The Purgatory Saga #1: People of the Fire
Page 16
Jenna huffed and crossed her arms. “Ugh, as if.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You don’t have to believe me,” I spoke simply. “I’ll just let him torture me alone.”
She gave a nod and stuck out her chin. “You go do that. I’ve traced Hannah’s SoulBird and apparently, they are already along the borders of this land. Enoch told them about our escape. So we should get there as fast as we can before Lucien appears out of nowhere.”
It turned out that we were already quite close to the borders. Within ten minutes, we were traveling across more dry grass and tall trees that had dead leaves. Jenna and I decided to rest until morning since dawn was already arriving. I was surprised with how tired we were.
I fell into a surprisingly deep sleep. I was hoping to meet Angeline or Lexie in another star-portal dream, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to choose my dreams.
I woke up in another realistic dream though, and felt the same way I had felt when I met Angeline. The dream felt so real. I was freezing cold. The land around me was covered in snow and I felt chilled to the bone. The headband on my head was all that kept me warm, but in this chilling weather, it barely heated up.
I shivered and hugged myself. The land around me was empty and covered with snow. Snow blew around from the thick blank sky. To my left was a high cliff covered with ice and snow glazed over the ledges. To my far right the land was the edge of a cliff that I was settled upon.
Suddenly, there was a rumble in the sky. I looked up and strained my eyes as my hair whipped around my face.
I felt a spark in my pocket and remembered that I still had my rosary. Reaching into my pocket with cold stiff hands, I was just about to slip out the rosary until I heard a loud piercing cry.
Looking up, I strained my eyes to see a moving creature in the distance. It was an air type SoulBird, and it was murmuring a musical tone. It was gazing over at me. It had no halo or devil horns. It was neither a devil glow nor an angel SoulBird.
“Zach...” the soft voice of a lady echoed through the snowy land. The falling snowflakes were gathering and twirling together like a tornado, and in the middle of the spiraling snow, the body of a woman was starting to form. She was calling my name. Her voice was becoming clearer and clearer until I was staring across the land at a tall thin lady with long black hair flowing from behind. The lady was dressed in an icy-blue dress that trailed behind her in the wind, and around her waist were white, sharp icicle-shaped cloths that blew in the wind.
I was drawn to the lady. She almost reminded me of Mira for a moment, except this lady was very prim and proper. This lady was also no eighteen-year old like Mira was. She looked several years older. From the stern look on her thin face, she seemed powerful like an ice sorceress.
From here I could see that she had dark violent eyes. They were the sharpest eyes I had ever seen. They were even sharper than Jenna’s.
“Zachariah,” the lady’s voice was calm, but she had a hard-edged tone that sounded like she could be a very loud yeller. “Come…you’re freezing. Warm your soul over here.” She stretched out her left arm and gestured for me to come forward.
I was too cold to think. Forcing myself to walk up against the wind, I made my way toward the lady. She kept her piercing sharp gaze fixed on me.
Looking up at the lady, I realized how tall she really was. She was probably almost as tall as Lucien himself. As she hugged me against her side, I felt the bitter coldness of her dress, and how thin her tall body was. Gazing up at her face, I had to admit that she was astonishingly beautiful. Her face was pale white and nearly blended in with the snow around her.
On her head she wore a light blue crown with sharp tips. Her shoulders were bare as her air type SoulBird perched upon them. Something about her SoulBird made me feel differently about SoulBirds. I was actually admiring the lady and her graceful creature.
The lady smiled at me and I felt my spirit immediately warm up. “Awfully cold out here….” She spoke distantly. “Let me get us out of this storm.”
She raised her other hand and cast out a long thin spear. It was like a long icy pole, with a blade that curled at the top. She raised it high in the air until the blizzard started to fade away.
The moment I woke up, I found myself sitting in a cave with a glow in the center. It wasn’t fire, but instead it was the lady’s air SoulBird standing with its long feathery wings wrapped behind its back. Dim light surrounded the creature’s body, even though it had no halo.
