Part One: Getting to Know You…

Chapter One

THE BEGINNING AT AN END

Suffering comes in many sizes and flavors, sometimes, depending on the cards one is dealt, it can wreak havoc on the strength of one’s soul. Sorrow is infinitely attached to suffering. It clings to it like a child to its dead mother. Not everything is doom and gloom though, for here, here are great abilities that come and freedom from that time and place, to a better one. Our worlds are mostly shaped by how we move along through them. What if, at some point, death were not actually the end? What happens when it’s just the beginning?

Clive Downton was a man littered with the very word suffering, barely able to hold on through heavy sessions of depression that carried on for over a decade. He was unaware of anything outside his plight; it consumed him, drove him to desperation.

The summer sun was out early that morning, burning away the heavy fog left from a storm that passed through overnight. Clive was restless, he was prepared but alive with anticipation. He was a middle-aged man, married for most of his life to his wife. Recently retired from service with the active duty military, he was trying his best to fit into a world that no longer had a purpose for him.

Clive was looking out his driver’s side window, parked at a forest line. Most of it seemed to disappear through the heavy fog that had set in that morning. He knew, eventually, someone would have to figure out why he was there, and that someone would have the be the one. Not that kind of one that wins the lottery, no, this was a very different one.

He waited patiently, driving up and down the roads around the area he had chosen. A selection of his dead zone. This would be the last place he would lay eyes on the world around him. After most of the traffic had died down, Clive had pulled his vehicle onto the small pavement ledge on the right of the road. He quickly made his way back to the forest line, slowing down as he put distance away from the roadway in his rearview mirror. As far as he was concerned, it wouldn’t need to hide him for long. He had slowed his small SUV to a halt near a large tree. Its trunk seemed to be twisted against another tree. They wound upward, one at each point was blown over into the other and with the standing tree’s assistance, grew back into the deep ground. He kicked the engine off, pushing his seat back.

"I’ll ensure that there’s no mess," Clive said as he brought his right hand up in front of him, holding the revolver. He kicked the chamber open, pressing his right thumb against the release. All was well, mentally, relief surging through his mind. He loaded the bullets one at a time, sliding them with purpose into their chambers. "Ah, to have a purpose."

Taking a quick look around the inside of the car, Clive knew he’d done all he could. The care he took in his death was no less than the care he demonstrated throughout his life. Except, this time, it was centered on himself and not others.

“Sweet release…,” whispered Clive, putting the barrel of the gun under his chin. The metallic smell along with gunpowder only made him feel better. The cold ridge of the barrel rested neatly, sending slight shivers through his spine. The kind you get when, apparently, someone walks over your grave.

"I’ve done what I can, now it’s time to get on with business. I was known in life by listening more than I spoke. There really is nothing I have left to say, and that feels great."

Clive gave himself one missing chamber, an off-chance in case fate wanted to step in and say something on his behalf. If it didn’t fire, then it wasn’t time, and he would return to his torturous existence. During his life, there were times when it was necessary to try and explain his disease. To try and show someone a literal "pink elephant".

“Close your eyes,” Clive would say, “I want you to picture yourself somewhere else right now. Anywhere you want to be, outside of your current place, somewhere that makes you smile.” He would let that settle in and then flip things into his reality, tactics like this were needed to express something that would otherwise go unseen. Silent sufferers, the silent diseases, reaping their bounty while no one else can see them, except the one being attacked. “These thoughts can be whatever brings you to a happy place. Now, I want you to hold that thought, bring it in close. Now, whatever that is, replace it with killing yourself. That feeling of relief, of joy, or release, being just as strong. Although that thought may be foreign to some of you, it gives you a window into my mind like no other analogy that I can come up with.”

It was there that on an early foggy morning, in the middle of July, at 9 AM, on a Sunday, the body of an adult African American man was discovered parked in a field next to a wooded area. The police would say that this would be the most courteous suicide they had ever encountered. Everything in the car wrapped in plastic, a piece of sheet metal on the roof to stop the bullet from traveling any further or harming anyone else. Clive would be considered another lost veteran to an ever-growing suicidal rampage. Mental health would catch the brunt of the responsibility. There’s nothing like blaming the victims. Not an uncommon thing to have to happen and certainly. The footprint was made even smaller by the fact that he had been ruled by his depression and could no longer muster the strength to fight.

