Chapter 2 - Now Entering Purgatory

[Welcome soul number 109,055,374,989! You have now entered purgatory. If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your nearest Spirit Support Center, current queue estimated at 351,923,022. Please enjoy your stay while you are processed. And remember, do not step out of line. Have a wonderful eternity!]

Chuck’s eyes shot open as he sucked in a deep breath.

He keeled over, falling to a knee, and hacked up blood no longer there, prodding at his throat and face with numbed fingers. He was alive, and no longer injured. He tried to speak, but only a phlegmy cough escaped his mouth, followed by a high-pitched crack one would expect from an adolescent boy mid-puberty.

Movement caught his eye and he looked about him. Surrounding Chuck, several orderly lines of ghostly figures, their pallid skin slightly translucent in the dusky light, each staring down at him. His cheeks reddened as a pang of embarrassment quickly rang through him.

He stood abruptly, straightening out his clothes, and then examined his once shredded forearm. There was none of the swelling that followed an injury—no scars, nor any sign of flaps of muscle having once exposed bone. Chuck winced as he remembered the cleaver buried in his side. He quickly lifted his shirt, prodding at unmarred skin. He let out a sigh, relaxed, and patted down his shirt.

It would have seemed only a bad dream had not phantoms of pain still coursed through his body, or at least had he awoken in his bed, head atop his favorite pillow, a gift from Martha.

Martha… A wave of anger rushed through him as he though of Mr. Sullivan. “That fucking bastard,” he muttered. He clenched his jaw as he snarled. If I get my hands on that ghoul, I’ll give him a fucking piece of ‘life and death.’

The anger quickly subsided as he remembered his place and looked around. He released his fists. The others stood rather motionless, save for the occasional step forward as the queues advanced, but none still watched him.

Chuck leaned out of his line, twisting to look behind. It stretched out until disappearing behind a bend in the pathway, lined by squat buildings made of colorless brick. Everything lacked color, the same shades of blacks, whites, and grays as the path and sky. Even those surrounding him cast the same ghastly hues as the environment. Except for Chuck, whose skin was the same umber tone—tanned even darker still on his forearms—as it had always been.

Surrounding the stoned path along its entire length, was a white wall, nearly a head higher than Chuck. Bridges crossed overhead where others clothed in black walked freely, a few staring down at him. He shifted his gaze away, stepping to the side for a better look at the wall.

[Please remain in line for your safety.]

The voice boomed within his head. Chuck shook free of the sudden shock and once again sickly faces turned to regard him. He stepped back into the queue.

Purgatory, the voice had said. Am I really dead then? Chuck thought. In a line for the newly deceased.

Chuck, already taller than most of his counterparts, stood on his toes, peering down the line which once again disappeared around another bend. Despite his healed body, his mind was still enveloped in a thick fog, the kind of feeling one gets when waking too early from a deep sleep.

The line is easy enough to explain, but why am I the only one here who’s not some shade of death? The question hung in his mind. Even those walking across the bridges and just beyond canal’s walls, atop hidden walkways, were various shades of translucent whites and grays.

The line shifted once more and Chuck followed the surge of movement.

He tapped the person—if they could still be called a person—before him, leaning in close to whisper. “How long have you been here?”

After a moment, he tapped again, but the question remained unanswered. Chuck reached out to pull the man around, when that same booming voice returned.

[Please do not touch or speak with other souls before you are processed.]

Chuck winced, grabbing at his head as the message crackled and faded.

Movement ahead caught his eye. Two armored figures made their way through the crowds, pushing aside silent souls which had no reaction other than to glide back in place without even a glance to the newly arrived men.

A hollow pit grew within Chuck’s stomach. Years of bar fights had attuned his senses to danger, and those senses screamed at him now. Chuck steadied his breathing and looked around once more. The walls were low enough to climb if needed.

His gaze returned to the two armored men. Though there were still a distance away, it was clear they towered over the other souls. He caught glimpses of blue hued armor as they pushed their way past the beleaguered souls. Chuck kept his head forward, hoping to somehow blend in despite the stark contrast between those around him, and pulled himself inward in an attempt to hide.

