Chapter 1.1

A Chapter by ArchAngeL009

The first part of chapter 1, enjoy~

Chapter 1

“Hey, Alex, wake up man, we’re leaving!” A pale-looking boy awoken from his dream, opened his eyes and saw his friend, Samuel Maxwell crowing at him. He stood up unsteadily from the wooden bench, observing his surroundings sleepily with his soulless eyes. It was a moderately huge hall filled with dilapidated wooden benches. A magnificent Jesus statue hanged on the wall painted in milky white, was gazing at him steadily with a gracious look and in the opposite of Jesus stood a massive door painted in reddish-brown. A large group of people were pacing through the only entrance and exit of this sacred place.

“You’re really pathetic! Do you want to get scolded from Ms. Scarlett again?” shouted Samuel.

The boy, Alex Skyler wiped his eyes and stared at the rascal standing before him.

“Samuel, what’s the matter? You know what will happen if someone shouts at me, don’t you?” grunted Alex. What he said was utterly true, he used to beat people up if anyone was foolish enough to offend him, no one except the counselors of the orphanage dared spoke to him in this way, unless they wanted to make themselves his personal punching-bag.

But, Samuel was an exception, he was Alex’s best buddy and only friend since childhood, they slept together, they had fun together and they even shared their personal feelings and admirations towards the girls they liked to each other. However, Samuel was someone totally different, he was an obedient, sincere and knowledgeable prodigy who often gets compliments from his tutors and counselors from the orphanage, all in all, a decent juvenile he was. Unlike the outrageous and quarrelsome Alex who frequently picked up feuds and fights with the other orphans, Samuel was just too gentle to fight. He never fought with anyone before in his entire lifetime and he often ended up being a prey of the bullies from the orphanage, though they were more likely to get bruises and wounds after Alex knew what they did to his buddy. Lots of people wondered how two teenagers with entirely different personalities and behaviours could possibly get along with each other.

“Whatever. Now, are you coming with us, or do you wish to stay here?” said Samuel softly while he was chuckling at Mr. Jonathan, one of the most sensible and understanding counselors who was making gentle but petty paces towards the two of them. Alex forced a wide but insincere grin to appear on his face when he noticed Mr. Jonathan.

Mr. Jonathan was a charismatic six-footer with fairly brown curly hair and hazel-brown eyes. He seemed more like a missionary than an orphanage counselor as he loved telling stuffs about God and Christ and boring religious fables.

“Why aren’t the two of you moving along with the others? Is there any problem?” asked Mr. Jonathan.

Samuel glimpsed at Alex for once and turned his head around to face the counsellor.

“Of course not, Mr. Jonathan, we apologize for the inconvenience we have caused.” replied Samuel politely.

“Yeah, everything’s cool, dear Mr. Jonathan.” muttered Alex.

Both of them realized that the church was almost empty at that moment, the whole place was filled with echoes of their voices. The other orphans and Ms. Scarlett, the other counselor who came along were already outside, waiting for the bus to arrive under the blazing sun.

“Okay then, let’s move it.” said Mr. Jonathan cheerfully.

When everyone felt that their bodies were beginning to scorch under the gigantic flaming ball hung on the cloudless sky. An extremely low-pitched honking sound emerged from somewhere nearby, despairing frowns on everyone’s forehead faded, grim looks were replaced with joyful smiles. The arrival of the bus gave indescribable reliefs to every single one of them, their torments were finally over after an eternity.

“Okay, now, queue up and get in one by one!” ordered Ms. Scarlett in a bossy tone.

No one from the orphanage seemed to like her, maybe because of her cockiness, or maybe because of her monstrous look. The plump lady stood firmly with a list of the orphans’ names in her hands, making sure everyone wasn’t missing. On the air-conditioned bus, everyone found their own seats and began to settle down. Yes, very much settled down, settled down for about a few nanoseconds, and then every single corner of the bus was filled with various sounds, sounds of some girls chit-chatting, sounds of some boys screaming and shouting and playing around. Ms. Scarlett transmitted her demonic voice from her immense mouth as she unhinged her jaws. “Keep your mouths shut unless you want to sleep with empty stomachs tonight!” The formidable voice high-pitched enough to shatter a fortune teller’s crystal ball echoed all over the bus, and slowly, it faded, in exchange was complete silence.

