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The Tormented Soul

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The Tormented Soul

14th November 2015

Dear Diary,

I do not know how long it has been since I’ve experienced my last surge of brilliance. You see, I’m an established author. Albeit a published one – renowned to most for my fictional writings in dystopian novels.

I have published a whopping number of 23 books. TWENTY THREE, with my last book, my last ‘Child’ being God’s Rapture; arguably my best work and the one most questioned, discussed and sought after by reviewers around the world. Critics were bitter sweet, both harsh and well. And as much good attention as my last work had garnered, she’d drew enough bad ones to match.

While I know that my the book, written based on the Bible of God’s Christian Rapture, had indirectly made a mockery out of extremists and devout believers of the religion, I had no intentions of incurring your wrath my dear God.

Lord, have you forsaken me? Have you taken away what you had blessed me with since birth? Have I not been loyal to you? Not a day went by that I missed a day of church. Not one Sunday I’d spent, that I spent outside the house of the Lord, your house. Never mind the harsh, cold stares my fellow church goers had been giving me – well or unwell, I had always been there, praying to you and only you.

I do not know if my questions would go unanswered; questions I’d been asking – every single day for the last five years, without a single paragraph written nor a book published.

If I had offended you my lord, I pray for your forgiveness so that I may have what I once had, once more. I pray that I do not have to end my own life to meet my maker, you; to figure out my answer.

I’m at my wits end.


21st November 2015

Dear Diary,

A week had gone by to no avail. After my twentieth confession in the booth with Father Willoughby, to seek forgiveness and redemption, I have shown no progress. Father Willoughby is convinced that this is not the Lord’s doing but my own.

“This is a matter of the heart, Mr. Langley. I’m afraid I cannot help you.” He said.

Though I’m very much convinced otherwise. I’ve spent twice the amount of time meeting therapists after therapists with no results to show. ‘Anti-depressants’, mild sleeping pills, sleep therapy, vacations – time offs. I’ve tried them all! How could I, JK Langley, one of the greatest writers alive in the 21st century, have lost all of my inspirations in just one day!? I have never been this lost since Linda died in the car crash, 8 years ago.

God. You’ve taken everything from me. The love of my life, my family, my writing! What more do you want from me!? I’ve done it all right. I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT!

This just doesn’t make any sense!

I refuse to accept this!

I just can’t. I cannot.

God. If you have condemned and turned your back against me, please… Just show me a sign. I beg of you…


5th December 2015

Dear Diary,

I have stopped writing you, for more than a week now. True. It’s not like I have anything to share. And it’s not like I have anyone else to read you. But the therapists did say writing journals will help inspire me once more. It did not.

To date, I have written over twenty diaries, each with words far lesser than the ones before. Now, I can’t be bothered to write about anything else anymore. Without writing, all else in my life had become… Mundane.

Two days ago, I met up with Antoinette once more. Some lady I once met in New Orleans last year over the Mardi Gras celebration. I wouldn’t have remembered her had I not written about her in one of my other journals. As it seemed, writing diaries do make a difference after all.

I don’t normally disclose personal information about myself to anyone. My fans… And enemies had long known that I live in a life of seclusion. But there’s something about Annie that made me trust her. No, it’s more like I want to trust her. Perhaps it’s because I have no one else.

Long story short, she was convinced that she had another… way – a workaround if you will. A way for me to regain my lost… Self.

I’m to meet her, first thing tomorrow morning in the coffee shop two blocks from my home. She wouldn’t disclose the real details as to how she intend to ‘fix’ me. Only that it is something… ‘un-christianly’. I jumped at her offer as soon as she gave it. It’s Sunday tomorrow and it’ll be the first time I skip church in a long… long time.

If my God wouldn’t answer my prayers…

Maybe her God would.


6th December 2015

Dear Diary,
Indeed, what Annie recommended had been truly unorthodox. Today, after breakfast, she brought me to a few friends. We met at their place, an enormous mansion that I didn’t even know existed up north in New Haven. And I’ve lived here practically all my life!

