Shrouded

.XI.

(Author's note: you may notice that characters are now able to breathe, and the only thing different from them being truly 'alive' as they were on earth is that their bodies do not require sleep, food, or water. I have changed the previous chapters to include their ability to breathe. This is not a plot hole. I decided that I would like them to be as close to 'living' in purgatory as possible.)

My hands were shaking, my heart pounding. I turned back to whisper to Jacqueline, and nearly screamed when I realized she had been right behind me, leaning over the top of my head to get a view outside. She, too, had seen the woman being dragged away, heard her screams, watched the hope fade from her eyes as we closed the door on her suffering.

I grabbed Jacqueline's wrist and drug her away from the door, all the way to the opposite wall, and heard her let out a shaking breath. She wrapped her arms around me, holding on like she'd be dragged away next.

"What," she asked me, her eyes laser-focused on the door, "the fuck was that?"

I shook my head, trying to calm my nerves.

"Do you think we should leave?"

"Um." I tried to focus, to think rationally. "Yeah. Yes. Let's wait until night, though. In case there are more of them."

Jacqueline nodded, and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. Her blue eyes were unfocused and distant, and I was sure she was trying to control her fear.

We waited, huddled against the far wall, ears pricked for any little sound, until nightfall.

I crept to the door as the sky began to darken, opening it a hair's width to peek out. We hadn't heard anything for hours, other than the shuffling footsteps of the odd Lost wandering past the building, and we had conversed in low whispers about what, as Jacqueline had put it, the fuck had happened.

I was of the opinion that there were just some sick people here. I mean, it is purgatory, the place where you're supposed to atone, but what if someone didn't want to get to heaven? What if they were fine running around this place, causing mayhem for the rest of their afterlives? From what I'd gathered, most of the people here are 'Shrouded', like I was, meaning that their lives were hidden from the big man. A small minority, like Jacqueline, had what I guessed were 'minor' sins, like her list of sloth, vanity, and lust. Minor sins could be atoned for here, and people like me could, if we tried, remember our lives and whether or not we did what we were thought to have done.

I wasn't entirely sure about how it all worked; the finer points of the afterlife's justice system were a bit confusing, but that was my best guess, and I figured the two men that had been dragging that woman off to God knows where were probably Shrouded, and that they just didn't care to find out whether or not they were innocent, and were content with staying in this realm, doing whatever they wanted to do.

Jacqueline thought that maybe they were like the Wardens, those people with the grey robes, who patrolled this place, keeping the denizens in line. Maybe the woman had done something truly horrendous. I was surprised about her theory; I thought I was supposed to be the pessimist here.

Whatever the case, we just knew we really didn't want to see any of those people again. When the beige sky finally faded to the deep brown of evening, we made our escape, dashing from our hideout into the street.

We ran for a while, mostly down little side streets, avoiding the main road, until, finally, we saw a tiny, dark lane off to the right of the path we were on, with a shadowed door at the end. It was inconspicuous, and I wouldn't even have noticed it if I hadn't stopped to catch my breath at the entrance to the alley. I glanced at Jacqueline, and we nodded at each other, agreeing to check it out.

I went first down the small walkway; even if we wanted to go together, the path was too small to walk side by side. I felt Jacqueline's back pressed near to mine, she was walking backwards so that we would know if anyone came behind us. The earlier scene had us both shaken and paranoid, and we were probably being overly careful. We made it to the end of the alley with no trouble, and I laid my hand gently on the doorknob, turning it slowly to see if it was locked. It wasn't, so I pushed it gently open, peeking around the door and into the building.

The room was small, with a window in the ceiling, a skylight, that let in just enough brown-tinged illumination to see by. The interior was, as expected, bare. One more closed door, directly in front of me, but on the opposite wall, seemed to beckon almost ominously.

I motioned Jacqueline into the room, and we shut the first door behind us. I hurried to the second one and flung it open, too nervous to advance with any caution. I held my breath as I swung the door wide, and exhaled in a rush when I was met with another empty room that was even smaller than the first, about the size of a closet.

I nodded to Jacqueline, and we relaxed, our shoulders slumping. We huddled against each other in a corner of the room, and resolved to keep watching the door. No rest, tonight.

-

I wasn't sure how long it had been. I'd drifted off into that misty, indifferent, half-sleep state, and so had Jacqueline, but we both heard the gentle scrape of the turning knob, and we both went completely silent, not even daring to breathe, as the door creaked open.