Sofia, his wife of more than twenty years, would have to meet the police at the morgue to identify the body. Her children, a daughter, and their two sons, were notified shortly after the discovery of his body. Sofia would have to muster the ability to make it through this. She wasn’t surprised; although their love was very deep and sincere, there was a mental illness that crept into her husband’s mind and never left.

Sofia had come to the reasoning this thing would grow to an unmanageable size and was literally drowning her husband away a little at a time. There were plenty of condolences given but it would be an overstatement to say that they healed anything.

Although she already knew his wishes for burial, it was still a hard thing to have something so close to her washed away in flames. It would be little consolation that it was done in his wishes. This was a hard time to be selfless. In the end, she stood in a little hovel of a room, far below ground. She had counted at least two different sets of stairs leading down. She watched as he was uncovered; naked and unflinching, it was quite apparent he was dead. The lifeless corpse transferred over to the belt-fed incinerator.

"I wish you well," Sofia spoke out loud after she could no longer take the painful memories crushing her. There was a part of her that wanted to just lay down on top of him and join in his body’s fate.

The suffering transferred then, the slightest of breezes, the cold void of air pushing at her back. Tears streaming down her cheeks in groves of mascara and makeup. She was still youthful in appearance, the alabaster skin, red lips and sophisticated ensemble of clothing made her seem lonely at that moment. Her face covered in a black veil making the top of her face disappear into somewhere safe to avoid the detection. The sorrow palatable as the worker, slowly moved the metal slab into the burners inner sanctum. He closed the door and as it slammed shut, the tie that bonded them broken, she had to be restrained by one of the poor coroner’s sons who has just taken this job to earn a little extra pay at the end of the month. He was completely unprepared to handle the grieving.

After a second, things calmed slightly, she looked through tears streaming down her face and managed to nod her head. She then looked down as she heard the tell-tale sound of high-grade fuel and gas operated heating jets powered up. She watched only for the briefest of seconds as the light inside the container poured out in bright streams of fire and everything inside was covered instantly in flames.

* * *

Through grey cloud-filled skies, floating free now, traveling downward, a drop plummeted. Much like a snowflake, each drop uniquely forged by the environment it was now in. The molecular mass of the drop was in constant flux. The drop now looking like liquid, picked up speed as it began to become aware of its fate. It glided, almost pulled towards a scarlet looking silhouette in the dense fog. The circular black-veined umbrella was held just above the Baronesses head. She could sense the power contained inside the drop and gracefully moved her umbrella. She extended her other hand, catching the drop in her pale palm while letting another pass through altogether.  

She rolled the flowing, seemingly translucent, drop around her pale white palm. The drop held millimeters away from contact with her hand palm. She leaned her hand and let the drop climb up her index finger to the tip of her nine-inch nails. She led it towards her face, to the corner of her mouth, parting her ruby lips just barely to consume the energy. It may be all in the same sandbox, but it didn’t mean she had to settle for the same sand.

* * *

The explosive echo rolled like thunder through what seemed to be a huge expanse for a long period. The shot rang out into Clive’s very soul, adding a metallic echo. Suddenly there was a growing sense that he needed to breathe. “I thought I was dead already, how can I need to breathe?”

There was an endless expanse now in front of his vision, the moving wall of black water moved closer, enveloping everything around him. Still feeling his life pouring out inside the vehicle, he couldn’t fully remove himself before he felt something rip at his midsection, almost grasping his entire center. The wall of water hit, collapsing around him, throwing everything into darkness. He soon became keenly aware that he was underwater. Clive struggled heavily against the blackness that seemed to be flowing in at him all at once. The emptiness was interrupted by a light, one of which he didn’t recognize.

* * *

A short way off the shore of Purgatory, there were huge spinning mass of black tendrils spinning around themselves, They were carrying things back towards their destinations. The black water rotated but on the side of one of those tendrils, fighting against the waters, riding in his old haggardly looking boat, was “Slicker”. Slicker was known as an energosoma. These creatures, spirits, ghosts, ghouls, or whatever manner of labeling applied to them, were the work of hundreds of years of maturing. He was formed into more and more complex creatures through eons of energy manipulation, they were some of the most matured souls in existence.