I was lucky. Or so Annie had claimed. Her friends, a group of them – are a huge family of friends. I don’t even know that people have that many siblings in a family no more. But they were seven siblings, and they were only here for the week. Normally, they’d be out travelling the world but this week out of all weeks they were here… When I needed them most. Could this be fate now? Surely God wouldn’t arrange this for me. Would he?

I’m convinced he wouldn’t.

Because he is a jealous God. And what Annie and her friends had offered were ‘gifts’ from another God. One they all worshipped. One that would reward his true followers. I’ve always known Annie was rich. She is. And the siblings were far wealthier. More so than anyone I’ve seen.

‘Vis Sam Deil’ is one of the many names their God were known as. Sure it’s a mouthful. But if he’s willing to grant me the joy of writing once more, I am his.

Of course, nothing is free in this world. Everything’s got a price. I’ll admit the moment they mentioned the ‘price’, I was a little put off. But as it turns out, their price could be my just reward. They wanted me to write a sequel to God’s Rapture.

Tomorrow midnight, they will perform the final ceremony to welcome me into their circle. I’ve been promised that I will see changes the first thing after. And I trust them. Again, I have to.


8th December 2015

IT’S NOTHING SHORT OF A MIRACLE!

Dear Diary,

I AM WRITING AGAIN! Fifty thousand words in just half day! Even in my best days for the last ten years of my career had, I had not achieved this. I’ve personally read it through again and again and I know I’ve outdone myself!

It’s come back! I can feel it again… The words… Ideas… Everything just seemed to flow so smoothly out of my mind!

The ceremony had been a success! And for the price I had to pay, to undergo the ordeal had been worth it. I’d do it ten times over.

Although I’m not in the liberty to divulge most of what I’ve underwent, I’ll still write in some details here; to remind me of what I had to go through in order to get it back. To get this back.

The ceremony had taken place in the large yards not far from the mansion and lasted for nearly an hour. For most parts, they were borderline grotesque, demeaning and insufferable. Had I not the resolve to press through, I would’ve failed. There were parts in the ritual that I had to consume the blood of a snake. Yes, a snake. And I had no idea if it was poisonous or if it would kill me. Annie and Rufus had convinced me that it was perfectly safe and this was a secret religion in practice for over thousands of years – hence the crudeness. So I thought to myself, if they had done it, and some people in the past had done it and lived to carry on the ritual, albeit a disturbing one – who was I to say no? I needed their help.

In all account, I knew that if I turn-tailed and walked out of there, I won’t ever get to write again and that was worse than dying. So I drank it. Along with other various substances, herbs and insects. The herbs were bearable, the insects nearly turned my stomach inside out. It took me everything I had to chew and swallow the blended assortments of creepy crawlies.

Which brought me back here. Back home. And I’m writing again.

So, God. No thanks for your help, that’s for sure.

I won. Hail ‘Vis Sam Deil’.


10th December 2015

Dear Diary,

I was at the hundredth thousand words, in near completion of my book when… Shit happened. Lucas, my old mutt, the only real fucking family I’d ever had ever since GOD took Linda away from me… died.

He was a five years old Labrador, an age that was neither old nor young to all dogs… I don’t understand. The night before I went to sleep, he seemed perfectly fine but this morning, I found him foaming from his mouth… Cold… and dead.

I wonder if I’ll ever see him or Linda again when I die. We do after all, serve different Gods now…

At any rate… I have just sent my manuscript via email over to my long time editor in chief, Robert. Once he clears it, we should be able to get the book out by early next year…


12th December 2015

Dear Diary,

Strange things had started to happen… I woke up to find all the plants I have inside my apartment… Dead. All brown, dried and shriveled up.

I… Don’t understand what’s going on…

These past two days, I’ve started hearing voices… Whispers really. Around my apartment. Could these be the extended side effects of what I consumed over at the ritual? I sure as hell hope not. I told myself it could be because of my lack of sleep ever since I got back. I realized as I took the time to write this, I had been awake for the past… 5 days maybe? And I barely slept. I do not feel tired at all…

To clear my paranoia, this morning I dialed the number that Annie gave me, in case I needed to talk. She didn’t answer. I left her five messages. Whatever it is she’s caught up with, I hope she comes back to me soon. Because weird shit had started happening.