The lady suddenly appeared from behind me. She reached her arm out and laid her cold hand on my shoulder. She was wearing cold black gloves with sharp fingertips.
Startled, I flinched and the flames on my head suddenly burst.
The lady behind me screamed and jumped back, glaring at me with rage.
“Pierrr maquii!” The lady screamed in a strange language and aimed her hands at me. A shot of ice blasted from her fingers and hit me in the face. I fell to the ground in front of her SoulBird, who started cooing ominously. It flapped its long wings and breathed out a breath of cold air at my head. Immediately, my headband’s fire froze into a sharp glacier of pointy ice. My head felt dizzy with coldness and I felt like I was wearing an ice crown just like the lady herself.
The lady was panting angrily. “Foolish boy…” she muttered dangerously. “You don’t know any better, though. My apologies.” She stepped forward and held out here hand to me. I stared at her with a startled look. “Come on now!” She hissed. “I haven’t rescued you for nothing.”
I slowly grabbed her hand and she pulled me up easily. For a moment, I was just standing in front of her, gazing up into her purple eyes. They were like no eyes I had ever seen. I didn’t think they were even human eyes. They looked like sharp, upside-down isosceles.
“Zachariah Ezekreth,” she spoke my name with a low voice. “Do not be afraid,” her voice was sharp, and was not comforting me at all. “Do not be afraid, for I am not here to harm you. Like you, I am a lost spirit myself.”
“Lost spirit?” I questioned. “Who are you? Are you an angel from Heaven?”
The lady’s eyes blinked and she chuckled slyly. “Oh no, my dear. Heaven is far from the place I come from.” Her eyes flashed.
I gasped. “Are you from Hell? You can’t be from Hell…” She was stunningly beautiful, and something about her made me feel both exhilarated and scared.
The lady chuckled. “Dear child,” she spoke with a calm tone. “I am not from the fiery confines of Hell,” she spoke in a careful tone. “The world of Hell is too fiery for me, and I am not the fire type.” She met my gaze with a wink.
“So where are you from? Are you from Purgatory? Or are you from the mortal worlds?”
“No. The world I come from is a….very different place.” The lady wrapped her arm around me and smiled. “I am what you may call…a time traveler, or even a space-shifter. I come from an entirely different dimension, a world far from Earth, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. I am Prima Dona—sorceress of ice.” She turned and eyed her air type SoulBird. “You are in the world of Primeval—my own, private dimension.” She flashed her eyes. “This is my SoulBird…you may call her Madonna.”
I raised my eyebrows at her words and continued to stare up into her eyes. Prima Dona and Madonna. How classy.
“I was wondering who you were,” she said. “You seemed lost, like you didn’t belong in this world either.”
“Um….I’m only dreaming. At least I think I am…”
The lady raised her eyebrows. “Dreaming? Then I must be in one of those dream world dimensions again, aren’t I? I’m sorry…what world do you really come from?”
“I’m from Purgatory. I originally came from Earth but then I died and my unfortunate life continues in Purgatory.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said the lady rather tartly. “I understand that concept about afterlife. I know those worlds quite well. What stage of Purgatory are you from?”
I bit my tongue. “Primal…”
I huffed and looked down, feeling embarrassed. I said nothing.
“Zach,” she gently grabbed my chin with two fingers and lifted my face up to her. “You are unhappy, aren’t you?” Her eyes seemed to be studying me.
“Yeah…I guess,” I spoke quietly as she let go of my chin. “Who are you? I mean, how do you know my name?”
She etched a smile. “As a time-traveler and a sorceress, I am able to read into the souls of living creatures in the living mortal worlds, and interpret their spirits inside. In the afterlife, you all are already spirits so it is much easier to read your identities. You are Zach, spirit of Purgatory, placed in the lands of Bhad where the uprisings of Hell are getting ever so close, aren’t you?”