"I think we got something, Ma’am!" Slicker screamed from the boat side, grabbing what appeared to be a hose. He pulled it hard as there appeared to be more coming. Strangely not piling up in the bed of the boat.

In the distance, on a more level area, steeped in heavy fog that clung to everything, was a curvaceous looking figure. The fog swallowed up everything around it, to include the ground. The Baroness was very still with her umbrella covering her head and shoulders. This is ideal for her. She had waited enough time for this nonsense and wanted things back on their course. In reply to Slicker’s exclamation, she merely offered a wave and a quick tap of her right wrist. She had spent enough fishing.

“Damn well better keep his mind right this time, he’s driving me mental,” exclaimed the Baroness back to Slicker when frustration had built enough. The Baroness had Purgatory to run and this was going to make the Jaynes fairly upset.

She pulled a distinguished pocket watch from her velvet red jacket to her dress. Her entire ensemble was blood red. Her hair the white of spider’s webs. It was kept short at the moment. She popped the top open gracefully and scowled at the instrument. The clockwork mechanism wasn’t so much meant to tell time as it was to demonstrate her foci was back. The instrument slowly lit up behind the first clear glass dome. The symbol forced itself from a sea of black inside the dome, bringing up her moniker. The slight yellow trimmed symbol not fully pulling enough energy yet. It refused to become fully functional, growing slowly black again.

“It doesn’t work here, I knew that,” she said, chuckling to herself and placed it back in her pocket. Her heavy British accent was well groomed through hundreds of years of practical use. It was the most pleasing to her, in many ways, and she found trying other accents didn’t offer the same manipulation factor.

She quickly passed a thought, "I need them eating out of my hands, not trying to figure out what I’m trying to say." She watched Slicker continue to struggle with the catch de jour.

Slicker adjusted his yellow waxy hat on his thin, white, slippery hair. It continued to muster the same response to his clambering for control, which was to fall off again. All he could see in the tiny reflections below the surface was the light.

“Got ya!” Slicker said in his head as he pumped his fist in the sky then back to the water.

“Some sort of fisherman juju, I’m sure", the Baroness said in her head as she noticed the light below as well. She could see, in the distance, the watery surface sloshing the boat around, but soon, it would be brought back to her.

"Hurry up," the Baroness yelled from the shore. She made her legs immaterial at will, floating about without having to meet the surface. Consistently covered in a heavy fog, dense clouds, constant thunder and rain, the Purg was a miserable looking sort of place. It was hers and she knew just what was needed to mother it.

The Baroness was also an Energosomancer, a manipulator of the very energy around Mount Purgatory, everywhere. The Baroness was considered an energosoma titan. The titan reference was not always applied to the size of one’s appearance, but the depth of their soul’s experience or raw power. She was "the boss lady" in Purgatory, and presumed anchor to the bastion of neutrality. She was the "power" that tethered much of what their existence was now.

Slicker leaned heavily to one side of the small boat, already rocking along with unseen forces. His yellow adorned wet gear glistened. He reached his right hand under the surface without hesitation, snatching the first of several body pieces from Styx. Little by little, through grabbing from Diver’s mechanical looking clips, the bags were stacked in the boat.

Diver moved through the black water easily to the back of the boat, swaying in the increasingly heavy waves of the Styx. His headlamp casting a dingy yellow light on the four windows to his large bulbous diving helmet. Through that dim light, human remains could be seen swaying inside the liquid substance within the suit already. Although seemingly heavy beyond mortal means, his suit cost his energosoma little energy to keep it almost weightless.

Diver’s corpse, deteriorated beyond reasonable means to assess what or who he was. His diving helmet was inhabited also by a ghostly pink octopus. Its eyes usually peering through one of his empty eye sockets. Diver’s real persona is considered as part of the lost souls. He was found by Slicker in the Drukkna. His corpse’s bobbing head had little hair left on the scalp, and it was white. When referring to the Diver, it can be said that everyone refers to the head as much as the octopus, they are one in the same. Slicker was looking through the Diver’s top window down into his bobbing form in the Styx.