At any rate I need to get some shut eye. Now.


13th December 2015

Dear Diary,

My attempts to sleep last night failed. I could not get a wink of sleep. Not even one bit… But that was not the slightest bit disturbing compared to what I endured in the wee hours of the night. No.

At 3AM in the morning, my apartment was literally flooded with water. Water that raised up to my ankle height high. I discovered the source of the flooding, and it wasn’t coming from my apartment. It was coming from George’s, my long time neighbor side of the apartment. Well, he was a devout Christian and all, so we did not get along well. At least after I published God’s Rapture.

I used to be on good terms with him before that. It was a time when Linda was still alive, and we’d spend time having dinners together every once in a while. So I knew where he’d kept his spare key, underneath his flowerpot, outside his door (His flowers had died too by the way).

Using his spare key, I unlocked his front door and entered his apartment. And I headed straight for his bathroom, the source of where all water was coming from. His entire apartment had their lights off say bathroom. When I got there, finding him dead in a bathtub overflowing with water… His eyes wide opened, bulging as they stared blankly into the ceiling, his pale swelled and wrinkled skin… It broke my heart… And I think it broke my gut too, because I threw up anything and everything I had.

The cops arrived half hour later, along with some paramedics and all… They were too late because George had been long gone. I had waited for the police to question me that night, to explain about the incident that took place. But they didn’t. Heck, they didn’t even knock on my door.

What had truly happened… Why George had been in the tub in the wee hours of the night in the first place, I do not know…

What I do know is that something is terribly wrong. And I am partially responsible for it.


14th December 2015

Dear Diary,

God’s Rapture II was supposed to be my redemption. It features yet another fictional character that was meant to personify Jesus. I named him Samuel – the messiah of the 21st century. In this book, Samuel was supposed to lead the people of earth into salvation. He was supposed to be the hero that fought off the evil Nephelims that were unleashed upon the rapture in book I.

So imagine MY FUCKING SURPRISE, when Robert sent me his review over God’s Rapture II and it turned out, apparently THE FUCKING OPPOSITE.

Robert swore up and down that this was the copy I had sent over to him. And he was right.

I went back to my mail box and checked the history of my ‘sent’ items. Guess what? As it turns out, I apparently wrote a version of God’s Rapture II, the total opposite of what I’d intended – WITHOUT ANY FUCKING IDEA WHEN I WROTE IT.

HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN???? Something was wrong with me. Fucking wrong.


15th December 2015

SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH
SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH
SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH
SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH
SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH

SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH
SAMUEL WILL REIGN CHAOS UPON EARTH

VIS SAM DEIL!
VIS SAM DEIL!
VIS SAM DEIL!

SAM IS DEVIL!


17th December 2015

Dear Diary,

I blacked out for 2 fucking days in a row. I had no memories or recollection of what or when I wrote the past 2 days ago….

And as it turns out… I have sold my soul to the fucking devil…

Whoever wrote that in my diary, I do not know. But I do know who trashed Jonathan Keith Langley’s apartment.

ME. MY FUCKING SELF.

There must be some mistake. I did not willingly serve the devil did I????


18th December 2015

Dear Diary,

As it seems, there’s no eleventh hour for me now. I tried to make things right yesterday. I tried to leave my apartment to get to my church. To beg and beg and beg for forgiveness.

I literally couldn’t.

The elevator had apparently malfunctioned… So I took the stairs. Each flight of stairs I decent, I will return to level 23 (my own level). I had no idea how long I tried to leave… I had probably been walking at the stairs for hours. And at some point, somehow I blacked out again. The next thing I knew, I’m sitting right in front of my desk, staring into a manuscript I did not write.

Later that evening, I went out from my apartment again… I knocked on every single door of each and every one of my neighbours… To no avail. Nobody would open the door. It was as though there was no one home… So I went back to my room and I stood at my balcony for the next two hours, screaming my lungs out for help. I was hoping that the residents of the apartments across the street would notice me. They didn’t.

There were cars driving past the driveway twenty three stories below. But they were all inside their cars driving so fast that I wouldn’t blame them even if they couldn’t hear me. Even if I were to shout until my voice broke..