But his efforts were for naught. The man in the lead made eye contact and called out for his comrade.

They each rushed toward Chuck, shoving their way past souls who fervently struggled to return to their positions, slowing both men down—a double-edged sword for the voice that likely also bellowed in the souls’ minds.

Chuck turned in a panic, yelling out “sorry!” as he kicked off the souls nearest him and vaulted up the wall, pulling himself over the ledge. He dropped down a short way on the other side, landing with a thud and rolling upright into a sprint. A quick glance back down the canal, revealed several other armored men, and even though his eyes didn’t linger, he could clearly make out ethereal wings of swirling blues and whites.

[Return to the line for processing.]

Pain lanced through him as the voice, louder now, commanded his return. Chuck stumbled, crashing into one of the denizens dressed in a black robe. The being pushed Chuck away and spat out unintelligible words, their venomous meanings clear nonetheless.

[Warning: Archons have been called for immediate detainment.]

He shrieked at the pain, changing direction into an alleyway—the only path away from the canal. The warnings continued until the voice, distorted and increasingly intermittent, faded away, taking the pain with it.

Chuck emerged out the other side of the alley, dodging passersby and weaving through growing crowds. A shout called out behind him—one of the Archons—already charging toward him, none others in tow.

The crowd split, and a way toward a open courtyard appeared. Chuck veered to the right. The stiffness of his body since waking had faded, and he felt a lightness he hadn’t felt since his prime nearly twenty years prior. It seemed not only were his most recent injuries healed, but his whole body was rejuvenated. All those aches and pulled muscles—more from moving his middle-aged body a bit too quickly, which never was actually all that quick, than any of the farm work one would assume to lead to those pains—had gone.

He leapt over a low wall, daring a glance back. The Archon had closed the gap, gliding over the crowd. This one wore only a leather-like vest, not the blue, metallic armor of the first two.

“Well, shit…” Chuck spun around and slid to a stop in a forward crouch. “I don’t know why the hell you’re after me, but I’m not going out easy.” The gathered crowd instantly gasped. ‘Hell,’ a faux pas in Purgatory, it seems.

The Archon swung right, wings carrying him a few extra paces each stride. Chuck charged, adrenaline pumping through his veins, the feeling like echoes of a past long gone when he would have fought any man who looked at him wrong. That was only ever an excuse of course, and nothing Chuck held pride in, but even so, the rush he felt in this moment was of pure elation.

And who better to excise anger against, than some angelic asshole hunting him down.

Chuck planted a foot a step away, ducking low to feign a tackle, before pivoting, pressing down his whole weight against his sole and launching a kick straight into the archon’s shoulder and neck. The strike connected and Chuck’s shin cracked against bone.

The archon, who had yet to land from his low glide, flipped over mid-air from the blow, his legs continuing on. His body hit the ground, eyes wide and shock writ across his face, breath forced from his lungs, a guttural “Ungh” escaping with it.

Chuck smirked as he looked down at the archon. An easier fight than he expected, though even his younger self would have been exhausted merely from the sprinting. Here his body felt as if it floated with each stride.

Turning to continue his escape, a mass slammed into his side—another archon. Arms wrapped around him as they fell to the ground, but Chuck twisted free before the archon’s hands could connect, the momentum instead sending him tumbling. A whirlwind of flailing limbs as he rolled and slid across cobblestones. As he slowed, he pulled a leg inward, springing up back into a sprint with a battered body.

May want to add that he throws/alams a rock at the newly appeared archon, or something, because otherwise it will not be clear how Chuck managed to escape/create more distance before arriving at the terraces.

“Still alive…” he grumbled, chest heaving now to catch his breath—or am I?

He dared not look back lest the little luck he still clung too abandon him.

Weaving between the peoples of purgatory, in and out of alleyways, Chuck came upon the highest terrace of many. Each level dropped down along a wall twice the height of a tall man. Beyond the lowest terrace lay, in stark contrast to the world behind him, a vibrant valley of buildings stretching past the horizon. In the center stood a palace, its top level with Chuck.

