***Chapter two: God's spoken***
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” Corinthians, 11:13–14.
Pamela picked up the torn paper and put immediately in her pocket, she poked Humbert’s arm and was frightened by what she read,
“They
killed her. I saw
them. Please, help us. I hid her diaries in
the garden, where they
planted red tulips.”
But Mikal noticed them whispering behind, he turned back and asked if everything is okay, but Pamela just said, “I’d love to know if there’s any ancient place to visit around, a park, a garden, where we can rest a little bit, because our car is already damaged and we won’t be able to move sooner.”
Mikal smiled and responded, “We have almost nothing in such an isolated area, unfortunately, but, you’re lucky enough to have a beautiful garden back there, nearby the orphanage, where our sisters and daughters planted each flower and fruit themselves. This signifies that people here love to co-operate, hard work and turning evilness into goodness.”
She didn’t add up any more sentence, squeezing her husband’s palm anxiously, and trying to pretend to be as clueless as possible or she will compromise their both lives more than it looks. Mikal didn’t stop gazing at her, he tried to slow down his steps to make his distance from her equals nothing, and when this happened, he threw a question about her faith background, but she rejected to respond, following her rejection with a reversed dialogue, where Mikal is being questioned and not the other way, “How about you, father? Tell us about your faith history and why a young person like you decided to choose to be celibate for the rest of his life while he could still serve God and remain married just like the rest of us?”
“None of the congregation ever threw questions like that at me before, I wonder why though! I always wanted people to ask me about my background, but they always choose to listen to the present version of myself, to see the charm I give, and to believe what I say without verification, I’m Mikal, 36 years old, I chose this path when I was 12, and I was inspired by father Joseph, a farmer who lost his wife and child in an arson committed by some villagers, they hated the fact that he had more than them, and I saw a martyr in him, who served Christ and understood his wisdom while facing a severe calamity, and although I clone none of his attitudes, since they don’t fit in current era, but I still consider him a role model, I decided to serve God and those who follow him despite what I’ve been through.”
His response couldn’t help but trigger more questions from Pamela, “How did you know for sure that father Joseph wasn’t the one who burnt his family, or there were no reasons behind people burning his place except because he had more than them?”
“Because of faith, do you trust your husband? If yes, how was that trust built?”
He asked in denial of her statement,
“Of course, I do, the difference is that my husband isn’t a random stranger who comes and says whatever he wants and I blindly follow him, and everything he says was easily verified. How about the dystopian place you used to inhabit and caused you to take that priest as a role model to face whatever suffering you might have encountered?”
she responded,
“Fair enough, maybe because I was too young and naive to question a lot of his stories, but at least I’m grateful that I’ve become who I am today because of his path, and, you ask a lot of questions, let’s have breakfast first, and then I answer you regarding any question you want.”
Mikal nodded at the staff to bring the food, and asked Daniel to be excused of their meeting. Humbert was feeling quite uncomfortable of how closer Mikal was getting towards his wife, he tried to distract him a little bit by talking about the history of the place and how many people dedicated themselves to make it look so clean and fun to stay at, but Mikal smirked at him and Humbert found it challenging and humiliating, he tried to swallow his words to deescalate the stance, since they’re feeling quite endangered, but Mikal deliberately tried to escalate the situation between him and Humbert, he made fun of his treatment to his wife, he tried to degrade how faithful he is, and he said that Pamela looks more courageous than him, Humbert just became passive and unable to respond, whereas under the table he was holding a knife in his palm, waiting for a chance he could place it in Mikal’s neck, but Pamela responded fiercely defending her husband and demanding respect from the priest, who shortly and calmly said, “I’ve been proven right.” and then he smiled, apologized for both and left to his chamber.
Pamela held her husband’s hands and said, “I promise you, none of what he said is something I believe, I know you were silent for me, just a matter of time and we’re leaving this asylum.”
He hugged her and exploited that plenty of people were gathering outside to learn the reasons behind the death of Luciana, then they went to the garden where the little girl said she hid Luciana’s diaries at.
Once they went there, they found plenty of flowers, including the tulips, but there were more than a type of tulips planted, which caused a state of confusion, leading them to search every type of tulip, and there we are!
