Young Writers Society

The white noise had grown louder, it was still normal to the boy, but it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He looked around the church, the stained glass panels were shaded all tints of red and surrounded the walls. The normal beige and white church was pitch black. Yurei couldn’t see anything five feet away from him, but he felt a presence. The boy gulped and held his Bible close, just like Father Ciel had told him. Yurei hesitated to call out for the priest but was faced with bright light, losing consciousness.

“Yurei. Wake up, you blacked out again.”

The boy woke up to find out he was staring straight up at the pristine white barrel vault, reading the engraved letters, “In God We Trust.” for the millionth time. He felt the cold floor and realized he was shirtless, and that it must have been late at night. He grew confused, Just a few minutes ago he remembered falling asleep in his bed. Sitting up, he had seen Father Ciel staring at him from the front row of the pew, with crossed arms and a Bible right beside him as always. Ciel’s green eyes pierced into Yurei’s poor soul, all while he uncrossed his arms to fix his blonde hair. He always complained it was too long, but never actually had the time or energy to cut it.

Yurei fixed his posture, standing up and facing Ciel, trying not to trip over his own feet. The boy wore an embarrassed smile and brushed himself off. He walked over to the priest in front of him and read his expression, unimpressed as always.

“I’m sorry for falling collapsing again Father Ciel, sometimes I can’t help it you know? I try relaxing in a pew reading about our holy lord, then next thing you know I’m passed out--”

“Where is your Bible?”

Shit. Yurei already knew he would get his ear chewed off Ciel when it wasn’t some ungodly hour of the night or a Sunday morning, but now he’d have to listen to Lolita and do her boring work for the next few weeks. Yurei’s smile turned into an annoyed expression; furrowed eyebrows, and a slight frown.

“I don’t know. It’s still lost from last Sunday school. I think the children hid it around here somewhere.”

That was a lie.

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t be laying in the middle of the church floor every night if you always had your Bible by your side. I can sense God is not impressed, Yurei.”

Oh, bless it. Ciel picked up his Bible and stood up, towering over Yurei and glaring at him before walking off to the back hallways of the church. The last things Yurei heard from Ciel’s mouth was Matthew 18: 21-22. ‘Then Pete came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?”’

The cold shirtless boy sighed and looked down at the spot where he blacked out. The marble floor looked clean, even though Yurei woke up in a gross cold sweat. He turned his gaze to the bible in the pew and had a strong urge to rip it into tiny shreds, but that would earn him another week doing Lolita’s work. Yurei ignored the thought and walked down the aisle and to the hallway where Ciel disappeared off to.

The boy turned the corner and looked down the long hallway. Dread grew over him as he made his way to his room, looking through all the doors, curious to see if anything in this boring church would actually change. Of course it didn’t. It was just the same old boring meeting rooms and storage rooms, with a few classrooms scattered around for Sunday school. Yurei yawned as he made his way to his room. Opening the door quietly, he noticed his roommate was still up, writing at their desk and mumbling to himself. Yurei shut the door to make some noise and his roommate looked up in annoyance. That’s because his roommate was Father Ciel.

“Couldn’t you at least take your sweet precious time to get back like you do every other day? Exploring some off-limits part of the church for me to go find you and yell at you?”

Yurei already knew where the off-limit areas in the church were; the basement, the attic, the freezer in the banquet hall, and etc. The off-limit areas weren’t anything special really, just places that “kids shouldn’t be snooping around or they’ll get hurt.” as quoted by Ciel himself. A few years ago, Yurei and one of the other children of the church, Esther, had ventured up to the attic in an anticipation of the priests and Father Ciel had told them not to go to. In the end, the only things in the attic were empty caskets for ceremonies and old junk the priest wanted to throw away, but completely forgot about.

“Ah, sorry Father Ciel-”

“You don’t have to call me Father Ciel, you’re old enough.”

Yurei didn’t remember that being any kind of rule of when you turned sixteen. Everyone calls the priest by Father, except for maybe some of the older priests who have been at the church longer than Ciel.

“Uh, sorry... Er... Ciel. I can go back out the pews and sit there for a bit if you would like to finish writing with disturbance.”

Ciel shook his head and closed his book. Yurei glanced at the book and noticed the cover had a pentagram on it, it looked like the book Ciel was reading out of earlier. The boy focused his attention back on Ciel as he got up from the desk and threw himself onto the bed and under the covers.

“I’m done for today. Go explore more if you want, just don’t pass out again. I won’t be the one getting you.”

Knowing Ciel couldn’t see him, Yurei nodded his head and made his way down the hallway to explore the church for the millionth time.