Author's Note:  The third chapter is based on the song of Lady Gaga Speechless! I hope you like and enjoy not only the song, but also the chapter, itself! 

Moreover, I'd like to apologize for not updating this story for a straight month, but I was running out of motivation to regularly update it, besides I wanted to overcome with something creative.

In addition to this book until the characters like Timothy, Robin-Mary, Frank, Olivia and Elias don't bring back their voices, subsequently their exchanged replies through the sheet of papers will be bolded in their dialogues as well as you can recognize whose lines belong to actually.

--- *** ---
--- Moments Later ---

Once the former aspiring Monsignor retired to the lobby after paying a visit to the High Countess's austerely sinister, vermilion office, subsequently the icily vast frostbite of overwhelmedness and stark despondency curled up in the pit of his stomach and twirling and whirling inside his abdomen's insides abruptly. The tempest of stormy despondency and ruthless restlessness dipped the rough brush to contour his charming facial features.

Even though the High Countess's prim, frostily cocksure humor imbuing her attitude towards Timothy in general, it broke his heart how her attitude was far cry from graciously polite. It felt like an awkward interaction between former friends or lovers that no longer corresponded to the platonic and eventual romance their close, pearly profound relationship they shared with each other. The genuine notion of the sentiment spoke volumes and leaked the bleakly somber, hysterically devilish colours streaming through the pronging chest with its spurting thick, wonderful gory cataract of indisputably tangy aroma. The bittersweetly soar flavour of the foreign bond they are being embroidered scorched Timothy's dry, berry-coloured tongue.

His rare bird. She was promoted to the highest rank in the entire godforsaken, bone-chilling façade and creating the rules even pearly austere coveting the rules to be followed strictly, regardless the circumstances. Regardless the childlikely futile, bland excuses. Regardless the relentless aggressive howl of the zephyr bountifully permeating its infectious aftermaths of the weather or accidents streamed its cataract of hazy, sable aftermaths of injured or befallen inmates.

Or rather she was his rare bird back in their mortal life.

Was the purgatory either a site for the sacred, yearned redemption or on the contrary a site of the sardonically bone-chilling irony? Probably the both variants are working ideally.

The meekly resilient masculine footsteps of the British compatriot as they ghostwrote the concrete ground and aiming to the monumentally lacquered door leading to the antique library, subsequently his mammoth, weathered hand perched docilely on the doorknob and twisting it until the door notoriously whined its din squeak, conveying its friendly reminder to Elias to keep his wits about the imminent library visitor.

As soon as the British compatriot ventured inside the godforsaken antique site and warmly ghosting with his presence Elias, consequently the both gentlemen formed their platonic pairing as Elias's youthfully refreshing, symmetric facial attributes hardly twisted due to the potently megawatt, frigid paralysis breaking his facial expression whilst his stare managed to spear the former priest. The dawdle motionlessness of his weathered, nimble fingers dancing around one of the thick, exquisitely antique books swathed with thick, generous layer of unholy dust due to its lacking care of its library owner. Opulence of empty bookshelves with four exceptions accompanied the duo. A huge mass of widely sprawled broadly spread with its pages books luxuriously fabulous, esthetically chaotic carpeted the floor.

"Whoa! I didn't expect you so soon, Tim!" In the interval, Elias managed to discard a fistful of neatly sorted pile of books to sort them back to their shelves as his strongly dexterous fingers crooked around the fountain pen to jot down his decry of the reek of sheer dumbfoundness painting its vividly true-to-life prospect which made his throat clench unevenly.

A welcomingly sympathetic, angelically weak smile adorned graciously the former man of the cloth's unhealthily pallid, young-looking complexion while manifesting his destination in brief, abysmally endless footsteps formatting his approach to the former drug boss's large frame and barely inching the subtly thin elasticity of their distance.

"Keep in mind that I'm not that familiar with that prison!"

"It's okay, buddy! I thought you will need some help to be guided over there."

"How would you like some help with that rich pile of books decrying the floor?"

A coyly innocuous smirk vaguely glided to permeate across his baby-pinkish, enigmatically chapped lips at the amicably polite suggestion the British compatriot posed after the few non-verbal replies the duo exchanged with each other. Wryly gracious, innocuous giggle left their mouths. Fleetly nimble, surreptitious squints of their optics landed on the luxurious flock of desolated books until they pronged one another's façades at last. The common chilly climate pebbled their arms and legs abruptly followed by a thick lake of freshly electrifying goosebumps flowing on their epidermises.

