It was Monday night, and after classes and work, Luke went to the residence hall confessions. He sat in a small, dimly lit chapel with a basic wooden altar. Atop the altar was a golden cross and in front of it sat a priest who also wore a small stone crucifix necklace. He was an old man, his hair was whiter than snow, and his face looked like it had aged for nearly a century. Yet, his figure was not one to scoff at. He looked healthy, vigorous, and full of life even while at the tail end of it, well except for the nagging cough.
"Come," the priest stood and waved over to Luke. Luke closed the door behind him drowning out the light from the Opus Lobby. His pupils dilated to adjust to the low light setting of the room. When privacy couldn't be afforded through confessional booths, low lighting was substituted to provide the sense of anonymity.
"My name is Father Matthew," he coughed into his sleeve as he extended his hand to meet Luke's. They shook hands as Father Matthew cleared his throat full of a thick sticky substance. "Take a seat." They both sat down, and Luke was twirling his thumbs.
"My name's Luke, it's been a while since I've gone to confession," Luke said with haste. He was pretty sure priests didn't like hearing people say they haven't been to confession in a while, especially when every Sunday at mass they barked at their congregation to attend confession weekly.
"Well you're here now, so what's on your mind?" Father Matthew asked.
Where do I begin? Luke thought.
"I think I'm responsible for a student's suicide."
Father Matthew didn't flinch. "How so."
Luke recounted the discussion he had with Darryl, how he found out what happened to him, Darryl's history of suicide attempts, and then how Luke decided to leave his friend alone while he went out on a date. He was enjoying himself while his friend was suffering.
Father Matthew did not interrupt him at all. He sat there and listened, his eyes trained solely on Luke who tried his best to avoid them but never liked backing down from a staring competition.
"And I don't know what to do Father. Am I to blame?"
Father Matthew cleared his throat, which made the flabby skin beneath his chin wobble like a turkey's beak. "Did you take the pills?"
"No but..."
"Did you hand him the pills?"
"No..."
"Did you watch him take the pills?"
"No.... but that's the point."
"What's the point? That you were supposed to babysit a distressed man?" He paused as if formulating his thoughts. "Could you have done more? Yes, I believe you could have. But you also could have done less. And that's the key. You did something. You took interest in him, you cared enough to see him even after your date, to get him food, to convince him to come outside, to get him help. We can't imagine what he had gone through, but what you did over the past couple of days, praying for him, asking God for forgiveness, you're doing the right thing."
Luke didn't seem convinced. Father Matthew leaned in and Luke could smell his smoker's breath with such intensity that he feared he may get second-hand smoke by simply breathing in what Father Matthew exhaled. "Sometimes the person we need to forgive the most is ourselves."
Luke shook his head, "I mean why would a person do such a thing? I mean, what's happening at this campus? First the fire is somehow deliberately set, and then these two suicides..." Not to mention the flame I managed to conjure up and the weird face I saw in the pond. "Why is everything bad happening around me?" Except for Nellie, Luke thought. She's been the only blessing out of all this chaos.
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.
*________________________________________________*
Author's Note
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).
Catch you later.
- L. A. Rivera