Purge, Inc.
Into the Vortex
By: Everleigh Allen
*Characters borrowed from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series
.
Disclaimer/Note:
The names, characters, events, and actions within this book are entirely fictional and/or coincidental. I have temporarily changed the character names to Stephenie Meyer's characters from the Twilight Series for this fanfiction's purposes and her character's names belong to her.
This story/book is mine and is derived from countless hours of research and studying. It is meant to be fictionally based off of many belief systems and mythologies.
This story is fictional and in no way is meant to disrespect of anyone's personal, religious, or spiritual belief systems. This book may have scenes and instances that may be sensitive to some readers pertaining to death, ghosts, etc.
It is meant to be an aloof story of our main character, Bella, figuring her way out of her "Purge, Inc." and how she navigates through her story.
AU, MA, BxE, Cannon coupling, and future lemon warning.
Also, this story isn't edited and it probably won't be until later.
Phew! That was a lot… Are you ready?
Enjoy! –Everleigh Allen
Chapter 1
"Dammit."
Bella hissed as she pulled her long, dark hair behind her and tied it with an office rubber band.
Eric, the manager of their office, was a portly man, even in the afterlife, even though he didn't seem to care how he portrayed himself. He often had his clothes untucked and in disarray. He always seemed to look rushed and frazzled and then mad about it. He moved through the room with a stumble and glare that was dead set on Bella. He spit out his words, "How long have you been here?"
"In this office or today?" Bella shot back.
Eric grunted, his beady eyes narrowed, "Someone thinks she's funny. Let's try with this office, shall we?"
She looked at Jake whose desk was across from hers but he just shrugged, not wanting any attention placed onto him.
Eric tapped his foot in either annoyance or impatience. It could also be both.
Bella looked away because she didn't ever think to keep track. "It feels like forever. I can't really say," If she could blush if she would because she honestly had no idea nor cared enough to keep track. Time wasn't really something she needed to worry about.
"One year, three months," Eric seethed.
"Wow," With a gasp of honest shock, Bella looked at Jake who just shrugged again. Time was slow where they were compared to upstairs. "That long, eh? Feels like so much longer."
Eric turned an obscene plum color, which he often did so it wasn't anything new. "Long enough to know not to get one of these, I would think!" He pulled out a small red card as if it proved his point. "You know what this is, right?"
Bella curled her lips under her teeth so she didn't answer the rhetorical with a smartass comment since everyone knew what the red cards were.
"You have a two o'clock," Eric sneered. Bella then noticed the huge stack of papers in his hands when he suddenly threw them in front of her. "I don't care what you did to get it but you better get hot fixing it before you get hot-"
The lights flickered above them. It instantly quieted Eric and he tossed the card on her desk right in front of her.
It was obvious what he was implying. But Bella chose to ignore the threat even though it temporarily waved heavily on her mind. She could have done pretty much anything to warrant such a card and she didn't care to worry about something she couldn't control.
"Well, hello to you, too," she grunted after he was off to the next person to terrorize and picked up the card and the file. The card only had her name and 2 o'clock written on it so there wasn't anything she could discern about it. She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes to cancel out the glare of flickering florescent lights which made the office building annoyingly bright.
A door slammed, opened, and slammed again.
Bella finally turned her chair to glare at Eric and his beady petulant eyes from his office window before he could slam the door again.
"What?" She huffed but noticed Jake bowing lower towards his desk, out of the line of fire.
Eric grinned as he looking right at her but Bella, "Two o'clock," he hissed again. Bella ignored him. She made herself busy by looking away and picking up her coffee to avoid further interaction. She gulped a sip of grainy, bitter, scalding coffee, enjoying the way it seemed to warm her cold dead soul even it was mostly rancid and if only for just a second. With a push of a button, her computer flared on with a wheezing hum.
Her computer, if you could call it that, wasn't much more than a mainframe with bobbles, knobs, and buttons that lined a smattering of screens, though only one seemed to work at a time. She shivered; cursing the unfathomably cold office; even though she had a sweater over her clothes. No amount of clothes would do anything to keep her warm there.