Then Timothy registered to hunker down and seizing a couple of books after neatly slamming shut the books to perch on his muscly thigh whilst opting to collect the rest of the desolated flock of entities as his virginally colossal, white-knuckled hands' canvas engrained its high mountains of calluses inscribing sharply his fists.

The haphazardness of the older gentleman impressively participating to assist the other prisoner eased the task in the library as well. The guaranteed time to get done the task could endure a half an hour or even less by reckoning its glimpse of the pairing's versatility.

--- *** ---
--- A Couple of Hours Later or So ---

Once the day progressed rabidly perky as the afternoon's huge, rotund sun lingered its boat in the bizarrely hoary sky all alone in the company of the cloudless daily episode, the luxurious gilt cataract elegantly pierced the battered windows of the dilapidating, old jail's façade. The prisoners have already accomplished ultimately their tasks in the sites such as sorting the books by genre, regardless how thin or thick their size was, besides preparing scrumptiously hot, happily steamy meals in the kitchen, fixing the marbled furniture in the bathroom.

After another gather in the lobby of the façade's interior where the High Countess has drones her authoritative reprimand through the speaker towering the stone, lifelessly hoary and deep cracked embroidered wall to instruct the inmates to have their lunch by paying a visit to their wards as they were left on top of their night stands coupled with their eating, silver tools.

"It's fucking unbelievable how slow it elapsed that time by fixing that marbled sink in the bathroom." On their mission to retreat back to their ward after the elaborated series of monotonous drums against the concrete while ascending the stairs, thus the former aspiring Monsignor registered to narrow his chocolate brown optics pronging the sheet of paper's stark ink inscribing fashionably each letter embroidered horizontally and vertically. Glossiness glazed his brown optics after spending a few hours in the library in the company of Elias and the galore of chaotically dusty, ominous sprawled books on the floor to be sorted by genre and inhaling series of times its stiff, heinously unbearable stench through his nose.

A heavy, jadedly glassy sigh bubbled up from the younger gentleman's lungs, sluggishly buffing a benevolently vibrant, scintillatingly vague smile to blossom upon his nude pink, deliciously plumpish lips whilst escorting soothingly his friend.

In a long minute of elaborating its humdrum footsteps ghostwriting the concrete endless carpet in the dull din of multi-voiced symphony of the other inmates' mewls pitching the very walls, consequently Frank and Timothy set foot inside their ward and seating on the edge of their beds, squinting up their depths scanning sloppily fleet the platters settled on top of the nightstands as they discarded their fountain pens and blanks aside their bodies meagerly inching their true proximity.

The platter with the lunch meal per a prisoner could be interpreted with a plate of tuna fish, freshly crispy flock of baked chips soused with mushroom sauce accompanying the main meal along with a glass of fresh, crystalline translucent liquid pooling its surface. Ironically, how the inmates could be graced with a scrumptiously delightful lunch unlike in the past days?

What it overwhelmingly baffled the male duo was the majestically mouth-watering dish and its bonus food chunks coupled with the tunny. It could be amidst their fewest or rather their initial best lunch times and fleetly retreated from the other prison sites to persistently fulfill their imminent engagements. There was always something to do inside the jail. The High Countess never ceased to fuel the daily schedules of the inmates even if they had less tasks than somebody else. She'd be greatly disappointed from each of them whose tasks haven't even progressed more than the half at least or they're completed up to their final deadline.

The dully rowdy sound of the pen's tip scribbling the former holy priest's true thoughts stitched graciously on the blank shortly before manipulating his virginally soft, long fingers to dance around the fork and butter knife, subsequently the other mate maneuvered his azure blue coals to impale relentlessly the text, thoughtlessly lolling his dry, strawberry-coloured tongue to lick his brim, chapped lips before equipping his hands for the mastication process. Yet the former police officer and the former devotional clergyman's sheerly argent oblivion to their deluxe reward skimmed the grave incredulity etching their charming facial attributes and highlighting their scruff ornamenting their jaws.

"I didn't expect this luxurious lunch to be delivered to us at all. I think the High Countess has totally lost her mind as well."

