Purgatorium (40 page)

I make my way down another six rows and get to Level 4. My watch goes off.

10 Minutes

I feel a coldness running up the stairwell. I need to hurry. I keep running down, making my way closer to the bottom, when I notice the banister turning slowly into ice. While keeping my pace, I put my hand on the railing. It instantly turns into ice. An ice sticker shoots out of the railing and into my hand.

I yank my hand away and examine the hard icicle stuck through my palm. I yank it out and watch the whole railing being wrapped around the ice stickers. It sprouts out like some kind of ice-covered thorn bush.

My heart is now pounding to the beat of my feet racing over the hard marbled ground. My sweat begins to freeze over my forehead, causing my hair to cling to it as my throat aches for air. The frozen rush of cold wind passes my face as each step slowly starts turning into ice.

My muscles stretch, pushing harder, I can see below me that running will soon not be an option. The ice stickers suddenly sprout out from underneath me. I continue to run, stumbling over the stickers that litter my path. I sprint past the Level 3 sign and bolt my legs down the next loop. The ice stickers are poking out faster behind me. I continue running until I feel myself start to slip. I slow my pace as a sticker suddenly pokes through my left foot.

My leg begins to stumble as my body feels like it is about to cave in towards the marble floor. I put more force on my right leg, making it to where I won’t fall on my face. I regain control and spring back up, dodging left and right all of the ice stickers that keep sprouting out around me. The walls begin to get iced over too as icicles push their way out.

I swerve just barely missing them, and try remembering what Raphael taught me. I raise my bloody hand and look through the hole in my palm. I think of the coffee shop and first seeing Madi. My palm starts regenerating and in a matter of seconds, it’s back to normal. I do the same thing to my foot, healing it to what it once was.

I quickly make my way down to Level 2. Just when I am thinking I’m almost there, I see the rest of the stairwell is completely frozen. The steps have turned into an ice-covered slip-n-slide going all the way down to the ground floor. My legs slip out from under me and my back hits the icy surface. My body starts sliding down at a fast rate, hitting every wall I come across along with every ice sticker that launches out in front of me.

I feel like I am back on the reapers frozen grid. The ice stickers bring an unimaginable pain to my body, each one sticking either to my back or shoulders. If I can take control of my body doing this, then running on the back of a reaper’s grid would be a piece of cake.

The cleats retract out of both my shoes. I dig into the ice, giving me a chance to slow down and regain control.They must have detected the icy terrain that I am in. I’m really starting to love these shoes.

I hear the screeching sound of the reapers echoing through the top of the stairwell. I look up and see snow falling slowly down around me. The iced-covered stairwell and the droplets of snow make it almost seem beautiful in my eyes. I quickly regain focus and dig my cleats into the icy slope. In one quick motion, I push my body up with my arms and tuck my feet up under me. Then I bring up one foot at a time until I am in a standing position.

Once I have taken off, I keep my knees bent, my arms loose and extended, my feet planted on the icy surface, and my torso leaned forward to lower my center of gravity.
I grab the rail to steer me as I slide my way passed Level 1. I am almost there to the lobby, just six staircases more to go.

I soon feel exhilarated as I slide my way through every slippery turn and frozen staircase. Big ice stickers push out of the walls blocking my path in front of me. I gain momentum and swiftly dodge, leap, dip, hurdle, and dive each icicle that gets into my path. I keep my posture under control as I see the last set of staircases below. As I turn the corner, I notice the lobby door has been frozen over.

All of a sudden, an ice sticker punches out of the wall next to me. It stabs deep into my ribcage and gets stuck. The velocity of which I was sliding was enough to break off the core piece of the ice sticker that’s still imbedded in me. I shake off the pain as the whole left side of my chest is blood red.

I let go of the railing and brace myself for impact. My body collides with the door, shattering it instantly. I go flying across the room with my feet still in motion, not missing a step. A smile comes across my face, wishing I could do it again. I look down at the left side of my chest and see that my small amount of happiness was just enough to heal my wounds. My watch beeps, bringing my focus back to the reality of the situation.

15 Minutes

I run out the front door of the apartment building and look across the street.

My car is gone again!

I want to yell Uriel’s name at the top of my lungs. Panicking a little, I start looking up and down the street for my vehicle. The solar eclipse catches my eye, almost as if it were reminding me of how much of it was like a metaphor to my whole life.

Anything that brings about a positive light gets instantly covered in darkness.

As I turn my head to the left, I notice a black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am driving up to me. I remember that Peter Cameron was driving the same car. But I see that now, in the driver’s seat, is Uriel. He drifts around me as I hear the Knight Rider theme song playing on the mix tape to the stereo system.

“Get in!” he shouts, still drifting in circles around me.

Something tells me that he isn’t gonna stop.

“Jump!”

I see the window on the passenger side is open. Out of nowhere, I begin calculating in my head the velocity at which the car is going to the speed I would have to hit to make the jump in to it. There are other variables involved that include the tire rotation, ground surface, and wind ratio.

I pinpoint the exact moment in which to go. The car drifts to my eye level. I run and take the leap, like Superman posing it in midair, making my body shoot right through the window at the exact given interval of my calculations.

Once inside, Uriel looks over to me, almost shocked.

All I can think is, I know math.

I quickly turn off the music and look up to Uriel, pridefully. He turns the wheel and drifts out of the circle, back onto the street.

