Purge, Inc.
Into the Vortex
By: Everleigh Allen
Chapter 4
Bella had left her office with a heaviness that she didn't often have after doing her job.
Usually, she whipped up a tornado as per request from the powers that be and didn't really worry about what may come of them or the damage done, or even if they had a family. That was usually out of her hands, heart, and mind and she didn't usually worry about it.
Until now.
Jake's words didn't sit well with her.
Why wasn't she in the department with the others that did other weather-like things? Were there others that had weather like vortices?
She never noticed before now that her station was different and that no one really took it over from her when she was through working. She never saw anyone doing the hurricanes, but there would always be some soggy souls coming in after one ran its course. They, of course, didn't know why they were wet or disoriented and were quickly ushered to other areas for reprogramming and clean up.
It was that day though, that Bella noticed she was not like the others and wondered what brought her there, to the lower levels. How did she make her way there and not somewhere else? And why didn't she have an easier blip of a job like the mirrors, dryers, doorways, stairs, elevators, and etc. to help people and not harm them.
Was she a bad person?
Worse than the others around her?
Did she do something horrible to wind up here in such a void?
She wondered if she had people who were still alive and where she could find them. She wondered if they remembered her fondly or that she was horrible and people are thankful for the end of her tyranny.
Scoffing, Bella knew she couldn't have been an evil tyrant if she tried- though Jake's words made her wonder otherwise.
But it's was all that she could do is wonder. It was apparent that there wasn't anything good in finding out about her actually life and if or when she did perhaps it wouldn't end well for either side.
At least for now.
Bella passed through the halls like she was invisible but paused when she reached the halls of mirrors.
She looked down, trying to divert her eyes from all the other mirrors that lead to countless other souls in their various preoccupations and stopped at one she felt was the right one.
Anxious excitement moved through her. She never did this. She never ever did this…. She never looked into their lives to get to know them better. She just did her job and that was that… until now.
.
What made Edward different?
Why now?
Bella whispered, 'Edward Cullen' and watched the mirrors as it sorted through all the various looking glass items around the man. It finally stopped at one where he was in a bedroom, probably his room.
There were grey walls with neat, dark linens that covered a king size bed. She looked through the mirror and didn't see anything in it at first. She could see a small dog and a larger one laying on the edge of the bed fast asleep. Bella could see the soft blue hues of his laptop glowing in the background. Releasing a soft sigh, she looked at the large print of a wooded area that framed his bed. Her eyes then jet to the slight movement to the right when the sound of a drawer was being opened and shut.
Rock music played softly in the background, just a hum of a scratchy voiced ballad that was a cover from another old song. She took the words in as they spoke of time and silence and she could relate to the cryptic lyrics.
If she could cry, she would have but there would be no tears that would fall.
The soft glow from a light was turned on and the man suddenly stood in front of the mirror, as if he was suddenly standing before her watching her as she watched him.
Bella lifted her arm, as if to reach out to him, but let it fall back to her side, knowing he couldn't really see her.
He pulled the shirt he was wearing off and she could she his muscles flexing with each bit of movement. She couldn't help the sigh escaping her when she saw all the tattoos covering his whole body that twisted around the many scars that lined him, too.
"Oh," she gasped, not stopping herself to touch the mirror that separated them.
All the sudden he reacted to her gasp and turned and looked around the room seeking the source, but he saw nothing.
She cupped her mouth with her other hand as he turned and went to the bed and turned off the light, surrounding both of them instantly in darkness.
Bella took a step away from the mirror, using her shirt to wipe her hand print off the mirror, but she knew it was too late. Part of her would be imprinted onto the mirror for anyone to see.
She turned from the mirror and walked out of the hall with her head down, escaping to where she always fled to when she didn't have to be in the office.
A library.
She couldn't just pull out and any read books that were in the earthly plane, but she could still seek their comfort and their smell. Sometimes, if she was lucky, someone would spend their time there reading and she could tap into their clear, open mind and listen happily.
Only once there and in the light did she see that her hand had a bit of a glossy smudge on it, like a layer of the glass mirror had fused to her palm.
"Oh, shit."
It didn't wipe off.
The next morning Bella found herself sipping at the scalding hot coffee in her cubical when Hera moved through the room with a smirk that could only mean one thing.
"Good 'morrow to you, poppy!" Hera cackled in an overly enunciated accent that made her sound like a lunatic while long wispy shadows followed her every move.
