exossibus

[exossibus]

every morning i find the wafer under my tongue. i have not been to mass in years.

[exossibus]

He swallowed the Host and began choking. Not on the wafer—on a word.

[exossibus]

THE TENTH TOLLING AT SAINT OMER’S

Saint Omer’s Seminary was shuttered in 1974, the same year the bell in the south tower began tolling backwards.

No one noticed at first. It rang only once a day. Faint. Off-schedule. But when it struck eleven, the seminarians began counting. The next day, it rang ten times. Then nine. Always at the same time: 3:00 p.m. The Hour of Mercy.

By the time it reached one, the tower had been sealed.

The archdiocese declared the clockwork “malfunctioning.” The tower was locked. The bell was removed. But the tolling did not stop.

[Excerpt from tower log, last recorded entry, November 3rd, 1974]

“We went up with ropes and oil. No movement. Bell is gone. But still we hear it. Louder than before. From below now. Echo doesn’t match the tone. It’s deeper. As if the metal’s rotted. Or the sound is coming through water.”

A priest reported hearing it ring at midnight. Then again, at dawn. The times began to drift. One seminarian—Joseph Kline—was found in the chapel weeping with blood coming from both ears. He said, “The bell is calling the wrong names.”

He would not explain.

The seminary closed two weeks later.

Since then, ten tolls have been heard. Once every thirteen years. Always in November. Always in descending order.

1974 – Eleven tolls

1987 – Ten

2000 – Nine

2013 – Eight

This year is next.

Saint Omer’s remains abandoned. The classrooms are empty. The dormitories overgrown. The statue of the Sacred Heart outside the front gate is missing three fingers, and the heart now bears a keyhole. No key has ever fit.

Each time the bell tolls, a new item appears in the sacristy.

A single white glove with a bloodstain on the middle finger.

A thurible twisted like a corkscrew.

A priest’s stole, soaked through with seawater.

A chalice filled with ash.

No one sees them arrive.

They are found only after the tolling.

[Memo found in diocesan archives, unsigned]

“If the tenth tolling comes, it will not stop. The order will not complete. The bell is counting down to a zero that is not a number. It tolls for a wound.”

Kline disappeared in 2001. No record of his reassignment exists. But a letter surfaced ten years later, addressed to no one.

It reads:

“The tolls are not time. They are acts. One for each pierced silence. When the tenth comes, the shape of the seminary will shift. I was the seventh. Do not seek the bell.”

A team of surveyors visited the tower in 2012. Their measurements did not match the building’s blueprints. The stairwell corkscrewed one floor too far. The bells were missing, but the ropes had moved. One was still swinging.

By dusk, one of the surveyors claimed to hear a voice saying: “The mercy was reversed.” He began removing his own molars. When restrained, he repeated: “It rang me. It rang me.”

The seminary chapel has been sealed since 1993. The stained glass is intact, but every pane has gone dark from the inside.

From the outside, the windows appear blank. From the inside, they show the crucifixion in ten stages—each more decomposed than the last. The final image is not a crucifixion at all, but an empty scaffold, slick with something red.

In 2025, the archdiocese plans to demolish the south tower. A contractor was sent to assess the structure. He returned with his clothing soaked and claimed to have found the tower full of water.

When questioned, he said, “I heard the tenth toll. It’s not a sound. It’s a subtraction.”

He left the job. He now sleeps in his car and lines the windows with wax.

Each floor of the tower has changed its count. The steps reset. The fifth floor descends. The seventh floor is always locked. The third floor contains only a chair facing a mirror. The mirror reflects nothing except the tower behind you.

The keyhole in the Sacred Heart now bleeds on feast days.

No one remembers who made the bell. It bears no inscription. Only a faint impression of a crown and the letters “I.M.”

Some say it stands for “Immaculata Mater.”

Others say it’s the initials of the priest who disappeared after hearing the sixth toll. Father Ignatius Monroe. He was never found.

Only his cassock remained, folded on the altar. Beneath it, a brass tongue.