“Good job, lad,” he rapped a leathery white knuckle against the top window and inside the head quickly tilted upwards. Diver leaned slightly to the right with a deep yellow eye inside the left eye socket. “Sorry, there,” Slicker said, noticing that the eye was gone and there was a small pink tentacle slinking out of the socket, waving back and forth in a vigorous manner.

“Now that you’ve been reunited, you two need to brace,” the Baroness said as she whipped her hands up and back. Her pale white hands ending in nine-inch nails. She began to move them together, without collision, at rapid rates, throwing the fingers in a blurred white-tipped mesh. The white mesh grew like stringing off a rapid linen press, throwing it around the boat, wrapping itself around itself and looked like a large ball of iridescent white yarn.

The Baroness brought her hands down slowly with purpose, focusing her power on the ball. Drawing on the energy that those parts in the boat were starting to bring her. She could sense a pulse beating under the yarn ball, even though there was no heartbeat to find here. It was a pulsing of anticipation, of wanton lust for rebirth. They would need to be reunited where they could not be detected. This was merely a precaution, but she took it seriously nonetheless.

The ball moved slowly, purposefully driven by the Baroness’s energy, the ball slowly started to carry a light red aura. She quickly completed the transition, now setting the boat on the shore again, the latticework unweaving itself as she relaxed her attention. Its yarn sunk into the wet ground, almost soaked up by the ever-thirsty soil.

"Everything feeds and gets fed," Slicker said as he watched the white yarn fade away into the brown-looking rocky muck below.

“Very true, you did, well, as always, as I expect you to,” the Baroness said, choking through the compliment-giving process.

The Diver, now fully standing his seven-foot girth, looked down awkwardly by leaning the upper half of his body to bring his sloshing helmet closer to Slicker. Slicker was already waiting on the look, the two of them spent centuries together, how wouldn’t they know what was coming already. Time, however long, seemed to have some, not many, but some predictable moments. The two shared a look, ignoring the Baroness’ stern observations, her intent almost assuredly bent on melting one of their heads.

"You see that,’" chuckled Slicker after a few awkward moments of silence, "she really does appreciate what we do around here." Slicker threw a well-pointed jab, squeaking slightly as it came into soft contact with the window to Diver. He also threw her a side-eye, making sure they were no longer drawing ire but frustration from her.

The Baroness stood, melancholy now, her face dropping back to its neutral state. Without a word, she simply turned away from the shore and shifted her bottom into incorporeal status, letting it trail into wisps of white smoke before she moved ahead, crimson umbrella held aloft again.

“I expect you two boys can handle this? This little task isn’t for a dainty gal like myself,” the Baroness said as she cleared the top of the hill, headed back to the Red Room Inn.

* * *

Slicker and Diver turned to each other with looks of exasperation. They shared heavy sighs, one bubbling like a water cooler in an office building. They had a choice. Each of them positioned their left hands, Diver’s clamps, palm up, and brought their right hands to bare ready for the game. They each paused, then they smacked their palms three times. Each of them stopping at the same time, sharing at the same moment, what chosen course of action was about to happen.

"Ha," exclaimed Slicker as he noticed his partner’s clamp in the open position, meaning paper. Slicker brought his scissor-like fingers in front of him, slightly, before he realized that Diver couldn’t even see any results. He quickly pulled off his hand and threw it up, it stopped, slapping against the top middle window, by itself, still making the scissor symbol of the game they had just played.

"See, ya lost, you can carry the boat and bags," Slicker said but paused before finishing, sensing the irritation level of Diver growing. "If’n you are willing, since I know you can, you can throw me up there with it, and I’ll be your lighthouse. I know, sometimes, it’s hard for you to move around. Just trying to be helpful."

The Diver moved slowly towards the boat and bent down using its leg struts, the mechanisms within the suit operating on Diver’s energy alone. He easily clamped each side of the boat lifting it above his head for transport. He didn’t have to pause long before Slicker threw his yellow hat back on his head and with a display of baffling speed and dexterity. He leaped from several steps away to place himself on the boat.