"For the millionth time, you're not a Brit." Her annoyance that was quickly replaced with disgust. "What did you do?" She tried to hold the glare but the shock of Hera's appearance was too much to hide the disdain she was feeling. She instantly tucked her hand under her desk.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm spearheading my department into a new direction… obviously." Hera smirked, accent forgotten. Her purple smock still covered her shoulders but loosely and it barely draped over her arms. She wasn't fooling anyone. You could still see the muck dripping off her elongated, distorted hands.
"Right." Bella hummed, eyes narrowed and lips tight so not to speak more than she should with listening ears all over. She took a quick second to look around at the others in the room but everyone was pretty preoccupied by their station's tasks to notice their exchange, or even care enough to engage.
"What makes you think I did a baddy?" Her once rosebud lips transformed into a wretchedly half-moon grin that took over her sinister face.
"You're falling apart right before my eyes!" Bella hissed, eyes darting around the office.
"I'm fine. Everything is fine. I can still do my job- like it's hard!" She scoffed casting projectile chunks.
Hera usually sat in the last vortex cubical which monitored sleep or the lack thereof. Her job was to push the button that helped people fall asleep soundly and quickly. Normally, it was a pretty mundane job with the perks of being able to tap into people's dreams and experience it with them. It was a dream job, literally and figuratively. It was usually overseen by the Sandman, himself, whom everyone just called, Abalos which was apparently a sand dune on Mars. It was said that he was actually a bewitched bean bag chair that a witch once created and enchanted in the 1500's when she was too tired of looking and in need of a companion.
It was an awkward moment when it arrived in their plane, or so she heard.
Humans do odd things when lonely or in general.
It was also said there were magical beanstalk beans in him that gave him life but that was absurd, of course. Many long-timers still spread the rumors and many newbies stab poor Abalos in hopes for a magical beanstalk bean that would take them out of this Hell-hole.
If he did have them, Abalos was very careful where he hid his special beans.
"You know that you're not supposed to interfere." Bella whispered to her with thinly veiled contempt.
"What is the existence of time when there is no real existence in time?" Hera bit back with a hiss, stroking her long, matted hair and leaving gooey chunks in it in the process.
Bella rolled her eyes. She couldn't be alone in how she felt but more and more it seemed she was the odd one out.
Everyone seemed to have some level of apathy, yet she still seemed to manage a tinge of guilt before each button she pushed or hole or door she opened.
Usually.
There was that one time, not too long ago, that a couple of files landed on her desk and she perused the info for a bit before the couple came into her screen of view. There was a guy lurking through the woods stalking a woman behind the trees and he just so happened to be super close to an old mind shaft… or so she made one.
One actual ghost hole swallowed up that horrible man nice and forever like. He must have taken the express shot to Hell, since she ever saw him in her neck of the woods.
"Poof."
"What was that, Poppy?" Hera asked tensely.. Her drippy hands were making their way closer to the floor and Bella cringed before she bound up from her seat to throw down to throw pieces of paper where the muck was dripping in hopes of catching it before it stained.
"Are your hands going to stay like that?" Bella said instead of answering, laying more paper down and trying to dodge the glutinous mess. The crude way the body seemed to be continually morphing before Bella's eyes was unsettling. It made her concerned about her own hand.
"Possibly. I think I fragmented."
"Ah." Bella nodded. "That makes so much more sense."
It did make so much sense.
It also explained the wildness in Hera's eyes that wasn't there before. She seemed to have been feeding on some fear nachos somewhere. Bella made a mental note to see the last place Hera was and if it was possible to transmute a bit of the influence Hera had over the person she may have affected with some elementals.
It wasn't her job and she may get in a ton of trouble for it, but…
"How are you going to do your work with drippy fingers?"
"I don't know," Hera scoffed flippantly. "I doubt I'll stay here much longer anyway, but I'm sure I'll manage."
"You're probably right. You can clearly spearhead your department effectively with fragmenting body parts although, they may look down on it since you work in dreams."
"How hard is it to push a button? I still can do my job!" She lifted one drippy finger as if it proved her point, but all it did was continue to melt over the floor.
"How so?"
"Do you remember being a kid, Poppy?" Hera asked instead, staring at her fingers with apt attention.
"It's Bella and vaguely."
"I don't remember it all."
"Okay?" Bella pulled away from Hera. She watched in amazement as Hera's mouth started turning black at the edges.
"I mean I don't remember it all.. I'm forgetting. I do remember being a screaming child once."
"Just the once?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Go with that. Do you remember why you screamed?"
Hera smiled and nodded, flinging goo over the side of her face. Bella tried to remain stoic but wondered if her gushing goo was contagious.
"We lived close to a cemetery. I used to imagine that gnomes would crawl through the ground and into the graves and steal all the jewels and such."
