“Tell us an interesting fact about the place you grew up in.” The carriage tucked along the road, secured by a few hundred soldiers. Meanwhile, Markus, Tom and I sat inside, grabbing prepared questions out of a bowl in complete and utter boredom in the shine of a magical lamp.
“Torture isn’t as commonplace as you think.” Both of them frowned as they couldn’t quite understand what I said, but Markus nonetheless continued as my answers were always like this so far.
“We were made to train at the age of six.” Boring answer, boring person. Was that Markus slogan?
“That’s nothing. My sister killed my father who killed my brother.” I opened my eyes wide as I didn’t expect such an answer at all. I swiftly grabbed into the bowl again and picked up another question.
“Pancakes with honey or syrup?” I asked, a huge grin on my face.
“Why are your questions always about food?” Asked Markus, incredibly annoyed by my antics. It wasn’t my fault that I just wanted to know. It was important after all and said more about a person than ‘who was your first love?’ or ‘how old are you?’ in my opinion.
“Because food is food.” It was a simple answer that should have explained everything, and yet Markus had to answer sarcastically.
“Yeah, and you die when you get killed. You know what, I have enough.” I was already throwing myself towards him as his hand raced to the door handle in an attempt to open it. I slammed into him but sadly couldn’t constrain him enough as he already held onto the handle tightly.
“Help me!” I screamed towards Tom who sat nearby, musing over the unexpected fight.
“You taught me that there is always a choice. I am thinking of applying what I learned here.” This sneaky bastard. He deserved a smack on his head, but I was already struggling with Markus who slowly managed to push the door open as I lost grip of his hand.
“This is insub … insu … in …” I fell from Markus lap onto the ground. The last thing I noticed was how someone grabbed my collar and let me down gently. At least they weren’t completely heartless.
Purgatory was the land of stones and bones with a few larger rocks in between. And yet, it wasn’t completely deserted as there were indeed quite a few landmarks. The river Styx for example always sent a shiver down my spine. Luckily, it wasn’t where I woke up this time, but rather in the prison in purgatory where only the most sinister beings were held captive by the gods for whatever reason. For these captives, purgatory was the land of eternal suffering.
And I was stood inside it, puzzled why I woke up here. Luckily I wasn’t in a prison cell, but rather in an empty hallway, with just a few cells to the side. One prisoner was screaming non-stop as if he was in pain or something. I looked inside his prison out of pure curiosity, only to find a completely normal man inside the cell. Well, the head laid on the ground and his hands were missing, but otherwise … I didn’t know what his problem was.
“You! It´s you!” He screamed as I turned my back towards him. He did get my attention though and I stopped from walking away.
“Me? Do we … oh, you the guy that boasted of immortality! How are you doing?” I knew him from my time in purgatory, but we barely interacted with each other. I was surprised he still remembered me, but the lack of visitors in this place probably made it very difficult to forget me.
“Bitch! I´ll kill you! You did this to me!” He said why I tried to remember the full story.
“I think I beheaded you, didn’t I? But I don’t quite remember where your hands have gone, sorry about that.” I said while looking in the nearby cells for his hands. I didn’t find any, but it wasn’t like I could retrieve them anyway without Aska.
“Sorry?!” He screamed as I was just walking to the next cell, barely out of his vision.
“Hey, it´s nothing personal, don’t take it to your heart. See ya!” Once again, screaming filled the hallway while I strolled to the prison. Not much changed here and I could still remember most of the prisoners.
“Hey, Face, what´s up?” A huge dice of flesh, with a particularly large face, stood in one prison cell.
“It hurts.” Sadly, he was rather dumb and wasn’t the greatest conversation partner.
“Yeah, I know. I´ll ask Aska to give you a few drugs again. That should help for the next fifty years.” The last time we were here we didn’t give him just a few drugs, but rather made him a drug addict. I wonder how that played out after we left him.
“It hurts.” Like I said, not the greatest conversation partner.
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“I´m so sorry, but I really have to go now. See you later!” I sprinted past him, trying to escape his constant …
“It hurts.” Goddamn.
The next time I stopped wasn’t because I wanted to converse with an inmate, but rather because I found something peculiar on the walls, the ceiling and the ground. There were signs of a huge explosion that blasted the dust away. Even several minutes after walking in the hallway, I couldn’t find the source of the explosion. The barriers were all glowing nicely, which meant that they were operating as usual.
But still, something did have to be the reason for this explosion, so I turned around as I found dust on the ground again. I checked the prison cells near the supposed centre closely and soon found something I assumed was impossible until then.
One of the barriers had an opening, barely enough to fit my pinky finger through. The prison cell behind the barrier was completely empty. Sadly, I didn’t remember who was imprisoned there, but I wasn’t the only one that interacted with the prisoner in this cell. I turned around, just to look at myself.
“Heyho.” Said the being who copied my appearance. Not knowing who this in front of me was made it even harder to remember who the missing prisoner was.
“Salve! Are you the baby or the deer?” I asked, trying to remember who could alter appearances.
“The price for each question is set in stone.“ It was the baby. Why did it have to be the baby out of all? I looked closer inside the prison cell and soon found what I was searching for. Somehow, this prisoner managed to scribble prices onto the wall. “Alright … one unknown word for a question.” I mused over the price as I gave my best to think about words he didn’t know.
“Octothorpe?” I tried.
“Boring. Another one.” Who knows such words? Couldn’t the prisoner at least have the intelligence of a baby as well?
“Hirquiticke?” I guessed once more.
“Are you trying to describe yourself now?” The prisoner even knew a sophisticated word for horny teenager.
“Definitely not. How about Peristeronic?” I said, hoping to finally have a word the baby didn’t know.
“That’s a new one. Ask your question.”
“Who was in this prison cell?” I asked before he could change his opinion.
“The Devourer. What does the word mean?” I was already somewhere else and tried to remember everything I knew about this being. It wasn’t much, just that it was highly flammable.
“Of or relating to pigeons.” I said, already thinking about my next question.
“Interesting. I am going to need to sleep over this.” The baby said as the illusion vanished. Left was only a one-year-old baby, curled in a fetal position and snoring incredibly loud.
“Damn babies and their constant napping. The Devourer … wasn’t she this disgusting worm thing?” I asked myself and noticed that the world began to spin around me. With one hand, I reached out for the barrier to support me, but I never succeeded in doing so. Darkness engulfed me, bringing me back into the real world.
“Is Lucinda in there?” asked a familiar voice as I woke up. The sounds were dampened by the carriage, but still distinctive as always. Immediately, I jumped up, threw the door open and basically flew in Luna's arms, much to the surprise of Tom.
“Luna! I missed you so much!”