The temperature never seemed to bother anyone else.
It was a Monday and too early but she was in Hell and that's how things go.
Her attention moved to the file where a picture of a woman paper was paper clipped to the manila folder. She seemed to be staring back at Bella with a slight smile bordered by her mousy hair and a bit of a glare in her eyes.
She knew that look well.
"No, not another one of these!" Bella protested in vain, but Eric, who seemed to be waiting for her reaction chuckled darkly before he quietly slinked back over.
"I almost forgot," Eric snickered evilly before handing Jake an even larger stack of papers.
Eric's sinister grin widened when Jake groaned. She imagined he had horns somewhere under his hair line, though they probably didn't sprout yet.
Jake had two files within all the papers. Bella was curious on what he did to deserve that but instead of asking she opened the file on her girl.
Lauren Mallory gave a wide eyed stare as if she was shocked when her picture was taken. She was a twenty-eight year old with a live-in boyfriend that wasn't listed in the file. Bella was glad, of course, because that made the job easier when it came time for the next phase.
She opened the part of the file with indicators and hunched over with irritation.
"What did you get?" Jake asked lightly.
Bella looked away from the file and turned to her office mate, "A chick."
"Nice." He snickered but his big hair blocked his face as he stared back down at the files. His 80's leather jacket squeaked as he turned away from Bella and swiveled back and forth in his chair.
"You?" She tried to remain nonchalant as she eyed his stack of papers, wondering if it was in her best interest to trade, which they sometimes did.
Heaving a sigh, he was about to answer when a chime sounded on the switchboard in front of him diverting his attention.
It was an alert that sounded just seconds before a woman appeared on one of the screens before him. It was early, still, so he didn't have too many to deal with, at least.
"They are starting early," Bella sighed.
"Well, yeah, school's started," Jake's sneer made his face look temporarily like an old, drunk Elvis Presley. He pushed a worn unlabeled button and watched it turned green before he fell back in his chair and picked up his files. The woman on the screen suddenly piped up and walked back through the door and grabbed the item she had forgotten. In an instant her screen faded back to black. The switchboard dulled in her spot while others started to alert.
Every day that Bella had been there, Jake sat in front of that large switchboard with a hundred little screens that flickered constantly to show different views of countless rooms and doorways. He was tasked to push the reminder buttons of what people forgot when they walked through the door vortices.
It was a cushy job, so he said, full of power and domination since the people before him had similar looks of confusion as they wandered around aimlessly back and forth through the doorways trying to remember what they forgot… until he pushed the reminder buttons- AND- if he so chose. Jake really enjoyed the ones where the people were trying to find their phones while still on their phone. He could make them go in circles for an hour. Well, until someone like Eric noticed and put a stop to it.
More buttons on Jake's board turned green and as they were reminded and remembered- all was well. Jake would remain in good spirits as long as that remained. On the days his tasks tested his sanity, the buttons on his board were yellow, orange, red, purple, and blue.
On a bad day, Jake pushed the yellow button and watched the person get more frantic. The red button days were the worst and that day always followed with a warning, but blue and purples warranted a stack of papers not unlike what Eric just dropped off.
Blue days or as they referred to them, 'blue in the face,' days were Jake's his favorite, even if they had repercussions.
There would be many, many buttons pushed- mostly his, but he had revenge.
They were the irrational ones, just teetering on the edge of madness on a bad day made worse by him. Those people only needed one more button pushed- and he would undoubtedly push it because they were the ones he could make lose it.
It was always entertaining to watch the people scream and curse through their respective rooms until their screen faded away.
Eric would eventually come out and they'd all have to get back to work.
Bella always wondered what happened to those people.
Did they ever find their scissors?
Did they find their phone?
Or did the vortex steal their attentions away and they went on with their day without the item they needed?
But it was still early and she could feel Jake's aggression growing so it would probably be one of those blue button days.
Her mind went back to the red card and files.
The files were special cases of people that they had to deal with who were afflicted with something. They had to move through the files dissecting their lives and true to figure out what kind of help was needed or if they needed to figure out viable ways of sending them off to their next… place.
