Better off Dead Book Two by Odette C. Bell

Author:Odette C. Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Odette C. Bell
Published: 2020-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

As soon as my feet hit the ground outside, I knew that this couldn’t be a real space. It was dead silent. Even though I could see the wind rustling through leaves, I couldn’t hear it. Even though I watched as crows alighted on the twisted limbs of the broken trees around me, I couldn’t hear them, even as they opened their beaks and cawed.

“Purgatory... Purgatory,” I stuttered, that realization dawning on me. I could speak, but that was the only noise I could hear.

I should’ve figured it out earlier. When I had initiated the portal from New York, I’d done so with the phrase where Heaven meets Earth.

You might think that place would indicate the world itself – you would be wrong.

Purgatory was a realm both above Hell and below Heaven. It was more of a buffer space – a place that separated both of those powerful realms from Earth so that their all-encompassing energy could not spill in and destroy this fragile planet with a pop and a sizzle.

“Oh God,” I hissed as I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. I didn’t need to look down to realize that nothing came off my fingers.

I looked up at that eternal dusk. It hadn’t moved. There were clouds in the sky, but they remained still, too.

I was standing, just a few meters from the open door. You would think that would leave my back open to the numerous priests and creatures trying to attack me, but they stopped at the doorway. They didn’t dare step through.

... The hospital would be a node – an anchor point in Purgatory. And you needed one of those. Because if you were stupid enough to wander through Purgatory on your own, you’d never get out.

As I sliced my gaze to the side, I saw a patient in an old, worn hospital gown sitting on top of a broken car. The guy stared at me, his gaze completely empty.

I staggered back.

The most powerful of the priests were waiting for me, right inside the open doorway. Their hands were even stretched toward me, though they wouldn’t let their fingers pass the door.

I took a step forward. I turned and stared at them, then stared at the rest of the broken hospital grounds. Beyond that, I saw a broken city. And somehow, beyond that, I swore I saw a broken country. My gaze pierced through the landscape, because it wasn’t real. It was nothing more than a barren place – a realm where the only thing that was possible was simple existence. And the only purpose one can have in such a place is to wander aimlessly.

As I shivered, I locked my arms around my middle.

“Return,” a barrel-chested priest demanded. “If you wander in Purgatory, your soul will never be reborn. It is a fate worse than death.”

I didn’t snigger at that, even though I could see the irony. Fate worse than death? How about dying over and over again for eternity?

I took a step forward.

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