I widened my eyes and nodded. “I bet you know everything about what’s going on.”
She chortled. “Oh yes, I’ve been watching your world for a while now. Since the beginning of the apocalypse several months back, I’ve been keeping my eye over the spirit worlds in the afterlife.”
Her eyes flashed and in her other hand, she gripped her tall spear. The blade flashed and reflected a bright white light from beneath her air SoulBird, and I was looking at a reflected image of a dry desolate land.
I gasped. “The land of Bhad!”
“That’s right,” she said slyly. “The element of ice is unmistaken. It has the power to freeze spirits. Unless the ice is controlled and tamed, then the spirits can be defrosted. I know how to tame ice, just as Satan can tame fire. Through the frozen aura of ice, I can interpret worlds in other dimensions, before I shape shift into those worlds.”
I raised my eyebrows. This was quite an interesting lady.
Prima Dona went on, “I’ve lived a long lifetime. I’ve lived through worlds in many different dimensions, including Earth itself.”
I gave a sideways look. “Wow.” She must have made herself famous at some point. “What year did you come to live on Earth?”
“Oh, I used to come every so often. I’ve enjoyed the planet quite well. I’ve come back more than once!” She chuckled. “But of course, I couldn’t just make appearances several years later after I mysteriously disappear. I would arrive at some point in time, live my life, then disappear without ever returning until several hundred years later.”
“Did you ever come around the year 41,030?” That was the year I was born, according to what Lucien had told me in his palace.
“Oh yes,” Prima Dona’s smile grew. “Such a time that was…that was close to the apocalypse, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “That was when I was born.”
“Ah,” her eyes gleamed. “No wonder you seem so familiar. We have met once before.”
“Really?” I really wished I remembered my past! “Did you meet my parents too?”
“Oh, yes. They were ruling over the city of Jerusalem, weren’t they?”
“I guess so. I barely remember anything, except from what the Higher One had told me.”
Prima Dona’s gaze faltered. “Oh, I’m sorry. You lost your memory, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “And unfortunately, I was too….unworthy to go to Heaven.” I told her all about my story, about how my parents were both full of evil and pride, and how they tried to train me to become a hellish spirit like them. I explained what Lucien had explained to me in his palace. My mother was a feisty, evil, hotheaded lady who abused me. My father, on the other hand, was a rich and powerful man, and he spoiled me rotten.
I also told her about my life in Purgatory. I explained the academy of St. Gretchen and how the creepy janitor was my Uncle Ebenezer. I told her everything that had happened through my life in Purgatory, up to this point.
At last, Prima Dona nodded, completely understanding who I was and why I was here.
“I see,” she was eying me carefully. “Zachariah, you are a very unique spirit. Trust me. I can read it on you easily. You are more than just a regular Medium in Purgatory.”
I looked down and narrowed my eyes. “Sometimes I just feel so unwanted. Purgatory sucks. I’m not good enough for neither Heaven nor Hell.”
Prima Dona nodded. “I understand you. It’s not such an excitement to be middling all the time, isn’t it? Sometimes you feel like you deserve the best, or you don’t deserve it at all. Getting a little bit of both just aggravates you, hmm?”
I nodded slowly. “I don’t know where to take my path now. Right now, I’m just running away. I’ve already made some very terrible choices lately.”
“Well, Zach,” Prima Dona put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re not worthless. You are special. I can see it.”
I winced. “You sound like Hannah. Except she would mention the Lord and how He also thinks I’m…‘special.’”
The lady narrowed her eyes. “Have you even asked the Lord what He thinks of you?”
“Well…neither of us has ever spoken to each other. And I’ve never even bothered to keep a relationship with Him. I never keep long relationships with anyone, anyway.” Not unless they forced me to, like Saint Grenada or Annabelle.
Prima Dona smiled. “Zach, if there ever is anything you’d like to talk about, you can always discuss it with me. You can always trust me. No one will ever know about your visits with me.”