I notice the familiar looking coin necklace around Uriel’s neck that wasn’t there before, just like with the others. I wonder what this necklace means again and what kind of control it has over them.

I test a theory.

“So…that token of yours? You didn’t say anything about trying to find it.”

I sarcastically shrug.

I’ve been more concerned with oddly healing back my cut off body parts as of late.

“I bet you haven’t even tried to look for it, have you?”

Did you not hear what I just thought? That was ME explaining to YOU that I have been pretty busy as of late! You understand me now?!

Uriel pauses for a few more seconds.“You don’t have any idea what it could be? Where it could be?” Uriel asks, sighing.

So am I to understand that you can’t read what I am thinking right now?

I watch him just sit there in silence. This is just like how Raphael was for a few seconds yesterday. Is there some bad angel signal that blocks them from reading my thoughts at times?

“I know what you’re thinking but remembering how to do complex math equations is not going to be enough. You need to start thinking about your token before it gets much closer to the race. Without it, then all of this would have been pointless.”

That was not what I was thinking but okay.

“We still have a lot that we need to teach you before the race, so get your head in the game.”

I sit there for a moment thinking what the token even does again. It has something to do with opening the door to the outside, I remember. Like a key of some sort. I then wonder if it is an actual key or some kind of lock picking mechanism. My head starts to hurt, but I realize it’s more of a brain-freeze feeling.

I look out my window and see it being slowly iced over. I stare at Uriel wondering what he is waiting for. I see him, eyes closed, kissing his coin pendent around his necklace, like he is saying a prayer.

Uriel turns on the stereo and fast forwards till he gets to the song ‘Ram Jam’s Black Betty.’ He quickly U-turns the car, heads down the street, and turns right, tires squealing. He starts accelerating down the long straight road in front of us when the light ahead turns yellow, then red.

I look at Uriel, who speeds up. I grip the dashboard. Uriel flies through the red light, gaining more speed. Up ahead, I see an onramp for the interstate. Uriel takes the hard right onto it and floors it onto the highway. He continues to drive faster and faster.

I see a dark patch on the road, right where the highway bends left. Uriel presses the gas pedal all the way down and the car accelerates wildly. We hit the ice and immediately, the car starts sliding sideways towards the left guardrail. Sparks fly off the side of the car.

Uriel curses as he struggles to keep the car on the road.

Angels curse?

“Reapers!” he shouts. I look around but don’t see any. Regardless, the road is slowly freezing over; the car struggles to grip the pavement.

It starts sliding back across the highway towards the right shoulder. We are nearing the exit for the coffee shop.
But it’s too late to go in,
I think nervously. As the car slides onto the shoulder, the tires grip again. Uriel regains control of the car, but instead of breaking, he presses down on the gas again and steers the car over the edge of the off-ramp onto the grassy slope beside it.

I see we are driving right through the lawn beside the coffee shop parking lot. We need to make it to my office building, I think, looking at Uriel. Why can’t he hear what I am thinking?

I look at my watch:19:50.

The car flies past the parking lot, onto the cross street, over the median, across the other side of the street, over the sidewalk, and into the park.
They can’t get us now, we are in the right time zone,
I think. We only have a couple of seconds to get to...

I suddenly look straight ahead at the reapers blocking our way from my office building. I yell in my head,
Look out!

Uriel slams his foot down on the brakes. The car comes to a quick stop. “Get to the tree!” he shouts.

I throw the door open and stumble out. Looking to my right, I see the statue, the bench, Ferris wheel, and then, immediately next to me, the tree. My watch beeps.

20 Minutes

“I will lead the reapers away. Go in, now!” Uriel screams.

I run towards the door inside the tree, and look back to see Uriel driving away behind me. The whole park begins to snow as the reapers are getting closer. I suddenly hear loud music coming from behind the door. As I reach for the doorknob, it opens on its own. I walk in as the grass around the tree starts to frost over.

I see a well-dressed crowd in an upscale-looking club—men wearing tuxedos and women in designer dresses. Fake snow is falling from the balcony. The entire scene seems eerily familiar, in particular, a set of curtains over on the left wall of the club. I walk over, push them apart a little, and see through a set of doors to a glass-cased dresser displaying card face masks—an Ace, a King, and a Queen. I am back in the casino again, I think.

I turn around and see a beautiful woman walking through the crowd toward me. It’s Lisa, I remember. I look at her red dress and recall where I saw it before. It’s the same dress that Uriel had in his hand. Strange, I think. She hands me a drink. I am no longer in control of my body as I take the glass.

“So… how about that dance?” she asks, smiling seductively and holding her hand out for me. I down my drink and set the glass to the side.

I take her hand and we walk back through the crowd to a mostly open, white tile dance floor. People are doing the waltz around us. I think to myself, how great can this possibly get? The one dance my mom taught me how to do.

I extend my hand, confidently; she takes it and we begin to dance.

“You dance very well. Who taught you how?” Lisa asks me.

Lisa’s hands begin to change while I hold them. They become the hands of my
mother. As we
continue to move gently across the floor, I feel the room spinning. My drink has taken its toll, wrapping my mind with delusions. I see now that I am dancing with my mom. I feel young again as I watch myself getting shorter and her taller. We begin to laugh and continue to dance around the whole place.