Hansel & Gretel-The Twin Demon Hunters

Chapter 1

Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, which was once aesthetically pleasing. The stillness of the church sent shivers down her spine. The mirthful garden, where once young children played joyously, where the flowers bloomed under the sun rays, is now just a snow covered solitary path. There is water dripping from the roof, rhythmically, generating a melancholic melody. The door hinges are all rusted and the glass windows are all shattered, shattered like her peace after the abandonment of this church where she now came to pray and confess her sins.

She did not kneel at the pews to pray for she needed to confess.

The dark door of the confessional was swung open by her causing a slow and nasty creak which echoed through the hallway and the stained glasses were moved by the noise disturbing their restless sleep in the darkness. There were a few candles burning near the altar and a single dark candle to light the confessional box. The nun knelt down on the hard wooden floor and knocked at the partition of the confessional trying to convey in silence that a poor and disturbed soul was in need of guidance.

A few minutes later, the other side of the box opened and the priest took his place.

“Speak child. Unburden yourself. God is listening you,” came his voice from the other side.

The nun enclosed her folded hands as if in prayer and spoke out,” Good evening Father. Forgive me, for I have sinned.”

“How have you sinned my child?” asked the priest intently listening to what she had to say.

“I have sinned because I have heard things I should not have and I have read scriptures which should have been locked away as they were. I have been shown images and incidents of such a macabre manner that I cannot sleep at nights. I am always frightened that the descriptions that I have read have tainted my soul and I have fallen in the eyes of the Lord,” said the whimpering nun.

“There is no sin that our Lord cannot forgive and there is no darkness that our Lord cannot light with his light. You should not fall prey to the dark whispers of the Devil, my child. You need to have faith in the Lord. Now in the name of the Lord, please repeat what it is that you want to tell me,” said the priest, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of hearing the gruesome details that she was going to describe.

“It was in the vaults locked inside an iron trunk. I was supposed to be cleaning out the vaults so as the cobwebs and the insects would not eat away the precious books and scriptures at all. Mother Superior herself entrusted me with this arduous task since she said that I cleaned like Manakel himself. And given the chance she would not allow anyone to touch those precious things which were the greatest property of the monastery.

I had woken up early in the morning before Mass and thought that I would start cleaning beforehand so as it would be finished early and I would be able to devote some of my time in the new psychology books for new course online that I have enrolled. I took up the cleaning articles from the broom closet and went down to the vaults which are located in the basement. I lit the room switching on the single switch beside the door and went ahead. As I was dusting the cobwebs and the ends of the room which is a huge room itself, I thought I heard something. I went back to the door once again to check if someone was calling me but it was still closed and no movement had occurred in anything at all. It was all the same just as I had left it when I had entered. I did not pay any further heed to it and started cleaning it once more but I again heard the sound and this time very close to me. An iron chest near me was rattling very loudly and I opened it. There was nothing inside the chest except a leather bound volume, an old Bible and a few scrolls which were written in Spanish. I could not understand the words in the beginning but after sometime I could read everything very clearly.

They were ancient Latin prayers translated in Spanish and the diary which was kept inside was that of a priest who had led the life of a travelling solitary monk and dedicated his entire time to the study of demonology and how to defeat them when they took possession of the human bodies. The leather bound volume contained his descriptions of the people who were plagued by these and the life force of the victims would be gradually drained away in the most disgusting and vulgar and grisly manner possible. He had encountered nine such cases of which he was able to save only one. I was so engrossed in reading his writing that I did not even know when time had passed and I had missed Mass.

Finally when Sister Clare came to look for me I pretended that I was sweeping with the broom in my hand and hid the leather volume in my robe. We had a brief conversation and then I had to go to meet the Mother Superior who smiled seeing my dusty condition and I was let off without being reprimanded.