That was fine. She didn't mind the files too much.
But the red card was her first and probably last.
They were the worst punishment that anyone could get.
Most times those people didn't come back from their meetings.
"Well?" Bella glared in annoyance. "Who did you get?"
Jake swiveled in his chair and took a closer look at the top paper of his stack. "A dude named Edward," Jake scoffed, "nickname… get this… Axel, and last name, Cullen. I also got a girl named Tanya Denali. Both seem unrelated so far from what I can see." He looked closer at the man's file before looking up at her. "You?"
Bella knew that scoff.
He was judging Edward and his apparent rock star name with envious contempt. But she knew better, she knew it was deeply imbedded jealousy since Jake thought he was once a rocker himself. Bella could bet he didn't go far with it with his deep seeded hostility to anyone who resembled a rocker- especially since they were currently incarnate and he wasn't. There was also the part that Jake never quite understood the how or why he got the name "Jake" when he could have had something cooler, like Jackson or even Brock.
Sometimes Jake called himself B-Rock but only when he was alone.
It was an accident that Bella even knew of his name preference.
But like Bella and everyone else there, they were given a name upon their arrival to that realm and all of them couldn't really remember anything about their real lives once they reached this level of purgatory.
Not having their real identities was yet another level of aggravation which was the point of their purgatory- to vex. Many preferred to remain aloof, but for some it was yet another level of penance.
"Lauren Mallory," She frowned, holding up the picture. Jake instantly perked up.
"Wanna trade?"
"Does Edward have a motorcycle?"
Jake thumbed through the file, eyebrows drawn together, "Seems to have a couple. He owns a shop in Queens. Her?"
"Not much history on her," Bella lied. Her department was not the friendliest, by far. They had a knack for being a bit petulant, but it came with the course. She needed to pique his interest and the easiest way to do so was to make the client a mystery.
"Level and any upgrades?" He countered.
Bella rolled her eyes. "I'd give her a firm eight with implantations."
Jake's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Yes."
You would think they were talking about breast augmentation gauging on his reaction, but it couldn't be further than the truth.
The levels were a way to decided how the person could die efficiently or whether they'd pull through on their "death event" on a one to ten scale of reference. If they were a level eight, for example, their death would be something more exciting and more complicated, which they would have little chance of making it through. A 'one' death were the ones that Bella preferred (but never got) where those who died peacefully in their sleep at an old age, or quick and painless.
It all depended on their moral scales and soul contract, usually.
Their karmic imprint, so to speak.
Bella didn't really bother much with the whole concept of the scales. It was usually at the back pages of the files and she had a short attention span. Plus it didn't help that the scales were complicated and were refigured constantly. Sometimes, the people's choices of death, especially the horrific ones, tended to clear some of the karma they accrued in that life or the previous ones so she figured ultimately it would all work out in the end somehow.
Bella didn't pay much attention to it, nor did she question it but when she did it always made her question her presence in purgatory in the first place. As soon as she the thought came to mind again, though, she dismissed it. The thought disappeared into the void like most other things.
But for those like her in Bella's division, and countless others- they could also have some level of control on where the other soul went and what they went through. Straight to the sizzle or up to the clouds (drizzle) was an easy level one or ten depending.
Mostly though, those souls would come to "purge," hence… Purgatory.
Purge Inc.
The mystical place where one goes to get rid of and clear whatever was seemingly impure, undesirable, moral or immoral, or ceremonial defilement, karmic debt, and any etcetera's that could pertain to the soul's level of guilt and self-loathing while alive etcetera, etcetera.
Blah, blah, blah…The Great Cleanse.
Some, though, chose to linger and they would either be stuck in some place other of their own personal relevance, especially, if they chose not to leave the Earthly plane.
The Ghosts, so to speak.
But… Implantations were more complicated than a normal attachment.
They were the souls that Bella tried not to get.
They were the ones with a soul report card and had a tally of attachments onto their energy so they wouldn't go either up or down so easily.
It could be something as easy as having a ghostly friend, or perhaps they were dabbling into certain things- or way worse- like a soul who's karmically attached perhaps through violence or one that had found and held onto that person- with or without them knowing it.