As the older gentleman's masculinely potent, handy fingers crooked around the gray fork to prong a mouthful of the dish after scanning studiously in the corner of his eye, subsequently he almost choked on the baked chips and the tiny bite of the pungent tuna waltzing into his throat whilst gracefully mewling up a hoarsely guttural snigger. A guiltlessly complacent, sinfully boyish grin tugged at the corner of the former aspiring Monsignor's mouth, ushering a quizzically playful quirk of his dark eyebrow.

"I can't really believe she could be that ironic with that delightful lunch meal, you know!"

"I'm not certain what she's seriously up to, however, she's gravely conveying me its dubious vibes. I've that sick feeling, Frank!"

"I have to agree with you even if I'm trying my best to keep my nose clean whenever I have a clash with her. She's gravely the grossest example with whom we shouldn't eventually mess up."

"No shit, Tim! That boss lady isn't very fond of anybody opting to mess with her when you crave for the most."

"Well, I actually messed her life up back in my mortal life."

"Dude, that's the freaking past and back in your mortal lives. We're in a purgatory which means we still deserve that possible second chance."

"What if we the least deserved it but we're still stuck there?"

All of a sudden, during lunch time after a handful of promisingly inviting, serenely nonchalant bites of the tunny and the baked crispy chips recklessly buffeting the younger gentleman's wet tongue contorted as Frank emitted a blatantly frustrated sigh, articulating fluently his dim exasperation at the inquiry, begging for an immediate response.

The inquiry, itself, could be interpreted in variety of pearly outstanding exemplars and extraordinarily rational versions, depending on each persona's perspective formatting their real logic to gear up. Even if the purgatory was the sanctum of galore of souls that were confined until their peace was utterly escorting to its golden apogee, at least the celestially superb power that reigned the paradise and that was worshipped as an one of a kind deity keeping its false hopes to its believers whose dazzling beliefs for better life and its dogma had bestowed every sinner with a purpose to serve inside the afterlife's supernaturally arcane hutch.

Frank couldn't resume to resentfully to judge his mate for certain sinfully licentious, insipidly blunt deeds emulating entirely to the immorality and the sheer disappointment of his loved, beloved inner circle members that still sided with him and constructed its deep relationship. Toxic trepidation could yet simmered its soar swamp in his lower abdomen whilst the eager flames of attained colloquy with the former police officer, factly, anyone that barely knew him personally or on the contrary sided with the former pious sister of the church could imperil his self-esteem for judging the book by its cover instantaneously instead of spreading widely its first pages to discover the symptoms of its divinely blissful passion to dunking in the deepest ocean of the outworld realm of its fiction and the passionately insatiable intoxication to peruse each word, each sentence and each paragraph glazing past the eyes.

Everybody had their own story or rather the prequel before descending into the foreshadowed sequence of their vices and grotesquely viridity mistakes. Everybody had their own symptoms of ignorance and inexperience in certain aspects. Everybody had their own pangs of the conscience. They could be hardly erased with an ease at all if they're freshly polished in the present to mount up to the high mountains of the brilliantly dark, inebriating oblivion or haziness obscuring their headstrong impact on their preys.

"At least, God gave them another possible second chance to redeem themselves even if their mistakes were severely unspeakable! You have still hope to be the demon's Achilles Heel and to be the golden child of God."

"You are actually right, Frank! I think everybody has a real reason to be stuck there in the middle of nowhere even if they're the hugest sinners."

"I'm glad that you're seconding it and embracing with open arms your offered hope to not rot for eternity wherever the most vindictive souls end up even if the peace and the redemption are a pure fiasco for them."

"Exactly! Shall we enjoy our richly delicious lunch to mark its prominent celebration for our gather?"

The former pious holy man and the widower couldn't stifle their purred breathy, pretty healthy giggles blending its chromatically breathtaking ode spearing the very walls of their cell as their fingers shifted to dance around their partly emptied glasses of water and toasting one another as the sharp, subtle clink of the frail glasses leveled out its decibels for a split second until the both men didn't take a sip from the entities kindly.

--- *** ---

--- A Few Hours Later or So ---

As soon as the noon break jumpcut to the abrupt scenario of getting back to work and no longer populating the cells, the inmates lingered their very presences in different sites of the abandoned prison.