“I found it!” Humbert says in enthusiasm while at the same time lowering his voice, Pamela came and took off her shawl to wrap it around the diary… and they both ran to their bedroom again, locked it and opened the diary already, seeing how crooked some alphabets are, fear and sorrow explained in words, tears that dried on the papers, and blood on some other pages, Pamela was shaking as she was reading, and Humbert was cursing the hour they stopped by the church, he was very anxious that he asked Pamela to leave without the car and ask for help midway, Pamela this time didn’t reject, and recorded a video of important parts of the diary of how Mikal exploited his authority over little girls and assaulted them sexually in the name of God, and how Luciana suffered from mental and physical consequences including frequent miscarriages until they had to remove her uterus. They both took their small bags again, and tried to leave, there was no signal around to call the police or any relative to help, and once Humbert climbs down the window again, Daniel awaits him and asks other coordinators to help escorting him to his dungeon.
Pamela screamed her lungs out and tried to go after him, but she was still upstairs, shivering and panicking, she was a step further from the windowsill, but Mikal comes from behind, and holds her hands tightly, telling her, “He doesn’t deserve you, since we met at the church and I knew that you had things that are worth fighting for, but he as a husband, looks as weak as tree leaf, I heard your argument before you drove your car away from the church, indeed I followed both of you to apologize for any misunderstanding, and there I found you both fighting, and instead of him siding with you he sided with a total stranger, just like me given as an example blindly trusting a stranger from some village.”
She tried to scream but he muffled her mouth with his heavily perfumed stole, then asked her to comply, or he will have to separate her from her husband for longer, he found the diary hidden in her bosom, he asked her to calmly hand it over, and after she did, he said, “This is also a stranger, how could you trust that whatever she said was 100% true!? Or this concept is cynically applied when only the narrator is religious?”
he grabbed her to his chamber, and promised her to stay safe under his custody, and until her husband gets disciplined for his behavior, but she already lost her consciousness due to exhaustion and accelerating heartbeats generated by her fright.
Mikal places her on the bed after she faints in his hands, smells her hair scent, and tries to kiss her neck, but he starts reciting biblical verses and leaves her alone, asking a nurse to check on her, and guards to escort her whenever she is outside the bedroom.
He then goes to his private bathroom, takes off his vest, smells his stole that he gagged her with, and stays entirely naked, full of scars caused by his whip, that he just grabs from his drawer and initiates lashing his back and arse until he bleeds, and after he says the Lord’s name, he tells him “she’s different”, “I’ll treat her better than the others”, “This time I will not share her with anyone but you, but, please, don’t let her slip away from my hand”, then he stands up, limping, and heading to the bathroom to wash away the blood, and cover his wounds.
The little girl who gave Pamela a hint about Luciana’s diary tries to sneak into
Mikal’s bedroom by telling the guards about someone making a mess in the girls’ bathroom and after she enters, she finds the nurse there curing Pamela who is unaware of what’s going on, “Ohud” comes closer to the nurse and pretends that she wants to bless Pamela, and because she is a child who doesn’t look as smart as she really is, the nurse closed her eyes and started praying with Ohud, who placed another paper she dragged beneath her dress and placed under Pamela’s pillow, then thanked the nurse and left in silence. Pamela started waking up, yet unvigilent, searching for Humbert, the nurse already left, and there was no one in the bedroom, she stepped off the bed, and desperately called Humbert, she had her phone in her pocket already, she tried to call the police and move from a spot to another to see if she can access a signal, but it wasn’t worth trying.
She crouched on the floor, and started sobbing, regretting the decision of staying in instead of asking her husband to continue driving, she went outside and found two guards who asked her to stay in until father Mikal comes back, she couldn’t resist much, she went back as ordered, and waited Mikal to come. Few minutes and his footsteps were approaching the room, and each step was making her heart pound more… He entered, cleared his throat and assisted Pamela to stand up and sit on the bed instead of the floor, then she noticed a stain of blood on Mikal’s stole, she asked, “Is this blood my husband’s?”, he replied with nothing, she repeated her question, but then he locked the bedroom, took off his vest slowly as he was full of pain and showed her where the source of blood was,
she felt more frightened and lost every possible word she could think off, he came closer to her, yet stripped, from his clothes and from his ego, telling her that Humbert is fine, but if she keeps mentioning him or try something inappropriate according to his belief, Humbert might stay longer, she didn’t believe his promise, but at the same time, she also didn’t risk any of them any longer, she just kept looking down and avoiding looking at his body, he then held her chin, and lifted up high enough to see what she was trying to ignore, how fragile he looks, and how he chooses her to see him this way.
