Chapter XXII: Ante Purgatorio

A Chapter by Oran

"What the hell is happening..."

I don't know, Solis. I can't see anything either, except you levitating in thin air, naked. Where the hell did you take us, writer? And why is everything white?

"Where am I?", he thinks to himself.

Solis looks around, but it seems his vision is clouded by a bright light. In fact, all he can see is white. He keeps turning in all directions to see if he can find anything until he took a glance at himself. Aside from his freshly cut abdomen, he also notices a yellow string connected to him like an umbilical cord. It's probably about a foot long, plus it's connected to Tenenbaum's abdomen too.

He pokes her forehead with his index finger, making her paws twitch adorably and her nose snuffle. He does it again repeatedly until she wakes up.

"What?", she reacts the same way as she always does when someone bothers her cat nap.

"Any idea where we are?", he presents to her the never ending abyss of light.

Tenenbaum sniffs around. "Smells like you. Maybe it's your subconscious!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, look...", she points behind him. It's a marshmallow. A giant marshmallow.

"Why is there a marshmallow in my subconscious?"

Tenenbaum shrugs.

He approaches the sweet pillow, as he used to call it when he was a kid, and grabs it with both hands. Solis felt the lumps puff up in his palms as he fondles it with his fingers.

"What kind of dream is this?"

He squeezes the soft treat tightly, but then he felt something pinch his face; he just didn't know what it was.

"Ouch!" He caresses his cheek. "I think the marshmallow bit me..."

Oh, and by the way, the writer told me to tell you to keep note of the words "grab", "lumps", "fondle", "fingers", and "squeezes the soft treat tightly". I don't know why, but I think he's up to something again.

While this was going on, something else was floating toward them.

"Hey, look, a cookie!"

The pair see a lot more cookies coming from a gaping hole that looks like a... actually... let's just say it's a hole. It looks like it leads to somewhere so they float themselves toward it only to plummet on the ground below.

"Ow... not again", he tries to stand.

"Now where are we?", Tenenbaum questions.

Solis looks around, this time the place was familiar: Redwood Forest. He takes a second to notice that there aren't any bugs around. Also, he felt somehow chilly on his crotch.

"Solis, look!"

"What, what's wrong?"

He examines himself. His hands were smaller; his clothes were nothing but a large white shirt and his underwear; and his height felt a few feet shorter than he already is. Fascinatingly, though, his voice was the same.

Yup. No doubt about it. He's turned six again. I guess his voice never changed.

"How did we-"

"Solis!", calls out a playful young lady's voice, causing him to turn toward her.

Those warm red eyes, those twin-tails tied up in her dark-blue hair, and that face that still shone with youth, hit him hard in his memories, really f*cking hard.

What was her name again?

"Megumi... Raya...."

"Come on, Solis!", she grabs him by the hand.

"Wait... Raya....", he gets dragged along by her running, whereas Tenenbaum is dragged along by the umbilical cord thing that connects them.

"I told you! You can't call me by my real name!", she says in a Loli-ish voice.

"What do I call you then?"

"I keep telling you! It's 'Me-'"

Before she could finish explaining to him what he should call her, he trips on a branch and lands on his face. He looks up and realizes "Megumi Raya" is gone. Looks like he's in another area again.

"Wood?", he feels the floor. He also feels like he's put on his sleeping clothes and that he's back to sixteen.

"It's Osiris!", Tenenbaum gasps.

"Where?"

He looks to his left and finds Luno walking out of a cabin door, his cabin door. Before Solis could say anything, he's already closed the door. Quickly, he stands up and hurries to the door with Tenenbaum following behind, only to be led to another area again....

The pair stood in awe as they beheld the scene of a great tragedy. Hell rains down from above and consumes from below. Cities reduced to ashes; lives melted away by the burning grip of chaos. The entire place was beyond calamity. All of the sobs and sighs of the people were muted, choked in flames until no breath was left to be spared.

None survived. None escaped. Except one. You know who....

"Is this... Novaliches?"

Yes it is. The capital city of Anion, a country reserved for Elementals. Back then, Elementals were settled at the southern part of the Known Regions, right next to the Lower Kingdom. They used to have no powers at all because the entirety of their population shared each of their Primal Element. Now that they're dead, a Primal Element is given to one of each survivors. Solis is bestowed with Light; for Mea, Darkness; Credo is given Frost; Anna has Fire; and Naiya possesses the Void.

There's probably more. We'd be lucky if the writer told us sooner, but instead he keeps giving us unnecessary suspensions.

"Damn...."

Solis' remark was followed up by an explosion wherein they were caught within the blast radius. But it didn't hurt. He didn't even feel anything, as a matter of fact.

"Oh. We're back", Tenenbaum tells him.

They find themselves back at the white dimension with Solis back to being naked.

"Why are we back here?"

"Because I sent you here", said a guy standing on a piece of levitating rock. He looks really creepy, though, because his eyelids are sewn shut. Come to think of it, he resembles someone.... Oh, wait, [1]it's Osiris!

"It's him! It's really him!", Tenenbaum's eyes sparkle. "... But what's up with the eyes?"

"It's for my life sentence", he smiles.

"Didn't expect to find you here", Solis smiles warmly, relieved that he's able to see him again, even if he looks like something that came out of a horror movie.

"How've you been, kid?"

"Exasperated. What about you, old man?"

"Swell!", he enlightens, "The Man Upstairs put me in [2]Purgatorio, so now I have two more life sentences to serve."

"Purgatorio?", he gets shocked, "Wait... you mean... you're dead?"

"Technically, I'm dead in that world, but I am working for life in this one."

"Even though you said... you were just... going out to buy lunch?"

"Yeah... sorry 'bout that."

"Wh... Who killed you then?", he voice squeaks through the question while a teardrop slides down his eye.

"You just met him...."

"That guy... He looked exactly like you. He even walks, talks, and fights like you."

"That's because he's possessed my body."

"What about me? Am I dead?", Solis feels the wound on his lower chest with his hand.

"Not yet. Do you really think He'd let you die that easy?"

"I guess not...."

He draws closer and puts each hand on Solis' shoulders. "Listen, kid. Your condition it's... something only you can sustain. The rest of us died knowing that you and the others could live. I knew your father, your real father. And I know that you have a twin sister. All of you possess a Primal Element that used to be shared among our people. Now, there's only one for each of you. That means you have within you the power of every Solar Elemental that's ever lived."

"Father? Twin sister?", he palms his face. "This is all too much for me to take in."

"Get used to it."

"You never change, do you, old man?"

"Oh, that's right! Before I forget, I'm a Lightning Elemental too."

"Well, that explains why you almost edged the speed of light", Tenenbaum snickers.

"You? An Elemental? You could've told me that sooner!"

"You never asked...."

"Okay.... So now what? Do I get to revive like [3]Leoric?"

"Not quite yet. There's still one more thing I haven't taught you."

How about we skip this part, dear reader? Let's just jump to the next chapter. The writer said that this part's a little boring. I'll say again, it's not like we have a choice. Besides, don't you wanna see Solis wake-up yet?

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1. Yu-Gi-Oh reference
2. One of the three sections of the afterlife where those who have sinned are purged.

3. A hero from DotA whose ultimate is some sort of reincarnation.

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