I was starting to feel nauseous. “This dream really is happening as I sleep, isn’t it?”
“It appears so,” she was gazing closely at me. “But that’s alright. We are in a faraway world, in the land of my birth. This world is too cold for your guardian angels to read. Whatever you tell me here will not be heard by anyone of the other different dimensions.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? No one can hear us at all?”
“Like I said—the ice in this world traps the aura and freezes it. No aura of your saints can trace the aura within this world because the ice is so powerful.”
I felt my own body start to chill up. “And you control this ice?”
She was nodding. “Madonna and I reign in this land, since I was the first soul to have been born from this ice. Madonna was the first soul I brought to life through the ice. We are the only souls who can withstand the ice in this dimension. And I do get lonely, so that‘s why I‘ve learned to time-travel.”
I looked at the air SoulBird. “So that’s why she’s not an angel or a devil SoulBird?”
“She is not exactly a SoulBird at all,” said Prima Dona, grimacing. “I formed her soul out of ice and used the power of psychics to put together her outside body. I made her look like the air type SoulBirds I discovered when I first came to visit the world of Purgatory. I found those creatures pretty interesting, but I knew I couldn’t take any home with me. Any soul would die in this world of ice.”
I stared at Prima Dona with admiration. For a moment, I said nothing. I listened to the blizzard outside and felt the cold draft into our cave. Then I finally spoke.
“Then why am I still alive in this world?” I felt rather anxious. “Does it usually take a while before a spirit freezes to death in this world?” I imagined what it would be like if a spirit died. It would be like a second death, except this time, there’s no second afterlife. This was the world where even immortals would die, since their spirits would be frozen forever.
“This is what I meant. Something about you is special,” Prima Dona’s eyes gleamed at me. “You are a very unusual Medium, Zach. This is why you are still alive in this world. I’m surprised, myself. No one has ever stayed alive in my world for this long.” Her eyes flashed. “Only the Lord can see my world.”
“I’m sorry… it’s not like I meant to invade this world, I just fell asleep and randomly found myself here in a dream.”
“Well, somehow your dream broke through the strong portals that have bee
n frozen by powerful ice. Your aura possesses a type of strength that can break through the ice. You have been my first visitor to this world, in almost twenty-four thousand years.”
I gasped. “You’re really that old?!”
Prima Dona chuckled. “Well, twenty-four thousand, three hundred and nineteen, but let’s just say I’m twenty four thousand.” She gave me a mischievous smile.
I coughed a laugh. “How about just twenty four?”
“Oh please!” She rolled her eyes and gave a sideways smile. “You have nooo idea how it’s like to live twenty-four thousand years!”
I chuckled. “Dang.”
The air SoulBird cooed and Prima Dona gave her pet a tickle under the chin. Then she turned to face me. “But Zach, you must understand how important this is. I’ve never had such a spirit survive like this in my world. I say, Zach, you are a very special Medium, and I think that power you have to break through to my world comes from that fiery power of evil that you obtained from your parents.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well…my mother was pure evil. Lucien claims to be a friend of my father’s he knows quite a bit about my mortal life. At his palace, he told me that my mother had a strange soul that was so evil, she didn’t even make it to Hell.”
Prima Dona was narrowing her eyes at me. “Your mother’s name was Sarah Madonne. She was a very sweet lady to me when I met her.”
I looked up at the lady. “You actually met my parents?”
“I spoke to the king and queen of Jerusalem when I found out they had taken over the city. I knew about their treacherous secret of killing the former king. Your uncle wasn’t the only one to have known.”
“Oh….” I thought back and then closed my eyes. “Did you remember my father’s name? I didn’t even know my mother’s name until Uncle E mentioned it. But no one has told me my father’s name yet. Not my guardians, not Dewey, Hannah, Enoch, or even Lucien.”
“Hmph!” Prima Dona raised her eyebrows. “That’s strange. Well your father was amazingly stunning to me. That’s the first thought that comes to my mind.”