Bella debated on whether or not she should tell Hera that that was actually, sometimes, a thing. Most of the time it wasn't a bad thing for them to do, although the Gnomes were like the trolls and completely untrustworthy and things often ended badly, lending to their bad reputation. You had to have something to trade with them and they didn't care what.
Got an extra finger?
Collateral.
Fairies usually helped with that aspect.
Dead great grandma's ring was needed to propose?
They got you.
Wish away and they shall do what they may…
It was per the request of the fae on the second floor who had the unbelievably hard task of helping with lost items and wishes. They usually got the birthday wishes, too, but there were times when a loved one was buried with an item and the living wanted it back.
That would fall into the fairies lap, usually, and they would outsource the help depending on how big the task was- except when it came to tombs like in the pyramids. That was a whole other vortex and section she could only dream about.
"Then what?" Bella sighed, already bored. She looked at the clock which said she had a couple of hours or so before her ominous 2 o'clock, you know… if time existed.
"So, I remember sitting in this old farmhouse looking out the window that is next to my bed when I fall asleep. Usually, I slept by the wall, maybe… if I am remembering right. Anyway, there's this creature that slithered across the wall through my room, curled itself around me-"
"So, you had a nightmare."
"I thought it was!" greenish yellow goo dripped from Hera's mouth causing Bella to recoil. Hera, noticing Bella's reaction, wiped at her mouth. "I have kept this dream with me forever throughout my whole existence when I finally had an epiphany."
"What is this etheric light bulb over your head?" Bella waved her hands dismissively.
Hera followed the motion, looking up at the ceiling light with confusion before shaking her head, spattering the chunks that were in her hair like a wet dog.
"The dream epiphany?"
"So you know how we carry stuff that sucks forever and ever… dreams, people, experiences, all kinds of amazingly horrifying things that has been done to us as people- like it becomes a huge tangible part of us, right? It's like this thorn that we never seem to take out of our foot."
"This is a long epiphany. Is there a point to it?"
"Of course! You have to give the yuck away to someone else to carry instead of you."
She flung some of the muck that was her hand around and the goo flew around the cubical causing the others around to glare at her.
Bella shook her head in disgust at both her words and her slime. "That's not how this all works."
Hera balked. "No, but it is! I don't have the dream anymore. I gave it to someone else!"
The audible gasp from Bella made Hera grin widely, thrilled that she finally understood. "You can't do that."
"I did."
"Which is why your hands are melting all over the floor!"
"Minor side effect."
"Your lips are turning black!"
"Goth is in."
"Hera," Bella frowned. "You're fragmenting more and more as we speak!"
"It happens." She twisted around as her pouting mouth darkened with a tinge of indigo blue.
"It happens when you fragment." Bella hissed quietly. "Too much more fragmentation and you will have to leave here and you will get stuck somewhere… else."
"I need to get out more, anyway. Maybe I'll be roomies with the boy?" She cackled with her head back in a full-length horror movie scene.
It was disturbing.
Bella shut her eyes, trying to count to ten. When she opened them again Hera was picking at something gooey on the floor that was probably recently decomposing off of her. "You can't haunt people. It never ends well for anyone."
Hera bent forward right in Bella's face and screamed. "Someone did it to me!"
Not moving at all and trying not to react, Bella carefully backed up in her chair. "And where are those people now, Hera?" Bella bit back before she caught herself. "I'll tell you where… not here. Not up there, either!" She flicked her finger upward for dramatic effect.
It did exactly what Bella meant to do and Hera regrouped enough to look a bit chastised. "Look, this is just me having a little fun in a very un-fun place. Just wait till you've been here forever."
"You need to fix this mess before you start growing eyeballs at the end of what used to be your fingers."
But then all semblances of awareness and empathy were instantly gone.
"That is an amazing idea! Eyeballs! Oh, why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you're disintegrating as we speak… all over my floor. Look, you're not coherent enough to see the big picture."
"But I can see the big picture! Can you imagine how much more of the picture you could see with eyeballs on each finger? I could see inside anything, just by poking a little finger in the door! Profound, Poppy! Thank you. I'm going to go give it a go!" Hera skirted away. Luckily, her comment only caused a few curious looks and a chuckle, which was most likely from Robert who had been known to dabble.
He was seemingly fine on the outside, of course but there was something a bit wonky still on the inside.
Some things were just best to be sorted out in other ways- not here.
.
A/N: I lied… here's another. Lol… Oh, and Ghost holes and Eyeballs on the fingers both came from my son. He told me about the ghost holes when I tripped at the Alamo.. The ghost with eyeballs on each finger was a dream he had. Now I really, really, have to go to work.