[Excerpt from tower caretaker’s notebook, dated but smeared]

“They told me not to check the bellwheel after dark. But the ropes were moving—without a bell. Like something was still pulling. The wheels moan backwards. I swear it struck my name into the air. I don’t remember falling asleep. I woke up on the sixth floor with rope marks on my wrists.”

The seminary records show that there were originally only eight floors in the bell tower. Yet current inspections report nine.

The ninth has no door.

Only stairs. Downward.

When a student once reached the bottom, he claimed to find a confessional. Inside sat a figure with a cracked stole and a crosier made of bone. He said only one word: “Count.”

The student recanted the story. He now lives in a monastery in Alsace. His fingernails are filed into points.

In the sacristy of Saint Omer’s, a small niche has begun appearing behind the altar. It was not part of the original design. Inside: ash, bone fragments, and a child’s bell made of brass. The brass does not reflect light.

At 3:00 p.m. on November 12th, 2025, the tolling will reach ten.

A warning was written in chalk on the seminary gate in May: “DO NOT ANSWER THE TENTH.”

It was scrubbed clean by rain. The stone beneath cracked in the shape of a spiral.

Someone, somewhere, is still recording the tolls. Audio archives contain a series of tones labeled “OMR-R10.” The last note is not audible—but the waveform shows an impact. The bell didn't toll.

It struck.

A final file was uncovered in the archdiocesan digital archive last month. Unnamed. No metadata. It contains only a simple floor plan—hand-drawn—and a line scrawled in red ink:

“If the bell tolls ten, you were always in the tower.”

The ink is the same color as the ash from the chalice.

When the file is printed, the paper warps and curves. Like it’s being pulled upward by the sound of something just above the ceiling. One technician reported a high-pitched hum behind his teeth. His nose began to bleed. When asked what he heard, he said: “A backward baptism.”

He no longer speaks.

Another note has appeared on the altar beneath the cassock. It is written on vellum. Old. Still damp. The letters are too perfect. Printed? No—etched.

It reads:

“Zero is not silence. It is the toll that listens.”

On the eve of the expected tenth toll, a young theology student named Corbin arrives at the edge of the grounds. He’s carrying a journal and a stolen relic—a fingerbone said to belong to Saint Marcellus.

He doesn't make it inside.

Instead, he walks the perimeter of the seminary seven times counterclockwise. On the final loop, the bell tower door unlatches itself. He enters and is never seen again.

His journal is later recovered in the nave. The final entry reads:

“It’s not a bell. It’s a wound cast in bronze. The more it rings, the more it remembers how to bleed.”

Later that night, a local woman walking her dog hears a sound like metal breathing. She looks up. The bell tower has no windowlight, but her reflection is visible in the air above it—mouth open. Screaming.

The next morning, the south tower is gone.

No rubble. No dust. Just a patch of scorched earth in the shape of a keyhole. The Sacred Heart statue still stands. Now smiling.

The tongue on the altar is gone.

In its place, a second chalice. This one upright. Empty. Waiting.

It rang once.

The sound reversed halfway through.

[exossibus]

A woman walked into the confessional and confessed to being dead. The priest laughed, absolved her. Then he saw the wafer floating in the chalice. It hadn’t dissolved.

[exossibus]

she speaks in tongues. i know because they’re all mine.

[exossibus]

The monastery has no windows. We were told not to look out.

[exossibus]

the statue weeps at dawn. not because of sorrow. because it remembers.

[exossibus]

i confessed and the confessional burned down. they said it was lightning.

[exossibus]

blood in the holy water again. they say it's just the pipes.

[exossibus]

The tabernacle was warm again. Not just the inside. The whole thing. As if something inside was breathing heavy.

[exossibus]

the incense makes me hungry.

[exossibus]

i told the statue a secret. it’s not mine anymore.

[exossibus]

The novices sang Matins beautifully. But there hadn’t been novices in decades. The abbess said the old stones just remember.

[exossibus]

Each confession she gave left a tooth behind in the confessional. She said they weren’t hers.

[exossibus]

They burned the possessed missal. It screamed until the spine cracked. Pages still drift down into the nave sometimes.

[exossibus]

They say the ossuary rearranges itself during feast days. All the skulls face the same direction. Toward the crypt door.

[exossibus]

my patron saint never blinks.