Unlike the other representatives of the same sex, Timothy spent his entire time in the kitchen after his brief lunch break by washing the dishes and eating tools of each inmate and his fingertips poising its lathered sponge to bedaub the sticky smear-clad layer of food plastering the surfaces of the plates and the forks and the butter knives. Even if the chore could be ridiculously viewed to be executed by a man, still it was a blameless vista, factly, it was everybody's responsibility after having their regular dishes. Notwithstanding the circumstances, the inexorably brilliant agleam reminiscence of flashbacks flashed promptly when the British compatriot spent his childhood and adolescence in his wealthy household from time to time to do petty, nevertheless, remarkable chores like vacuuming the floor, washing the dishes after each meal and so forth. It was peculiarly, funnily reassuring bedaubing its gummy filth that once lubricated inevitably their booths.

The abysmally razor-edge, gargantuan crack stitching its wall vertically that was a victim of the British compatriot's coffee brown huge, roundish minerals that darted its deftly brisk glimpse at the lifelessly grayish rampart. The dim daylight light filtered nonchalantly free the kitchen. The demonical loneliness conducted the formerly possessed clergyman. Once the kitchen sink's faucet no longer turned to allow its rich cataract of jet water to lowly hum and piercing Timothy's flexible eardrums, thereafter he retrieved an individual glass to fill it with sufficient quantity of water to hydrate his organs and shamelessly bedew bountifully his tongue and oral caverns.

The suddenness of the notoriously creaky whine of the door jingled alarming tones into the inmate's vulnerable ears at the prospect of the gradually opening door as the High Countess stepped inside the kitchen and accompanying him.

Boyishly coyness trustlessly painted his welcoming, handsome facial features and ruby hue darkened his ghostly pale, young-looking profile as his cinnamon brown minerals shifted to the petite frame whose physique's ethereal extravagantness and roaring heavily its invincible might shimmered past his eyesight. Little did he know what it may be their recent encounter and will it alter its megawatt tension they once radiated in Jude's office.

"Oh, I didn't expect ya so far to be there washing the dishes for the others, Tim!" A woefully sardonic, fiendishly seductive smirk tugged at the corner of her brightly red lip as it curled at her rhetorical utterance and slamming shut the door behind her, whereas her sheerly oyster-white-gloved hand channeled to cast a hex to temporarily spellbind the former aspiring Monsignor's voice to be restored. "That's a good cause in the name of yar inmates and yar actual responsibility, illuminating your very respect for that institution and whatever stumbles ya." Maintaining a couple of inches distance solely as their figures adequately inched, a heavy, dry sigh kindling the younger man's brittle lungs as he broadened his orbs when the bewitching hex of restoring his voice thanks to the High Countess's nimble magic aided him.

"Madam High Countess, it's always a ginormous pleasure to do something as a duty for the collective!"

"Excellent!"

"I would like to know why you're here eventually."

"Oh! I-I just wanted to check on ya, ya know!" At the moment, Timothy managed to bashfully shuffle his feet when the former sleazy jazz nightclub singer's strong-willedly mystic attempts to obscure certain questions that whirled and twirled in the British compatriot's hurricane of thoughts didn't fail to accommodate to the mildly awkward ambience circumscribing their reasonable, shy hitched breathings.

"That's truly kindhearted of your side, madam!"

"Well, I would like to apologize to ya for my arrogance earlier today when you were in my office! I truly understand that you are sheerly new to this jail," In the interim, the older woman registered to approach the former ambitious Monsignor and gingerly sympathetic pawing his broadly muscular, secure shoulder and boring her hazelish-brown gemstones into his, softening enchantingly their facial features as his heart skipped a beat at the delicately promising, inviting touch ghosting his shoulder blade.

"It's okay, madam High Countess!" Then instinctively oddly the younger gentleman yanked gently her hand as his naturally baby pinkish, sinfully cherub lips planted a platonically affectionate, formidable smooch to the blonde's frail fist. "It doesn't matter anyway. You have the entire right to be angry with me sometimes."

"I'm glad yar such a forgiving soul, Timothy!" 

Author's Final Note: I know how uninteresting are the first chapters of this story, however, I solemnly promise they will be more intriguing in the sequel, you know! Don't forget to leave a feedback if you've genuinely enjoyed the chapter. I'd like to hear your thoughts! :))