Luke Sanchez is part angel and he doesn't even know it. Unfortunately, the demon who's wrecking havoc on campus does.
Will Luke be able to accept the existence of demons in time to stop one from destroying his campus? More importantly, will he come...
Father Matthew leaned back in his chair. "Sources of goodness have an equal amount of evil seeking to undermine it."
Luke tilted his head, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Think of the Catholic University of America, and the many good people it attracts from across the world—students dedicated to service, to God, to country, to humanity. It's like a fortress of good. Evil has a way of trying to undermine the fortresses of goodness. If it can take out the fortress, the surrounding camps will fall automatically."
Luke was starting to think that the old man's dementia was kicking in. "Evil?"
Father Matthew nodded, "Yes, evil, like demonic evil."
"Demonic? So your answer for all the bad stuff in my life—it just boils down to demons?"
"It may sound crazy, but sometimes the only way to affirm the existence of God is through the realization that demons exist. Why, more than a hundred years ago an exorcism was performed in the attic of Caldwell Hall. The results were not pretty. There's so much more to demons that we don't understand. But I truly believe they exist, and that they constantly assault our campus to tear down this fortress of good."
Luke's first reaction was to scoff at the notion of demons. Come on, demons can't be real.... Then again, if I believe in God, and his word, and since Jesus exorcised demons in the gospel, then why can't they exist?
Father Matthew interrupted Luke's thoughts. "Is there anything else on your mind?"
Luke shook his head, "I think this conversation was very helpful."
Father Matthew ended the confession by absolving Luke of his sins and requesting that he say a decade of the rosary and speak to Jesus tonight for three minutes "as if he were your friend. Then I want you to pause and listen for three minutes."
Luke left the confession with a task in mind. He stormed into his room, plopped down at his desk and opened his laptop. He began to research demons, anything he could find. He found out that in most Christian traditions, demons are linked to the angels that rebelled against God and fell from heaven. But then there were other demons like succubi and incubi who posed as women and men respectfully to have sex with mortals and steal both their souls and their reproductive cells to create new demons. Some of the websites he visited seemed a little sketchy, and he took most of the information with a grain of salt.
And then he found it, a pair of Tower articles from last semester. The first one described an incident that occurred to an admissions worker making a delivery from Caldwell's basement in the middle of a storm the day before Halloween. A month and a half later, near the last week of the semester, a pair of students were injured in the attic of Caldwell. The articles did not name the students or staff involved, as it was kept confidential due to an ongoing investigation. The Tower had yet to follow up on the story.
Luke remembered back to what Father Matthew had said during his confession, that more than a hundred years ago an exorcism had been performed in the attic of Caldwell Hall. Then these two incidents occurred in the basement and the attic, and Caldwell was known to be the oldest building on campus. It was first opened in 1888, a year after the school was founded.
If demons existed and were threatening campus, Caldwell Hall was the place to investigate.
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1888: a picture I took of the cornerstone that marks the year Caldwell Hall was made. It's the oldest building on campus and there are plenty of rumors that circulate the building, as Father Matthew has pointed out in this chapter. Which brings up the question, what are your initial thoughts of Father Matthew? Like him? Hate him? "Eh, he's aight?"
There's a lot of universe building happening here and in the subsequent chapters. The Forgotten Angel is apart of a much larger universe I've been developing for ten years now. In fact, you may even find some connections if you browse around my other works already posted on Wattpad (*ah em, sorry got a nagging cough), especially after you're done reading this story (if you want to avoid any spoilers).
