Purgatory

Chapter 15

Adorning the eidolon armor was a ritual for Juels and me.  She would always call me just before we begin and depending on our moods would determine if we conversed or stayed quiet.  While I was close to the whole squad, I considered Juels my best friend out of the lot.  She always knew how to cheer me up if I was feeling gloomy, and she actually made me want her company, which was something I hadn’t experienced since Naddia.

“Hey, when are you going to show me your back?” I asked Juels as I secured my greaves onto my legs.  She smirked widely and positioned herself in front of the camera before lifting the shirt from her back.  Sprouting from her shoulder blades were two long, raised scars depicting grand wings made of gears and feathers.  The scaring was pink and discolored and drove a wince from my teeth as I took in every detail.  Juels laughed at my reaction before returning to putting on her breastplate.

“Pretty appropriate now, isn’t it?” she said through a smile.  “I got it because it represented how we’ve been tied down by technology that we don’t even know how to fly with our own kind.  Now it represents how my current situation impairs me from my freedom.”

“Did it hurt?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, of course it did,” she said with a shrug.  “But I wanted something more than a tattoo, you know?  Something that when people saw it they’d stop and think about it.”

“You don’t like technology, then?”  I eyed her curiously as I put on my own breastplate and attached my pauldrons.

“Well, I appreciate the effort put into it all and how it’s improved our lives,” Juels explained, “but there are some things that were created that aren’t necessities.  I don’t really connect with anyone in my generation because they’re too busy connected to their devices.  Well…not in the way we connect.”

I looked away, but nodded to mask my thought.  I was one of those people she was speaking about.  I shut myself away from not just my generation, but everyone around me, and a quick way to do so was to make myself look busy on my tablet.

“It looks awesome none the less,” I said, and I heard her sheath her sword on her back.

“I thank you, my dear!” she said animatedly.  “Now hurry it up or you’ll be the last one out.  I am really excited for this mission.”  She secured her helmet upon her head and ended the call, and I hurriedly clasped and situated the rest of the armor before rushing out of my quarters to join her.

This mission was exciting, I supposed, but mostly because it was a refreshing break from the usual Demon, Rogue, or Nightmare pack.  While we may run into one or more of those along the way, we were mostly checking the legitimacy of a supposed haunted lumber mill in the city outskirts.  A group of ghost hunters were going to televise their trek through the abandoned mill to eventually display their findings on national television.  A pesky Demon or a Rogue looking to expose Purgatory would pass as apparitions through the hunters’ equipment, and have often been mistaken for such in the past.

The ride up the lift had my stomach fluttering with anticipation.  I felt nostalgia rise within me as I reminisced all the times I hunted ghosts with Naddia.  Most of the time we were terrifyingly successful at finding at least one ghost, and I missed the thrill of the sight.

Making our way through the system of tunnels had become common place.  I knew where we were headed even though I could not see the sky or had no signs to direct me.  We surfaced to a skyline filled with rushing cars on the interstate and the setting sun casting vibrant colors of orange and pink across the glassy surfaces of the sky scrapers in the distance.  There were only a few tall buildings that dotted the landscape as we walked towards the outskirts, most of them not exceeding past forty stories.