The two of them followed the Baroness up the trail, along with the edges of mountains webbed in fog, until they had arrived at an outcropping. The trail disappeared, having served its purpose, and the ground was littered with large rocky outcroppings. The ground was a mix of green moss and brown dirt. All appearances here were muted, nothing truly had much color at all, unless you moved towards the blaze.

* * *

The Baroness was waiting in the center of the rocks, the rocks covered in ancient runes of lost relation. They could no longer be read anymore. Lost in the lore of eons worth of energosoma and lost to time. The Baroness while experiencing another life, before rebirth, had spent time as an English diplomat. One wet, rainy day, she was taken to the ruins of those that worshipped thousands of years before her time.

It was a profound experience at the time and so she had used that life to build on her energosoma, adding the personification of this memory. She shifted her memory weaving at times when she wanted to avoid extra attention from either direction. She would fold the Red Room Inn into a moment in time and place. Its actual location within a guarded place. She would make sure her and her children would not be blindsided.

* * *

Diver and Slicker eventually caught up with the Baroness and she was now standing with her back to their arrival. She shifted her crimson gown, its tresses folding back together, and her black boots touched down on the wetland. She quickly knelt, whispering to the ground, the clearing in the middle of the fog and rock-strewn area. As she stood, the ground began to crack at her feet. Slicker sat quickly down in the boat, still being held, effortlessly, by the seven-foot diving suit below him. Diver bent slightly at the legs, focusing on trying to remove the tremors through whirring of mechanical sounds.

The cracks deepened and stretched out in front of the three figures and, forming a circular shape, it began it lift. The debris fell about everywhere, as the huge rock-strewn face materialized.

Gigantic in nature, the head’s empty sockets unmoving. The face, tellingly once beautiful in nature, was now twisted due to near constant agony. The Baroness knew of its tale, its beginning and ending. Its purpose was fulfilled while serving her now, and there would be no one that would try to destroy the eternity knot. She knew that was wish-full thinking, she was always paranoid of outsiders to the Nays.

The Nays was a short-termed reference used throughout the surroundings to refer to those that worked for the Baroness. The meaning, they were "naysayers", the doubters, the unbelievers. Sometimes, no matter how much you do or don’t believe in something, it doesn’t stop its influence on your lives, here or after. The Nays themselves were varied and helpful to others. Although, even with her influence and status in Purg (Short-term reference: Mount Purgatory), the Baroness still had the power within defined limits, as prescribed to her upon appointment.

The Neutrality was the bureaucracy of this place, the Purg’s system of tracking, recording without an influence of any kind on its surroundings. Meaning the Neutrality didn’t have the teeth to bare when it came to deal with the surrounding forces actively. It was all very taxing on the Baroness, draining her slowly over time until she could get Gaunt back into form.

Standing before them, now silent, rotten brown teeth were strewn across the roof of the door-shaped gape. The bottom of his jaw wasn’t visible underneath the wet ground somewhere unseen. The path ahead of them now dimly lit by small lantern lights in the distance.

Whence they entered the mouth, it slowly fell behind them but there wasn’t a roof now to speak of. The expanse was vast in a sea of darkness. The only light that could be seen was the small ornate lanterns hanging from each side of a door. The inside of the building itself seemed almost off in the distance from the outside of the glass windows. It was hard to be able to see figures on the inside, making their shapes and sounds distorted. It was elaborate, it was secretive, it was one of her masterpieces.

Whence they closed in distance to the building, it became clear there was a red-tinged light throwing a bloody shadow across the words in old English, "The Red Room Inn". These places were weaved by the Baroness who had the Energosomancy to build, nests, and protect what she considered "Her Young." She could hardly consider herself to be a pragmatist, but she had considered, at some point, that this appointment would end with the very system that keeps her here and empowers her and would then re-call her.

Re-call was something that only the Hierophant could authorize them to do. It was unclear what, if anything, would happen if she was recalled. It was that which kept her in place for so long. Her last life ending over six hundred years prior to this point. Although fierce to a fault, she still understood that anyone and anything could change very rapidly.

