We Must Get Out of Purgatory

Chapter 5: Don't do Drugs

"Why did the portal close?" Elijah yelled. "How are they going to bring everyone out of purgatory!" Sean said. "We have the box?" Kayla said.
"What are we gonna do with that?"
"Yeah, are we gonna open it and get stuck inside of it again!"
"I don't know, it's something!" "We need to save them!" Kayla then looked at the piece of paper Ava had dropped. It had the instructions and the spell on it. She picked it up and skimmed through it. "We can astral project ourselves into purgatory!" She said. "That's dangerous Kayla! If you do it wrong, you can lose your physical body! It's probably even worse because we would be doing it in Purgatory! We can die!" Sean explained. "I don't care, Ava's in there! I need to save her." Elijah said. "Yeah, and I want to save Lilah..." Kayla said. She blushed as she muttered those words. "Oh..." Elijah added. "Well, it is June after all so let's go get your woman!" "It's just a small crush!" "Sure..." Elijah rolled his eyes as he made some room in the grass to lay. Kayla smiled, happy that she had good friends like them. "Sean, you stay awake while we're astral projecting. Just in case something goes wrong." Kayla said. "Okay, but I'm waking you both up after 1 hour." Sean said. Elijah and Kayla were in the grass, lying next to each other. About 9 inches of space between each other. "Okay so we need to close our eyes and try to fall asleep. As we're falling asleep, think about astral projecting out of your body. Clear your mind. Think about purgatory." Kayla explained. They both did so, falling asleep. They suddenly opened their eyes, and were now floating on top of their bodies. They could see each other's spirits and floated to the portal frame. Then everything around them turned black and they were on the other side of it. In purgatory. They looked for the others, and then everything turned black to them again. They were on the next layer of Purgatory. The same thing happened until they found their friends. "Kayla, Elijah!" Ava shouted. "How are you here?" She hugged Elijah, her arms going through him. "Are you real?" Jobe questioned. Kayla spoke, her voice sound clear and echoing. A perfect version of her voice. "We astral projected here."
"How can we see you?" Ava asked. "And where's Sean?" Jobe added.
"Okay, 1. I don't know how y'all can see us, and 2. He's making sure we don't lose our souls and die while we're in here. He's going to wake us up in an hour, which means we only have an hour to be in here. So what happened?"
"We're stuck in here until we collect 8 artifacts, and each of our dead friends have to be sent to Hell to get each artifact." Sophia explained.
"Of course..." Elijah rolled his eyes. Kayla and Lilah were staring at each other, smiles on their faces.
"Oh, and we have about 5 and a half hours until we're all sent to Hell." Lilah said. She started breaking down, "My fucking sister's in Hell right now! She doesn't deserve that! I hate Mortemo so... much!"
Everyone was silent for a moment. "So... uh... how many artifacts do you have so far?" Kayla asked.
"3." Mia said. Bella handed Ava the artifact she had gotten from the Manticore. They heard something, it sounded slimy. "What's that noise?" Evan questioned. Everyone turned to the left of them, where the noise was coming from. What they saw was what looked like a giant worm with a gaping mouth. Mucus shot out of its mouth, getting over all of them. It made them feel tired, lazy in a way. Except for Kayla and Elijah of course, since they were only there in spirit. They could smell it however, and it smelt like death itself. What was around them was a dark blue sky. There was a very dark atmosphere with fog along the floor. There was a temple in front of them. They ran up the steps and went through a little hole in the floor inside of the temple where the monster couldn't get them. Inside there was a desk. There was a man sitting at the desk. "Uh, hi..." Leila said. The man turned around, holding a knife in his hand, and putting it at her throat. Leila was frozen as the blade stood at the middle of her neck, barely breaking skin. She put her hands up. "Please don't kill me! If we die we get sent to Hell!" Leila pleaded. "Please don't!" Mia added. The man's eyes were wide. He looked deranged. "Who are you all!" He asked. "We came here to save our friends, and we got stuck here." Jobe explained.
"Just put the knife down. We mean no harm." Ava added.
He put it down, Leila jolting away to Mia. "Do you know where we can find an artifact?" Micheal said.
"Yeah, we need it to get out of here." Meredith said.
"Yes, I do." The man said. He pulled out a dark blue artifact with the face of a sloth in the middle. "Can we-" The man put the artifact on his side, concealing it with his arm. "You can have it, but I also need you to do something for me."
"What is it?"
