Afterlife (Purgatory Series Part Three)

Chapter 20: Distract and Annoy

Afterlife Chapter 20
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Concentrate and meditate. Concentrate and meditate. Concentrate and meditate. Con--

Voices echoed around me, varying in volume and language, making it impossible to do either one. I felt my left eye twitch, but forced myself to ignore it and them. This was important.

"Concentrate on what you want, and meditate to clear your mind of everything else," Jelani had eventually explained once he realized I would never stop pestering him about haunting. "You're basically going to will yourself back into the world of the living, which should be easy for you, Houdini: stubborn as you are."

I had rolled my eyes at that, but he was right. It should have been easy for me. But today the ghosts were so loud. And I was so tired.

Almost every cell in my body wanted to give up - all but one. There was one teeny tiny voice in the back of my mind still fighting, still determined to win, so I forced myself to focus on it and nothing else.

I couldn't tell how much time I had spent in this place, but every second felt like too long. Lucifer could have already killed everyone for all I knew.

So every moment I was awake - there were periods of time where I laid in a catatonic state too drained to even think, and I called that 'sleeping' - I was putting all my energy into returning to warn the others.

"You still here, Thea?" Jelani's voice called out from somewhere nearby.

"Unfortunately," I groaned, turning my head in the direction of his voice.

A brief glimpse of his ghost filtered into view for less than a second, but it was enough for me to see him moving toward me.

Occasionally this place wasn't entirely dark, and if you squinted closely enough you could catch the gray, foggy wisps of other spirits traveling around the void. Though most of the time we all just stayed put where ever we ended up, as moving was exhausting and all of the void looked the same.

According to some of the whispered voices, it was possible to go crazy in here and those who did became vengeful spirits or poltergeists. I'd settle for that right about now. Hell, I'd settle for being freaking Casper if it got me back to my friends.

"You'll get it eventually," he said. "It's just going to take time."

"That's what I'm worried about though," I replied. "My friends could be dead! I need to be there now."

"Some friends."

"What?"

"I said, those are some friends you've got. With them around who needs enemies, right?"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jelani. Just shut up."

A low chuckle reached my ears. "Oh, I don't? How many times have you faced death and near death for these people? Don't you think you've done enough?"

"If anyone, you were a direct cause of a lot of my suffering, Jelani, not them. Don't start your mind games with me. I'm not falling for anymore of your lies."

Another laugh. "For once I don't need mind games or lies. You know I'm right. They don't care about you - not as much as you do for them. Why else are you the one who's dead? Do you think they even tried to save you?"

"Shut up!" I shouted, using up most of the energy I had left and cursing myself for letting him get to me.

I refused to say anything else, despite his attempts to bait me into an argument for hours, and instead tried to concentrate all my energy on getting out. But despite all my attempts at focus, Jelani's words had caused doubt to grow in my mind.

Hadn't I questioned my friends' loyalties when they didn't rescue me from Delilah? They obviously didn't try very hard to save me, so why was I fighting so hard to save them?

Because this is bigger than them, my conscience reminded.

There was more at stake then the lives of my friends. If Lucifer was successful in his plans to hurt the nephilim it could cause future harm to humanity. And I also wanted to see Delilah and Adrienne fail so badly they would die from humiliation. Or just die. I wasn't partial as to how.

But the longer I tried, the more I came to realize this might be something that I couldn't do. No matter how hard I tried to focus, I couldn't stop myself from becoming distracted by the dumbest things: like wondering who first came up with the idea for cereal, and repeatedly humming the only lyrics from 'Everybody Wants to be a Cat' that I could remember. Which, as I realized quickly, were only the first few lines of the song and the more it repeated, the more I wanted to bash my brains in.

"Everybody wants to be a cat,
because a cat's the only cat,
who knows where it's at."

"What?"

I rolled my eyes. "Nothing. You're too old to know about the Aristocats. I suppose I could sing something more familiar for you, though. Gregorian chants were pretty popular during your youth, right?"

"And I thought the loneliness and exhaustion were the worst things about this place. As it turns out, I'd rather face both than listen to you prattle on," he complained. "Why is it I'm always stuck in some place with you? And why do you sing ridiculous songs and make stupid jokes when you're frustrated?"

"Aw, is someone sensitive about his age? I'm sure you look very nice for a dead man from the Middle Ages."

I could almost feel his anger. If it were possible for a ghost to glare, he was probably doing it.

"I really despise you," he responded, his deep voice strained as if he were forcing the words out.

"Whatever you say, Jelani," I replied, unfazed. "But if that were true, you would be working harder to help get me out of here."

"I've helped you all I can--"

A crackling, buzzing sound filled the air, followed by a blinding light somewhere to my left. I squinted in an attempt to see its source, and felt all my hopes sink when I realized Lucifer had returned. Had he already won?

"He's telling the truth, Thea," the fallen angel said as he walked toward me. "He's doing all he can. You shouldn't be so hard on him."

Turning to Jelani, Lucifer smiled and said, "Thanks for keeping her busy and distracted. I have everything I need now. You can go."

I hissed in fury and spun in what I assumed was Jelani's direction. "You son of a--"

"Yeah, he's already gone," Lucifer interrupted.

"Let me guess, his job was to keep me here until you got back?" I snapped.

He winked and grinned wider. "Afraid so. I had to make final preparations and I needed you out of my way. Jelani was nice enough to volunteer for the job as long as I agreed he got to leave here."

"So what now? What do you want from me?"

"Oh, nothing too difficult. We're going back to see your friends - specifically one friend in particular. You know - the one with bulging muscles, a quick temper, very much in love with you?"

"Leave Roran out of this," I demanded.

Lucifer pretended to pout and gave a little shrug. "I'm afraid that's not possible. He has something very important that I need to complete all my plans. And you're going to help me get it!"

"No, I won't. I won't."

"Well, the thing is, you will whether you want to or not. So come along, we have work to do."

Despite all my attempts not to follow him, and every protest, my ghost body floated behind him and into the light.

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So this is a day late. Sorry. But I rewrote part of it yesterday. The next chapter will be the last unfortunately. I am not sure if I will continue it after book 3, it's likely, but I may wait and finish other projects first before starting on a 4th book in this series.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave constructive criticism and feedback.