Diver set the boat down lightly. Slicker loaded the crossed arms of Diver with the black-green pieces of what looked like a severed body. As a last poignant pun, he gently laid Gaunt’s head on top all the parts. Purposely putting it upside down, he moved out of the way, so the Baroness could catch it with the corner of her eyes as she entered the inn. She paused slightly at the alcove entrance to the large wooden door, painted, in her memories, a blood red. She gave Slicker a roll of the eyes before disappearing into the building. Just as she passed through the door, she pushed her incorporeal head through the alcove wall.

“Hurry up, get him in his soil, in a small passage of time we can find this box,” she said calmly, leaning back into the wall as the two of them simply nodded their heads in consent.

Just as her head disappeared through the wall, another appeared right next to Slicker’s head as he was mocking the Baroness’ tone and mannerisms. The rather large, stuffed, brown bear’s head was now close to Slicker’s as a deep and intimidating voice screamed loudly, echoing in the surrounding area.

“FUCK YEAH!” screamed Teddy as the voice was gruff and deep. “Boss man’s back,” Teddy paused, the almost transparent red-haired girl was behind the stuffed animal, whispering.

Teddy appeared as a large brown bear from a carnival. The girl that was always behind Teddy’s brash, overly-protective side, had been treated to some terrible conditions. Teddy was part of the Lenties, (Short-termed reference: Those that believe in only one life) and was wandering the outskirts of the Isle of Innocence.

Due to the severity of the killing she did there was no place for her there on the Isle. Teddy is a mechanism spirit, one driven into creation by an Energosomancer and the memories of those involved. Teddy is the girl and the girl is Teddy. The Baroness rescued the girl from her own self-imposed hell and allowed her to awaken, bringing in some understanding of her plight but no free pass.

If there was anything apparent or important as "common sense" in the Purg, it was that karma was a very real thing. Each decision had a price, and when the girl walked away from the Censure, they were not happy with the Baroness. Lenties were lenties and not Nays. The Baroness simply considered the Lenties to be of self-imposed ignorance, so ordinarily didn’t get along with the Censure. Teddy held two ornate knives. It was not easy to tell whether the girl was moving the bear or the bear was moving the girl.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’ll bring it down a notch, sure thing," Teddy said back, after a moment, his head still pointing slightly to the left as if there was more whispering when it shot forward. The motion catching Slicker off guard, which Teddy knew he hated. He jerked back as they almost collided, stuffed bear head to the old cranium. Thing is, he wasn’t sure who would have won that. Teddy barely pulled up, stopping in front of his face. Slicker could feel his hat beginning to slide down the back of his moist white hair. As he reached around to arrest its decent, he simply stammered, trying to get out a response to the outburst he just heard.

“He’ll be all right, right, Diver? Fuck, I didn’t mean to break him,” Teddy said, with a sly wink from the girl standing behind Teddy from her black orbs. In the afterlife, the eyes were windows. Most remained shut to anyone but those they trust the most. If you were to ask the Baroness, she would say, without hesitation, ‘There’s never a good reason to show anyone your business.’

After the quick wink, Teddy disappeared with a forceful suction noise around them. Soon after, Slicker pointed towards the top of Diver’s bulbous helmet, where she sat playing with two very detailed, sharp, knives. She struck them back and forth against each other for just a moment before he realized she was acting out of habit. One knife appeared to glow without a heat source but nonetheless radiated the superheated distortion. The other knife was almost singed beyond color to a black. A fine red edging flickered along the edges and as they collided against each other’s blades, it sent red and orange sparks tinkering down Diver’s helmet. Diver paid it little attention, reaching up with both clamps and gently settling them on two metal handles attached to the helmet itself. The suit pulled the helmet off easily from the rest of the machine. Now, without the suit, Diver’s octopus pulled its tentacles down, contacting the glass windows, two on each. In one motion, the floating head quickly made a motion forward, thrashing, making the head’s center of gravity heavier and the octopus legs held firmly as the rolling started. Diver lost sensations like vertigo quite a few years ago, so if it didn’t bother his partner, it didn’t bother him. All gathered the bags into the Red Room Inn, where Gaunt will be buried, again.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two