible hereditary marks, yet to be classified” he said. “What the fuck is going on?” Hidy asked, her mouth slightly hung open. “Your associate here casted an illegal spell, but it’s nothing to worry about”. “Pamphlets will be passed out accordingly as soon as the AOCS proper is informed”.

“The who?” I asked. “The ‘Agency Of Cult Sensitivity” he clarified. “We’re a branch of the government, newly funded by the Democratic congress, responsible for organization and proper supervision of any and all secret magical sects of humanity within the Bright Realm, United States division”.

The man handed us both a business card. “If you’d like to donate the AOCS would be more than grateful, funding is still an issue” he said as I read the card. “And also don’t forget to vote yes on proposition twelve in this coming November, very important”.

‘Agent John Stevenson, third branch, AOCS moderator / enforcer / education consultant’ it said along with a picture of his unsmiling face and a phone number. “I… I’ve never even heard of…” I mumbled. “We’re a new branch, should be extended in a year or so after the extranormal arts and bachelor college is opened in Pennsylvania” he explained.

“Wait, there’s a…?” I was about to ask only for Stevenson to interrupt me. “Going to be, extracurricular pre-semesters starts mid June this year followed by official fall and winter semesters, the AOCS will be running it and keeping public information on a controlled level until deemed safe”. “Speaking of which…”

Stevenson turned back towards the still cowering crowd. “We deeply apologize for any and all inconveniences or tragedies that may have befallen yourselves or various loved ones” he said as blood slowly dripped from the crumbling ceiling.

“But know that this whole incident was just an unfortunate accident and that these three newly discovered extranormals will be given proper supervision and protection…” he suddenly stopped. He turned his head, seemingly scanning the whole church. “Where is Reverend Malcolm Dennis?” he asked but nobody answered, he was gone.

Stevenson started writing once more in his notebook. “Unfortunate, deal with that later” he mumbled. “Alright, given your relatively young ages you two are now under the protection of the AOCS for the time being” he turned back to us.

“Under section 55-B-C-BCDA-D-B of the AOCS western alignment agreement put into effect this year Sanctuary law is now fully enforceable” he explained to the crowd. “If the recipient is under direct protection of an AOCS member or the recipient lives on official AOCS property any violation of said laws warrants swift and if need be violent retaliation from AOCS officials, political or law enforcement status in the Bright Realm not withstanding”.

“Is that understood?” he asked, nobody responded. “Excellent… various agents will be arriving momentarily for interviews, clean-up and emergency medical services” Stevenson said. “As for any and all surviving priests I assure you that your church will be repaired and you will be fully reimbursed courtesy of the AOCS in the coming weeks” he explained to really no one that it could possibly matter to.

He turned back towards the exit as the rest of the crowd nervously disbanded. “The AOCS asks all of you to remain here for the time being, traumatic memory purging will be offered to any and all willing and traditional counseling will be provided as well, free of charge”.

“We ask that until the matter is dealt with that a nondisclosure agreement be signed by all non-extranormals here today, thank you for your patience”. Stevenson picked up another one of his rats at his feet.

“Castaka Bienen Clordal” he said before killing the rat, its carcass turning into red goo and a black portal appearing from thin air in front of him afterwards. ‘Return to the Master’ I heard echo in my head afterwards.

“Wait!” Hidy ran towards Stevenson and stopped him from entering the portal. “Yes?” he addressed her. “What… when does that extranormal school you mentioned open again?” she asked. “Next week, sanctuary will be provided for all students and faculty, applications are being accepted as we speak” he said.

“Is it… is it just a school for people like us?” she asked. “Yes, for any extranormal candidates who meet basic spell potential or any other otherworldly eccentricities”.

“So… it’s like a school for wizards then?” a smile slowly crinkled over Hidy’s face. “If you want, it teaches young Americans control over their otherworldly powers and possessions, though the correct term is…” Stevenson was interrupted by Hidy’s schoolgirl-esque squealing. “I’m a Fucking Wizard!”

Next Chapter: Bureaucracy and Blood-magic