Then he says, “Pamela, 26, atheist…” she tries to interrupt, then he shushes her and continues, “atheist, abandoned by her church, by the God of those who were at her church, but not by me, if they abandoned you, I shelter you, if your husband betrayed you, I’ll defend you no matter what, even from God himself, I’ll take away every bad fate and turn it into a good one for you, but all you have to do is to comply. Repent before me right now and I’ll forgive you in the name of God”. She laughed hysterically, looked him in the eyes, and said, “it’s always funny to see a pervert sugarcoating his desires with religion, but tell me, father, is it really the scripts? Or it’s individuals as everyone try to say?”
He grabbed her by her neck, stripped her clothes and gagged her mouth, then he picks up his flog and started lashing her until she cried and fainted again, she didn’t bleed, but she had her body and scars swollen, he put her clothes back on her, moves her to the bed and whispers, “Just a matter of time…”
He stayed in the room until she woke up, she had a glass of water on the bedside table, he asked her to drink, then he opened the door to ask the guards to bring the dinner for them, “You had a hefty amount of sleep” he said and smiled, but she was in pain, “they will heal, don’t worry”, the guards arrived with the food, placed the fancy tray on the bed and left, then Daniel came, told Mikal something and left,
Mikal then locked the room for the second time and brought his phone to Pamela and showed her that Humbert was also dining, she couldn’t prevent herself from crying, and begged Mikal not to hurt him and told him it was her mistake to play the detective and she just wants to go home with husband safely.
“Weird how people with such courage decide to regret their path out of selfishness, isn’t a human being so selfish that even the courageous ones decide to give up their core for surviving a moment of danger, or what they think is danger, in your case!” he said, then touched her shoulder,
He started feeding her and eating at the same time, but her appetite wasn’t that good that she couldn’t afford one more bite… He didn’t insist, he just finished his meal and asked her to recite some verses with him to express gratitude to God for that bounty he blessed then with… she started repeating after him, and each time she listened and repeated, he felt overly satisfied, then he asked the guards to escort her to his private bathroom to shower, and after she finishes, she comes back to the bedroom, feeling so scared of the possible consequences she might face in few minutes, but as soon as she enters Mikal’s room, she finds him in a pajama and he asks her to sleep on the bed while he sleeps on the couch. For her, that didn’t change the amount or trust she had towards him, but it inevitably reinforced her fears of the future.
She couldn’t close her eyes while he was sharing the same place as her, she kept rolling on the bed, looking at the ceiling, and as she was moving her pillow, she heard noises, she calmly tried to handle, as she was checking the source of that noise… She puts her hand under the pillow and finds the paper, “I’m Ohud, a daughter of an immigrant who died in an accident, I’m the one who hid the diary in the tulips, look, Father Mikal and the coordinators are the only ones who have access to technology, find the laptop of father Mikal, it’s somewhere exactly in his bedroom, but I don’t know the password.”
Pamela tried to hide the paper again, but there was no safe place, therefore, she swallowed the paper hardly after munching it, then felt sick shortly… Mikal heard her gagging, he woke up, and asked her if she is actually pregnant, but she couldn’t respond, he escorted her himself to his bathroom and waited her to finish vomiting, trying to lift up her hair to assist, but every touch and finger he laid on her she felt scared and quite uncomfortable. He took her back to the bedroom, and started asking if she has intentions of conceiving a child, but she denied, and although she wasn’t feeling safe to sleep while he was around, she fell asleep after vomiting, until the morning.
She woke up and Mikal has already left, she moved like crazy looking for the laptop the girl told her about but she didn’t find anything, not under the bed, cushions, couch, but she knew he had an office that he works at during the day, and that was her next target.
The breakfast was on the edge of the bed, she ate well this time, and waited until Mikal came, then she asked him to let her go to Humbert to check on him, but he rejected and told her briefly that he is fine and ordained her strictly this time not to mention of him anymore. “Am I a captive here? What are you exactly waiting from me?”
she yelled, totally careless about how he might react, then he came closer and said, “I’m being patient with you so far, what am I waiting from you? A belief.”