Then I spent the next few hours, contemplating on whether I should take that plunge to freedom…

And since I’m here writing in this fucking diary… It’s obvious that I chose not to.

Fuck…


19th December 2015,

Dear Diary,

Last night, I left another voicemail into Antoinette’s mail box. I told her that I had finished the manuscript. Which I did.

I had hoped that she would have some explanations for me. I can’t give up now. There must be something I could do.

Thirty minutes after the voicemail I left her, the bitch decided to call back. And the conversation that transpired was… weird, to say the least. It didn’t feel like I was talking to the vibrant cheerful Annie. She sounded the same over the phone, except she sounded… Fucking monotonous.

Me : “Tell me what the fuck’s going on!?”
Me : “What the fuck did you do to me!?”
Annie : “Is the manuscript ready?”
Me : “Yeah it’s ready. You won’t get it until you explain to me what the fuck’s going on!”
Annie : “Good work. We will be in touch.”
Me : “I’ll burn it now unless you…”
* Dial tone*

She hung up on me.


24th December 2015

I blacked out again… The only way I know that it’s already Christmas Eve is because of the Calendar on the lower right corner of my laptop’s monitor… But hey, at this point nothing freaking surprises me anymore except the person who woke me up this morning after I’d blacked out.

It was Antoinette. The bitch had the nerve to show up in front of my doorstep, demanding to enter. And she did not come alone. She came with a group of other people, the seven siblings – friends she apparently introduced me to along with many others; none of which I know. The peephole of my door was small and I only saw Annie, so I did not realize that they were behind her until after I opened the door and all of them came pouring in.

Heck, they’re all still here as I wrote this! The ten of them stood in my living room, with unfocused eyes – dazed, almost blissful looking even; they stared at each other with a sinister smile on their face. It’s insane. It’s fucking insane. I can’t get them to leave… I tried screaming and threatening. Boy I’ve tried… I even tried calling the authorities; if only my phone worked… The line wouldn’t go through..

I don’t even know why I’m writing this anymore… Perhaps this could be the last way for me to vent out my thoughts… For me to be still… Me. Frankly speaking, I don’t feel like myself; not anymore.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.


25th December 2015

Dear Diary,

This will perhaps be the final entry, the last piece of my own thoughts, my own freewill, written into a cheap $5 notebook.

Well, what do you know… Annie finally told me what was actually going on.

It’s funny you see. For whoever unfortunate enough to read this; I’ll have you know, you’ve been reading the journal written by A DEAD MAN.

I’M DEAD

YES AS IF THAT’S NOT CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU LET ME REPEAT THAT.

I’M FUCKING DEAD.

I HAD BEEN – DEAD! EVER SINCE THE RITUAL TOOK PLACE. THEY, ALL OF THEM HAD BEEN DEAD TOO SINCE THE RITUAL.

So, as it turns out… The Devil needed an apostate to write HIS version of the bible…. And today, 25th December 2015; as if done in mockery of Jesus himself, the Devil had unleashed his own son to wreak havoc onto earth…

As I write this… I… I’m witnessing hell on earth from my fucking apartment. No, I hadn’t been in my apartment all these while. You see the reason why I couldn’t leave my apartment was because I’d been trapped in my own hell. I can never leave here.

Once I’d realized the truth, I finally see my reality for what it truly is.

The illusion of which I once had; that I was still in my apartment had vanished. All the windows around my apartment, shattered. My entire apartment had been shambles… Everything and I mean everything were ragged messes of charcoals.. Every fucking thing I once had, had been burnt beyond recognition and are now covered in black colored mold. Tables, chairs, all my funitures… Everything… Everything except this notebook, all gone…

So here I am. Sitting just right outside the windows… Watching a sea of bright red, blazing amber lava engulfing the world.

It’s funny you see. I wanted to be… different. I wanted more from what my truly pitiful, short human life had to offer. I challenged God. And I’m now in hell, as nothing more than one of the billions or maybe trillions of tormented souls.

I wrote this journal without the intention of letting anyone read it. Now I wouldn’t mind. Because if you have the privilege to read this, you’re like me – a fellow tormented soul… Forever trapped here in hell with me.

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