To either side, the pathway wound back and forth until curving past the edge of distant buildings. No stairs down were visible on this level, but from above, Chuck spotted several nested between buildings.

He was running out of options. Run along the path and risk being intercepted by his pursuers, or find a way down quickly. Below him, perhaps a stride beyond the bottom of the wall, sat a large cart. A man effortlessly tossed the small gray spheres to those gathered around in an exchange. A few bit into them.

Food! I could land there, Chuck thought.

He turned at shouts from either side of him, still distant—the archons, soon to come from the alleys to find him.

It wasn’t much of a thought, Chuck’s decision to jump, much like his reckless, younger self. He stepped of the ledge, and fell. The air rushed past, cool on his overworked body, his heart thrumming in his ears.

And then he crashed into the cart, dead center. They were cabbages now that he was close, and they flew into the air on impact, spraying smashed leafy bits across the crowd. His body sunk into the pile of food as he rolled, then slammed his head against the cart’s side, breaking it free, and himself—and the cabbages—out into the passersby.

They quickly shuffled away, their faces scrunched in consternation as he studied them upside-down and between legs folded over his head.

Chuck unraveled himself, rolling to the side, and stumbling to his feet. The cartman pushed toward him, snarling in a language impossible for Chuck to understand. The man flailed his arms, pointing back and forth Chuck and the cart before falling to his knees, head in his hands.

Chuck bowed to the man, which had the man known the pain Chuck was in, he would have had more empathy. Need to flesh this out to find the humor

Staggered, and likely concussed, Chuck limped away as fast as he could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough for his taste. He could still hear the shouts of the Archons high above over the susurration of the crowd. Souls stepped as aside as they watched him walk past into another alleyway. He felt like an street cat injured in some scuffle. Though a cat would stick a better landing.

Chuck had made his way to the final terrace, beaten and bruised, but alive, and not yet found by the Archons.

It did little to calm his nerves. He was lost in a heavenly city. He managed to break at least one rib. And, oh, he was also dead, a bit of important information that seemed to be of little matter as of late. He would be dead—more dead—if not for a rejuvenated body by whatever divine force youthened it some twenty years.

He staggered past the final terrace, into the color city beyond, and sat in the shadows. The world’s cacophony had quieted, leaving time to think. Even the telepathic voice had not returned, severed in some way. So Chuck sat and thought: where he would go, how he would get there, and why the this was happening to him.

The slate sun hung low in the horizon, casting rays of what would be the golden light of dusk on Earth. Here those rays were simply another shade of gray, lighter, but still the hue of faint shadows.

He looked above at the house he leaned against—yellow—and back down at the ground, divided by a sharp line, on side only the pallid colors of death, and on his an abundance of color. An odd world this was.

Change the door to being footsteps, so it’s more like Ashkith came upon Chuck during a stroll. A door nearby opened and he gently lifted himself, slowly crawling back to a shadowed corner hidden by crates. A head popped over the boxes, its visage one of life like Chuck’s own—or whatever one would call life as a dead man—and smiled down at him. Chuck tried to return the smile, but pain gave way to a grimace instead.

“What a coincidence, I do think,” the man said.

He hadn’t the look of death like the souls, but nor did he have the glow or ethereal wings of an archon.

“I’m not much a fan of coincidences,” Chuck replied, “they never seem to be the good kind.”

The man walked around the crates, and bent low to help him up. Chuck gave no resistance, not because of some undue trust, but because he had no energy left to fight.

“I am one called Ashkith.”

A silence hung in the air for a moment as they—Chuck—hobbled along.

“Well met I hope,” Chuck replied, turning his gaze to regard the man, “Chuck…”

“Well met indeed, I do think. And how wonderful is divine fate that I already know who Chuck is?”

Chuck blinked a few times in bewilderment. A strange man, I do think… he thought before replying, “and who is Ashkith?”

“Aha!” the man barked, “such a marvelous question. One with so many an answer, and one which there are so many who wish to know. Hmm… Who is Ashkith… Ah,” he continued, “merely a humble servant of a god, I do think!”