I finished reading the entire document before coming to speak to you Father. You cannot even imagine what kind of horrors lay hidden in that country at that time. There was no electricity, no proper clean sanitation, and the darkness and no technology to support any of the endeavours of the priest, Father Santiago. He has written how the demons have plagued him day and night trying to drive him towards madness so that he would commit suicide. He has been shown visions by them making him doubt his own sanity. As I read his words I could feel them throbbing in my own heart. I know that I cannot do anything to help him at all but I wish that I could have done something to ease his journey and pain and making everything a bit more comfortable than the poverty and the hardships he suffered. He was cast out of the church branding him as a delusional but he was a person who was gifted with the Sight. But Father Santiago has written himself that it was a Curse of which he would be free the day he breathed his last,” said the nun as the priest listened carefully to her words.

“Did you bring this leather bound diary of the priest with you?” asked the priest because he knew that she was too intrigued by the document to have kept it back in the vault locked back again in an iron chest.

“I should have kept it back in the vaults, I know. I also understand that this is a sin to have taken it without her permission and I should not have but Father, believe me every time I tried keeping the diary away from me it felt that it was calling me back to be near it,” said the nun, not answering the question that was asked to her.

“I am not telling that you have not sinned Sister, but that does not mean that there might not be a reason that why this dark thing has been calling out to you. You know the reason as well as I do. So tell me if you have brought this thing with you?” asked the priest in a sterner tone.

The nun opened the box of the confessional and walked out waiting for the priest to do the same. When he came out the nun licked her lips lewdly and winked at him beckoning him with a finger. The priest smiled and came forward.

“How I have missed you Brother,” said the nun, as she pulled him in for a kiss. It was a hot and scorching kiss and the moment their lips touched a pack of bats flew out of the end of the roof of the church over their heads. The candles started burning even brighter making the desolate room seem glowing, which dimmed down the moment their lips parted.

The priest looked in her dark eyes of the Sister and smiled back at her licking in his own lips. If anyone looked at both of them closely enough they would see the considerable likeness and the similarity in their appearances. Both had dark shiny glossy mane of hair and dark eyes which were nothing else but two dark pieces of the darkest coal at the pits of earth. Their canines were a bit more elongated than usual which made their smiles look even more beautiful in a haunting way.

The hands of the priest roamed the entire body of the woman touching all her physique leaving no part untouched or missed out over the garb of the nun. As he did that the n*****s of the nun hardened under his expert touch and she hissed in between her teeth.

“It has been centuries Sister, but still this game of priest and nun has not lost any of its charm to you, has it?” asked the priest as he kissed her throat pulling down her starched collar.

“Should it Brother? After all we are in the House of God however derelict and abandoned it might be and defiling it just before his eyes. Do you think Mother would have liked to see of what has become of us?” asked the woman growing pensive at the thought of their mother.

“Gretel, you know that she would be. She could not have asked for anything more from us. We have been helping mankind for as long as we can remember just like she had taught us to in our bedtime stories. Does it not help you to think that she is at peace?” asked the priest, holding her a hand apart and looking in her eyes.

“Hansel, we do not know that for sure. Of all the things that are in our power and we are allowed to do this is something we can never know for sure and unless I go and speak with her myself I am not leaving this matter at all. And as for your last question I have the diary with me and you need to read it as well. Every time we do this, we grow even stronger, which might be the only way to help our Mother and Father. They were wronged just for being different than the others. Was being in love such a crime Hans?” asked Gretel as she pulled out a leather bound volume from the folds of her garb and handed it over to him.

“You know it is not Gretel. Now do not think about all this things at all, we have an eternity to worry about all these things of past,” said Hansel as he opened the diary and smelled the first page and looked up at his sister with his eyes burning.

“I know it too. The man was too advanced for his time which caused him to be branded as delusional but that did not stop him from putting a protection spell on his diary which could have been opened only by someone of demon blood. Father Santiago was a crazy bat,” said Gretel, as she smiled at her brother’s expression.