Eritis Mea started as a story about unrequited love, inspired by something I vibed between two women when on a cruise myself. As I was halfway through it, however, my mother—who I never knew because she walked out on me before I graduated kindergarten and never came back—died.
On her death bed, her friend who was arranging her end-of-life matters, told me I would be going to hell if I didn’t believe in God (meaning: their version of God). At the funeral service, that same friend introduced me to the pastor as a non-Christian and he in turn spent the entire sermon telling all the people in attendance how important it was to convert me to Christianity. In the 6 months after that, I was constantly bombarded by invitations from my mother’s friends to go to their churches, fellowship group gatherings, celebrations, camps, Bible study classes, revival events, and so on and so forth. Some invited me to lunch and sat me next to a pastor. Others gave me books and pamphlets to their churches. Many asked to pray for me or told me they will be or had been praying for me. Not one of them asked me what I believed in, or even how I was feeling (you know, since I was next-of-kin of the deceased?).
Eventually I found out the mother I never knew had a Master’s Degree in Christianity and had willed all her money and assets to Christian organisations.
I declined all her friends’ invitations because I could smell a repeat of that very awkward funeral service coming from a mile away, but out of courtesy and curiosity, I did read the books they gave me, and the Bible itself, and I spent most of this year trying to understand the religion, and the enigma that is my mother.
After that, I rewrote Eritis Mea as a horror story.
What’s most scary about it, if you ask me, is that many of the non-supernatural events in the book are based on events that have happened to real people in reality. Those, I think, are way more terrifying than any made-up supernatural event could ever be.
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