After a short while, Mr. Jonathan made his way towards Alex and Samuel, he sat down on an empty seat which was adjacent to theirs.

“So, do you find the visit to St Peter’s Cathedral interesting?”

“Yes, Mr. Jonathan, I really love the church, it’s magnificent.” replied Samuel excitedly.

“I’m glad you like it.” Mr. Jonathan exhibited a delightful smile and said “What about you, Alex?”

Alex which was lying on the inner-seat beside his pal tilted his head to face the counselor. “Me? Ah, I don’t care. As you can see, I’m a free thinker, so, I’m not really interested in that crappy church and those dim-witted grumpy old priests back there.”

Samuel quickly elbowed his buddy to stop the outrage he was causing. “Erm, Mr. Jonathan, what Alex’s trying to say is -” The bus halted abruptly and violently, making everyone except the bulky bus driver himself fell forward and had their foreheads knocked on the seats in front of them, some who were standing and fooling around even lost their balance and fell to the ground. Various curses flew out simultaneously.

Alex peeked through the transparent glass window and saw a seemingly old but spectacular building stood majestically across the pavement. Lots of buses, cars and a handful of limousines could be seen in the huge parking lot. While tour-guides and tourists were moving in and out through the main entrance of the gigantic structure.

“All right, here we are, the St Peter’s Museum of Religious Life and Art.” Mr. Jonathan announced. “Now, queue up and we shall enter the museum.”

Mr. Jonathan led the museum tour as he was an expert in religious stuffs. Basically, the tour was extremely boring for Alex. Paintings, scupltures, statues. These were what he hated most, and the museum was full of these artifacts. It’s pointless and wasting time browsing through these worthless junks, thought Alex in disgust.

Well, for Samuel, it was an utterly different story. He could feel his heart pounding violently, every single step he took made his pulse raced stronger and stronger. The excitement was indescribable, the priceless paintings and the fabulous artifacts made him soared sky high. It was like a dream to him, a really sweet dream, to have an opportunity to see these magnificent masterpieces created by various ingenious painters, artists and sculptors.

As for the other regular orphans, it was just a mere visit, nothing much. Some were listening to Mr. Jonathan while he explained about the artifacts, while a larger group of orphans were gossiping and chit-chatting among themselves. The plump Ms. Scarlett nearly fell asleep when Mr. Jonathan was showing the kids some marble statues and ceramics. Alex glanced at Samuel in bewilderment, how could someone on this planet possibly like these things, he thought. The museum was like a living-hell for Alex, he wished he could be released from this infernal torment. The faster the better.

‘Can anyone tell me who these two people are?” asked Mr. Jonathan as he was pointing at a painting which was looming on the wall in front of him.

The painting portrayed an angel holding a sword firmly in his right hand and grasping a chain which was binding a demonic-winged muscular man with his left hand. The angel trampled the man in order to seize him.

Mr. Jonathan saw a teenager with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes who was wearing a pirated-version Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt standing among the other orphans. He wasn’t paying attention at all as he was glancing at a pretty teenage girl passing by so Mr. Jonathan decided to let him answer the question.“Alex, you seem like you already know the answers, so, can you tell us who they are?” asked Mr. Jonathan.

The question gave Alex a sudden shock as he knew almost nothing about those religious stuffs. He stared at the painting for several seconds and shrugged.

“Come on, just give it a try.” said Mr. Jonathan.

“Erm, that one with the immortal wings is an angel.” answered Alex.

“And the other man?”

“A medieval wrestler?”

The orphans bursted in laughter.

“At least you got one right.” sighed Mr. Jonathan. “Well, precisely, the man who is holding a sword is actually one of the seven archangels, and the one below him is Devil, or we call him Satan.”

“So, the angel is trying to enslave Satan?” one of the orphans asked.

The orphans bursted in laughter again.

“Not quite, angels don’t enslave others.” The firm voice came from behind of the orphans. All of them turned around and saw a grey-haired middle-aged man. He was wearing a pair of frameless glasses and an expensive black tuxedo.

The group of orphans made way for the man as he was walking towards Mr. Jonathan and Ms. Scarlett in steady footsteps.

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