Aike-Aike selected from the cabinet a glass bottle that was full of a rainbow-colored fluid. She stuck the needle through the lid and withdrew a good 200CC worth. Then she heard Nero’s voice slicing through her concentration. After returning the bottle to its shelf, she danced back to the table to join the Doctor. “Bored? Marky-Marky, you can’t be bored, can you?” She plastered a dejected look onto her face. “That makes me really really sad. I try so hard to make you happy, little Marky. Please don’t be bored.” When the boy refused to reply, his eyes closed, every so often murmuring ‘It’s just a dream…’, Aike-Aike pouted and turned to Nero. She stood up on her tip-toes, but even that wasn’t good enough to reach Nero’s ear-level, and the woman ended up whispering her next bit to his shoulder: “I think you’re right, mister. He does look pretty bored. What should we do about it?”
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Breathe…I can’t…I can’t breathe……. Lungs stretching and tearing beyond any normal capacity, eyes burning from the various toxins and chemicals and other disgusting things, fluffy white dress and long blue hair weighing her down, Brenna yet still tried to swim forward into the murk, arms grasping wildly for her friend only to come up empty-handed each time. So much water……so much…..Darla…Darla, where are you?..... Two minutes ago, a rush of water to envy any major river had flooded the concrete basin where Brenna and her friend Darla had been playing in the rain. They had attempted to climb out, but too late, for within seconds the water grew from a steady trickle into a monstrous, undulating, muddy-colored wall. Sweeping the children away into a tunnel, slamming them into a metal grate…
Why is this…so hard….why can’t I swim the way I want to…. Brenna tried to kick off the grate, and after that didn’t work, she tried to climb up it. Amazingly, she was able to. But instead of receiving a breath of air at the top of her climb, Brenna’s head was greeted by a donk of rough concrete.
She was trapped underwater. No way to keep flowing with the current. No way to swim back. And no way to come up for air.
The girl prayed. She prayed as her eyes rolled back into her head and she was forced to shut them just to ease the pressure. She prayed as her lungs grew red hot in her chest, as they seared with agonizing pain. She even prayed whilst she went unconscious and slowly died.
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Darla was in a sort of predicament. Stuck. Stuck to a metal grate while cold water pushed at her body with a mighty force. Only…Darla wasn’t so lucky as to have freedom of movement like Brenna had. No, instead, her legs were tangled in the thorny, twiggy branches of a giant tumbleweed, which had been carried with the current alongside them. Every time she cried out in pain, as a rock or other hard object slammed into her, as one of her bare legs caught against a thorn, she would swallow more water.
One could easily and simply say that Darla’s Death was more agonizing than that of her friend’s.
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Eyelids flickering open, Brenna pushed herself upright on the couch. Soft. Soft….that was….wrong. The metal grate was far from soft. And the air…dry. Also wrong. Where was the water, the water she had been drowning in seconds before? “Either I’m dead or this is some unusual sort of hospital,” the girl commented as she scanned the magnificent room, her gaze traveling over the array of children, the bizarre-looking man in black, to at last rest upon a human woman with soft features, blue eyes, black and white robes with a giant white cross pattern embroidered over her chest, and golden-blonde hair that cascaded down her back in huge ringlets.
Next to her, Darla stirred, moaning…coughing a little only to realize her lungs were no longer plagued with water. She sat up as well, equally shell-shocked by what she saw. “What in the blue blazes is up with this?” she asked, instantly reverting back to her obnoxious personality.
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Bridgette beamed warmly as she saw that most of the children were finally waking up and looking around, some asking where they were. More children had appirated by this time, bringing the total to a mind-shattering nine. She was about to answer their volley of questions when Orphin strode up to her side and interrupted, handing her a BlackBook clipboard full of records and personal information for each child. She turned, looked at the prone Prefect, and smiled. “Well, mate,” she said, accented enough to again make you wonder if she hailed from Earthly Australia, “That was magnificent timing on your part. Thank you, peaches.” ‘Peaches’ was a pet name she used for anyone who made her happy in a great way. Rarely did any of the children have the capacity to make her that happy, so she mainly used it on staff.
Through the BlackBook magic that encircled the clipboard, she could feel Memories streaming into her consciousness, Memories that each child held…so many were dark, terribly dark…But now wasn’t the time to pour over BlackBooks. There were things to be done. Bridgette cut off the connection. She gave the child called Entaru a last pet of his back before standing up.
Suddenly, before she could speak even one word of welcome to the new group of children, the alarm started to wail. It was so loud that it echoed off of every surface, reverberated in every hall— somewhere out there, a child (or an incredibly dim-witted staff member) had succumb to their Second Death. The alarm was not made by staff hands. Or any other hands for that matter. No-one knew where it was. It was just an omnipresent, un-seekable thing created by powers above Bridgette herself. Its job was to sound every time a resident of Purgatory died a second time.
The woman wanted to curse aloud, but knew better. Rather, she took Orphin by his right shoulder and did her best to speak over the alarm: “Gather some of your mates. Tell them to go look over the School, see if any ‘doubly-dead’ kids are lying about. I’m going to have to go Outside the gates and look in the town. And as for you yourself, Orphin, I need you to take these children to a waiting room somewhere where it’s quiet. Get them some blankets, some candy, some water, whatever they might need to tide them over ‘till I come back. Please try not to scare them. I prefer happy, smiling faces.” She glared at Orphin seriously, hoping her orders sunk in.
Then she turned back to the children and gave her best sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, everyone. It’s just the alarm. I’ll be right back to show you around your new home.” Bridgette quickly glided to the glass front doors and pushed them open, running outside into the courtyard. No rush of air greeted her, cold, hot or otherwise. Just the everlasting blankness, everlasting downpour of ashes from grey sky that was Purgatory.
“Woe is the life of a Head Master…” the woman complained, shortly before unfurling her black raven’s wings through the slits in her robes and taking off into the still air.
