Christine

The Purple Man

The Purple Man

The hive was large and as I stared the doors of the hive began to open, they creaked and they groaned, scratching against the hinges. A man in all purple came out of the building, his dark black hair slicked back with gel, his piercing black eyes stared into my soul. “You must be Christine, John’s daughter, welcome to the Other.” His voice was gravely, as if it hadn’t been used in years. 

The Other? And what exactly is the Other?

He came close to me, a tall and thin man with a beak-like nose and hawk-like eyes. 

“The other is a world between the living in the dead, humans, for centuries, have called it Purgatory.” He walked passed me, I followed behind eagerly, adventure had been my dream since childhood!

“If the Other is the world between living and dead than how am I here? The last I check I’m sure I was part of the living.” I stated with just a hint of sass. 

“The Other also has magic beings or any creature with a high spiritual pressure. John was actually born to beings of the Other and passed his Sight to you when he died. John was meant to help us; there is a group of extremely powerful magic wielders who seek to destroy the Other and merge it with the land of the living, as you can guess, that would be extremely bad.” He stopped at a large building and opened a door, his black eyes turned to me as he gestured for me to go inside. 

“John had a very active mind, he came up with many solutions to ix the problems here, and he actually found the group trying to destroy this world. We call them the Exes, no particular reason other than something to say when we address them. Now, your father gave you the ability to pass in this world freely in order to finish what he could not, do you agree to help?” There was a very large table set neatly before us, I took a seat at an empty chair and pushed myself in. I agreed to help on the condition that he explain everything to me.

 He reiterated that the Exes were a group of extremely talented magic wielders and that they were looking for a device that had the ability to rip the curtain between the world of the living in the world of the Other. He told me that I would be part of a group whose sole purpose was to find the device first and to destroy it even at the cost of our own lives. He told me that if I were to agree he would introduce me to my teammates and that we would immediately be suited up to seek out and to find the Exes. The finding parts would not be very hard considering they had a general idea of their location, The Exes were thought to be hidden underneath the tallest mountain in the Other. This mountain is at the very edge of this world.

 If we could we were to capture all of the exes alive, however, if keeping them alive interfered with destroying the device we were to kill all of them. And if by some chance I were to die in the other I would not be permitted back into the world of the living.

I was terrified and exhilarated so I agreed wholeheartedly to take my father's place on the Council of the Other and to finish what he started. The man, who eventually told me his name was Fior, informed me that they were not certain of what the device looked like, however, my father was certain that it was extremely powerful and most likely very small. 

The reason for assuming that the device had to be small was because it has never been found after it was hidden, leading to the belief that the device would look like an ordinary object, however, its magic residue would be more powerful than anything in any realm.

 The device was put to use many, many lifetimes ago when the three realms were first created. The master of the realms had the device made to separate the people who lived, the people who died, and those who are special or could not pass on and find peace. After the creator of the realms had finished making them, he disappeared hiding the device where no one could find so that no one would abuse its power.

 One of the Exes is a direct descendent of the first master of the Other, and he found it is his duty to become the new master of realms. As the new master he wants to mix every universe together like one big pot luck. As so he formed the Exes in an attempt to break the living and the Other, eventually he plans to add it to the land of the dead as well, but the entrance to that world still has not been found.

Fior looked at me deeply, "This is of course extremely detrimental, without the proper balance then no one would live and populations would rise at a speed we could not control, you'd have the dead walking with the living and the living would never die!"

I looked at him, in both amazement and worry, “But what could I possibly do?" I asked in a voice that seems small compared to his. I couldn't see myself doing anything useful; I was probably a lot slower than who was picked for this mission, I also had no magic ability aside from the residual essence my father gave to me. I failed to see what purposed I’d have in a mission where everyone else was stronger, faster, smarter, and more powerful than I could ever dream to be. 

"You are the smallest person in this realm now, and because you have such low spirit energy, you'll go practically undetected unless someone actually searched you out specifically. Everyone in this realm is larger than a human and we can seek each other out through spirits. With you, you would be our secret weapon, quick on your feet, virtually undetectable and you can be our eyes. We need Intel bad right now and all the spies we've sent have been detected and killed, we need you invisibility to aid in gathering new information so we can save the Other."

 It seemed like I was being set up to fail, like I was part of a game that these creatures couldn't wait to enjoy. Despite all my doubt I knew that my father passed this gift to me for some reason and I couldn't just let it go to waste.

I sucked up my fears and cast aside my doubts, my heart beat fast as if on overdrive, I opened my mouth to utter the words that would start my life. "I'm in"