"I cannot leave this coven of mine unless that monster out there is slain. If I do, it will eat me. I have been here for millennia. If you set me free I will give you this. But be weary, if one of its hatchlings bite you. You will be put into the death challenge." "To kill the beast, you will have to gather salt to make a giant ring with in the auditorium room. The monster will be stuck in the middle of the arena and won't be able to move. It is then that it can be slain. Be careful though, and don't do drugs." He winked as he finished talking. "You can find the salt in the place where death resides."
They started searching around the bottom of the underground coven.
Jobe, Nene, Jessie, Bella and Sophia found a room that stunk horribly. They had to plug their noses before going in. As they opened the door, Jobe touched on the side of the wall inside. He flicked on a light switch, the room illuminating. What the three of them saw in the room would haunt them for the rest of their lives. There were about 26 people stacked together in a pile. They weren't alive, they were dead. "This is where death resides..." Jobe said.
"Oh my God..." Sophia said. They went in there. There were 3 bags of 100 pounds of salt. They moved the bags out of the room.
Ella, Ava, Evan, Kayla, Micheal, and Lilah were out looking for the auditorium room, and Meredith, Gavin, Mia, Leila, and Elijah were distracting the monster. After a while of moving around, getting the mucus shot at them, they were getting too tired to move. Elijah wasn't tired, he was trying to get the monster to go after him, but it's like it couldn't see him. "I can't move anymore..." Mia said. "I'm sorry." Leila said. Leila and Mia used their last energy to hug each other. This would be Mia's last time seeing her sister, and Leila's last time seeing hers. "I love you..." "I love you too..." They fell asleep and the monster's gaping mouth extended out of its body, and ate the 4 of them. Elijah used the astral projecting abilities to fly to the other group who were searching for the auditorium room. "Guys! Mia, Leila, Meredith, and Gavin were just killed by that monster!" Elijah said.
"They're gone! Just like that?" Kayla exclaimed.
"This place isn't Pandora's Box. It isn't Death Valley, and it definitely isn't Cryptious' Museum. It's Purgatory, the land of suffering." Ella said.
"Mortemo isn't comparable to anything, or anyone we've ever faced before." Ava said.
"And by the way it's looking... none of us will even make it out of here." Lilah said.
They eventually found the auditorium room and Elijah and Kayla used their astral projection to fly to the group who was getting the salt. He guided them to the auditorium. On the way to the auditorium room, they saw little slugs slithering around everywhere. They didn't think anything of it until Nene and Sophia saw one crawling up their legs. It bit them, leaving a little mark on their legs. They showed them off as soon as they realized that those slugs were the things that they were warned about. "Oh shit." Sophia said. "One of us is gonna die." She said. "Everyone run into the auditorium, there's more of them!" Jobe yelled. They went into the building where the auditorium room was. "Nene and Sophia were bit by the little slug things." Elijah said. "And that means that they have to go into the death challenge." Jobe said.
Everyone looked sad. "Wait, where's Mia, and Leila and all them?" Jobe asked. Elijah and Kayla looked at each other. "Where are they!" Nene yelled. "I'm sorry..." Elijah muttered.
"The monster killed them." He added. Nene, Jobe, and Bella huddled together, crying... Lilah and the others made the giant ring of salt in the auditorium while Nene, Jobe, and Bella were processing their loss. They left a little opening at the entrance where the monster would come through. Sophia would pour the remaining salt on the entrance after the monster went in. And Nene would use a shard of broken glass Evan found, to kill the monster with. Nene was looking around. Gathering her thoughts before going against one of her closest cousins, one of them would die somehow. And she knew that. She saw a light in front of her. It was on a wall. There was a pill taped to the wall that had a sign above it that said, "Take me!" She looked around. Making sure no one could see her. She took it off the wall and then swallowed it.
Nothing happened, so she just rolled her eyes and went back. "I love you Nene." Sophia said. "I love you too!" Nene said. "Jobe hugged her and Sophia before they went into the auditorium. They went into the room, and shut the door. Sophia went to the entrance with the salt ready to be spilt. There was now only about 20 pounds of salt in the bag now. Then nene blacked out for a few seconds. She saw the monster. She took the shard of glass and started stabbing it. She heard screaming. And then she couldn't find Sophia. She went back into the room where the others were. "Where's Soph?'' She asked. "I don't know?" Jobe said. "Who's blood is that on your hands?" Ava asked. "What blood-" She looked at her hands, and realized that the pill she took might have done something. She had blood on her hands. It wasn't the monsters. She screamed, realizing that the screaming she heard was Sophia's. She had accidentally killed her cousin. Then she realized what the strange man in the underground coven said. "Don't do drugs."