“A belief of what? Let me help you and help myself, please, you already told me the girl might not be sane, and you’re right, I shouldn’t have trusted blindly, and even if, what will happen next? I have no evidence, and with that diary you obtained I prove nothing, still a teenage girl hallucinating and saying things that don’t make sense, but why am I here?” she asked with a calmer attitude this time, which evoked every monster instinct inside of Mikal, he went to the door, unresponsive, he almost went outside in order to get back to his work, but he instead locked the door, walked faster towards her, then kissed her aggressively, leaving no space for her to fathom anything, but his great danger to her, and left no space for her to resist as he was tying her up with his own clothes, and Pamela never felt more disgusted of her body than this unique time, she lost herself into the void, unable to speak, scream, or even resist anymore, she saw her clothes removed gradually and thrown away, and felt him over her wishing every second to die and get buried under the soil, she could never imagine someone else touching her except her husband, and whatever she encountered as teenage equals nothing to what she was encountering at that time…
He finished, spoke nothing, and went back to his office, he asked everyone to ignore her that day, nobody even entered with food anymore, she was silent for hours, same position he left her, half naked, no tears dropping and no hope to escape… Mikal came back to find her the same, he frowned even more, and asked the guards to escort her to his bathroom after he dresses her up, and once she went there, she stayed under the shower for more than an hour, then looked at the mirror and hit it with the utmost strength she had, cause it to shatter in pieces, and before anyone came in to rescue, she grabbed a glass shard and placed in her underwear, Mikal came, and so did the guards and took her to the nurse room to cure her hand, then Mikal escorted her to his bedroom holding her waist and feeling guilty for what he caused, not just for her, but for everyone else too.
He closed the door behind him like a lion locked in a cage with a goat, but Pamela couldn’t care less this time, and went to the bed and just laid on her back, then turned slowly in the darkness to place the glass shard under the pillow.
“I’m sorry… I believe that God chose you for me, maybe you don’t understand yet that our fate has gathered us for a reason, but by time, you will understand, your faith in God will help you understand, I would never allow anyone to hurt you. Not the guards, not Daniel, not even your husband who hurt you currently and prior. This will never repeat again unless you want it.”
he said, and then gave her a cup of water, she drank and then slept, and meanwhile she was asleep she felt his fingertips touching her hair, she slowly turned back, but she only sees Humbert, she kissed him and they started making love as the desire in her heart was increasing to find peace, love and imperfect safe marriage she used to have…
every touch was like heaven to her, and as she was moaning in Mikal’s paradise, Humbert was suffering and trying to find an escape to his kidnapped wife, he didn’t even get the privilege of seeing how she is, he was desperate behind bars… until Ohud came and told him that she has hope that Pamela might escape soon and leave with him and asked him to be patient, moreover, told him the misery Pamela lives in recently, but she told him that she is not alone in this, and plenty of orphans are willing to help soon.
Humbert felt so ashamed of himself that he couldn’t help his wife ditch all these danger factors they witnessed before, and the repercussions of staying, and remaining unable to cut the hand of the acclaimed saint who tarnishes a sacred place where thousands of people highly value… little do they know… that this hand they often kiss and ask to bless them, touches innocents, takes away their happiness, trust, hopes, dreams and even faith.
The next day came, and Pamela was feeling good, she didn’t recognize that she was drugged and used by Mikal, it felt like a good dream for her, especially when she saw her dearly husband… but Mikal was extremely positive and happy that morning, he had an event that day at the church, so he had to leave… she was quite sober, somber and angry, she took the glass shard and lured one of the guards inside, trying to seduce him, a celibate servant of God who hadn’t touched a woman in a lifetime, how would he resist such temptations! How would he not succumb to Pamela’s beauty!
She asked him to take off his clothes while the other was waiting outside, curiously, then asked him to kneel, close his eyes, and pray, so he can get what he wants, then she grabbed the glass shard and slit his throat, and grabbed him to a corner, while trying to lure the latter, who already doubted something from the beginning, he noticed the blood and found his friend under the bed, dead and soaked in his blood, Pamela climbed on his back and stabbed him in his neck too, leaving them both behind after stealing the keys from them. She went the bathroom of the ladies and washed herself as much as possible, she only had blood splashes on her face, chin, and sleeves, she didn’t know where Humbert was, but she went to Mikal’s office and took his laptop, and disguised as a nun, since there were extra clothes in office.
She asked about her husband’s dungeon to bring food for him, then she found him…
And both found salvation in each other…
They were always the faith of each other, the concept of peace, unconditional love and even hunger.
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