Those sensitive people who were also susceptible to other lower vibrational attachments that came from the Sizzle, which was more than no fun.
Sigh.
If not released properly, they could jump from one soul to the next and wreak havoc beyond the veil.
They were the ghosts, poltergeists, and other fragmented energetic things that went bump in the night.
"What kind of implants are we talking here?" Jake's face scrunched up tightly.
Bella sighed with disinterest, eyeing her ice cold coffee with distain "Does it matter?"
"It matters because the last implantation had to be outsourced!" He huffed, eyeing Eric's door.
She remembered.
That had been a day.
They watched how it had all unfolded with a little bit of horror and vast interest.
The last implantation was Bella's last client on file. His name was Benjamin Banner and was an animated, stocky man with a tuft of black hair atop his head who was giving a longwinded tour of Gettysburg to bored seventh graders on a field trip. As he walked his class through the fields when he unknowingly stepped into what the people at Purge, Inc. liked to call a "ghost hole" attachment.
A ghost hole is the vortices where people had previously died and the soul of the dead stayed in that energetic space of earth. The living person thought, of course, they were tripping over their own feet when they were actually tripping over the ghostly pit of the persistent, petulantly peeking trapped soul that was trying to get back in a mostly agreeable body.
It was a spiritual trap door of sorts.
If successful, once the trip had occurred and the body was suddenly disoriented- mid trip- AND had their guard temporarily down- is when the phantom attachment could latch on and affix themselves to that person. The ghost would thus be carried out of their hole and if they were lucky they could walk into the person they were trying to possess.
Easy peasy.
It was often harmless and hilarious, you know, for the ghosts trying to snag themselves a human- but not so much for the human.
Since it was considered a bit of a whirlwind due to the actual trip, it was Bella's job to monitor these vortexes and many others- "just in case."
Usually, the person would trip and move on their way, with no harm done and ghosts still in their respective holes.
But sometimes… sometimes, the person would trip and contort themselves so dramatically within the whirlwind, that they'd accidently (on purpose) hit their head on a rock and die, or so Bella made them.
Sometimes, the person would trip, contort themselves dramatically in their whirlwind, hit their head on a rock, and their soul would be knocked out of their body, floating up happily to the drizzle while the ghost in the hole would take the open body for themselves and thus creating the ever allusive… "walk-in."
That was always the best of circumstances for the ghost, not so much for the human and their families once they came back home.
Their files always appeared in brown dirt-like envelopes and went right to upper management.
Just like Mr. Banner's dirty file.
Mr. Banner was one such unfortunate soul who got lucky with just an implantation attachment.
As the class walked over a war torn battlefield from the Civil War, the closet historian slash biology teacher led the students on an elaborate diatribe with everything he knew about Gettysburg all the while gesturing lively, giving his most ominous, gory accounts when he suddenly tripped.
Over nothing.
Picking himself up off the ground, he didn't notice the heavier feeling taking over.
It was almost instantly that the teacher started acting and talking funny. The kids laughed, vastly entertained and wide awake again, but little did they know that their teacher ended up with a ghostly attachment implantation of Col. Rodrick Davies. He, like the teacher, had a flare for the dramatic. Col. Davies was euphoric to finally find a willing host body and took off where he had left off in life by manning the cannons, He tried diligently to get the cannons working… it was bad.
Luckily, there were humans that helped with such extractions, too.
But it ended on a high note.
The children had an amazing story to share, Col. Roderick Davies soul was released from his ghostly hole and moved onward, and Mr. Banner fell for his nurse in the mental ward who just so happened to enjoy "soul ties" extractions.
Back at the office though, they would somehow find such things and clear it up as best they could. But make no mistake, the human help was another outsource, farmed out by the fates.
But that's another topic entirely, even though it surely tipped their karmic imprint on their scales to help when called.
Bella's screen suddenly lit up and she could see the day was about to be like every other one since arriving at Purge, Inc.
She got ready to push her button.
.
A/N: Thanks for reading. I've re-looked at this and redid some edits before heading to work. I hope all is well for you all.