Purgatory

Chapter 9

My eyes shot open with an intense pain shooting across my sternum, and I gasped for air.  Cole hovered over me for a moment before leaning back into the grass, and I noticed as my friends looked down upon me that I was lying on my back.

“You okay, Hells?” Juels asked in concern, her arm outstretched to help me up.  I grabbed her hand for support as she helped hoist me to my feet.  “What happened?”

I had an overwhelming desire to laugh at the situation.  Everyone was staring at me with such great concern and stood around me in a semi-circle.  Perhaps Curse’s episode the previous day had shaken us a bit too much.  Despite the pain in my chest, I felt perfectly normal and knew there was nothing to really be worried about.

“You guys need to lighten up, I just wasn’t breathing correctly,” I assured them.  It was likely the cause for my collapse, for I had remembered how slow my heart was beating.  The concern was highly flattering, however, and I couldn’t help but smile at the circumstance.  I turned to look at Cole, whose face was marked with stress.  My hand instinctively moved to the back of my head, and a buzzer toned somewhere within the potted forest.

“Here at Purgatory, your well-being is greatly valued,” the voice chimed merrily through an unknown source.  “As you recover from your surgery, we ask that you refrain from touching your head.”  The reminder seemed to calm everyone’s nerves, a couple lightly chuckling at the kind virtual voice.

Cole stood and placed his arm on my shoulder, his lips held slightly in a smile to let me know he wasn’t being stern.  “Do you need to go to the medical ward?”  There was no way I was going to be taken to that place, and I quickly shook my head no.  He paused a moment as if to make sure.  “Don’t do that again, okay?  None of you guys.”  He looked out amongst his squad, his expression lighthearted, but his tone underlying his seriousness.  We’d had enough drama these past couple of days.

The days turned into weeks of continuous and difficult training.  Cole would continually push us to our limits, and at first we resented the harshness.  Over time, we saw how it strengthened us.  We eventually began our mourning routine wearing the standard armor for the eidolon class.

Adorning the armor was almost second nature.  We had downloaded the instructions during our first day, so it was only a matter of equipping it quickly.  The suit monitored our vitals and energy levels, as well as provided protection and communication between the squad.  Inside the helmet the visor would display various readings and act as a noise cancelation device for our breathing.  All spoken communication was done through a speaker system and was never heard outside our suits, and there was no mute button.

It was then I noticed how the armor distorted our silhouettes familiarly.  I realized when we first suited up that in my past I had been seeing someone from Purgatory.  There was no mistaking it, which made me wonder further about how Purgatory operates.

It made sense for Purgatory to send out people to observe and pick out individuals they wanted to take, which is also explains how the kidnappings were so precise.  We learned to know when to keep still and when to move, which simulated a lot of what the silhouette would do when I saw it.  More questions began to arise from this notion, and I knew Cole would be able to answer them.  It was just a matter of finding the right time to ask.

To my good fortune, after he dismissed us all from our exercise, he asked me to hold back.  “I’ve received orders to question you further on the event that happened a week and a half ago,” he said to me when we were alone.  I nodded in acknowledgement, which encouraged him to continue without speaking.  It was a relief to see someone understand what a head nod meant instead of dumbly waiting on verbal confirmation.