2010-07-14 18:31:28 UTC
“Xavier told me that Satan himself has prophets, as well as his own children. I'd never heard of such a thing, but taking Xavier’s word for it, Jason isn’t the same type of prophet as you are.” My mother took a deep breath and returned to her dishes in silence.
I stood there unmoving, not sure what to believe anymore. How could this be true? Well, if God was real, then I should have known that Satan was real, too. And that probably meant that…. My eyes slowly found their way onto Xavier, his hands still laced behind him, and this time his eyes were closed like he was trying to ‘relax.’
Now, my mother’s explanation seemed to explain a lot to me. I didn’t know what to say next, but I found the words slipping out of my mouth after a while. “Does that mean that Jason’s not attending the same school as me?” Both Xavier and Jason smirked at the same time; yes, they sure had a lot in common now.
“Of course he can’t. Would an angel ever let a son of Lucifer into a holy school? Yeah right,” Xavier laughed. His hard, teasing laughter filled the quiet kitchen.
I was many things at that moment but mostly just… upset. I would have to enter Saint Peter’s alone. I would have to face all those new adventures all alone. What’s more, since we were twins, we'd gone through almost every experience together. Our first doctor’s appointment, first day of preschool, birthday, visit to church... all the first time experiences that I’d ever been through, he’d always been right there next to me. I then remembered that Xavier had asked Mom for an envelope before he’d left earlier. The envelope was Jason’s acceptance letter to a school, obviously. So, if he wasn’t going to Saint Peter’s, what school was he going to then?
“Uh... Jason, did you get an acceptance letter, too?” I tried to ask him as nicely as I could.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I did too. I’m going to Saint Peter’s, what about you?”
“Beelzebub Institute of Demonic Studies. I received a letter, did you?”
“I did too, can I see yours?” I wasn’t sure why, but now that it occurred to me that Ever-End, as my mother called it, also existed, I was quite interested to discover that the concept of education even existed in hell.
Drying my slightly wet hands with the dish towel, I set it down beside the plate I’d just been drying and walked over to where Jason was sitting on the table.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the dark black envelope I remembered seeing when Lily had given me mine. Taking his torn-open envelope, I reached across the table to pick up the discarded piece of parchment bearing my own letter and handed it to him.
I read his letter silently to myself:
“Thank you for your enrollment at The Beelzebub Institute of Demonic Studies.
We offer a wide arrangement of classes for your little hellraiser, including:
Demonology I, II, III, and IV
Possession
Satanic Bible Studies
Intro to Dark Rituals, Dark Ritual Studies, and Advanced Dark Rituals
A Survey of Sins (advanced courses with heavy emphasis on the Seven Deadly Sins upon request)
Understanding Torture: Theory, Practice, and Analysis
Pyrokinesis I and II
Surviving Exorcism
Fate will bring you to us on January 2nd 2011, at 11:30 AM.
We are situated at Bone Walk Street, Gotham, Hell. Do not dare to be late or entry will not be granted!
Yours Truly,
Headmaster Azrael
Just like I’d done with my own letter, I kept rereading his for some mistake. The ink used to write the letter was a dark scarlet red, almost like blood to me. I shivered and almost dropped the letter. It was also written on parchment, though the parchment my letter had been written on had been light gold, while his was a dark grey.
I handed him back his letter as he gave back mine.
“Your school sounds… nice,” I said.
“Yours sounds okay.” He didn’t try to disguise his opinion of my new school. Taking back my letter, I carefully set it back onto the table.
I turned back to him. “What do you mean by, ‘your school is okay’?” I crossed my arms tightly across my stomach, looking at him with my eyes narrowed.
“What? All I’m saying is, your school doesn’t sound as exciting as mine,” he confessed. I bit my tongue hard enough to maybe cause a small tear to slide down my cheek, but that still didn’t stop me from saying what I didn’t mean to say: “At least my school isn’t full of dirty sinners!”
As I exclaimed this out loud, Jason’s eyes narrowed, too, and he spat back, “Your school sounds like a school for pansies! Who names a school Saint Peter's? It sounds like one of those strict Catholic schools where they whip men out of scared pansies!”
“Your new lord is a dirty sinner!”
“Yours is obsessed with rules! Don’t eat from the tree, don’t worship any other god, don’t commit sins. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do anything! At least my god hangs loose!”
“Angels are better than fallen angels, and demon