Violet Sky

by W Bradley

Several long minutes passed as Freya knelt, perplexed, on the cold sand. The blood on either side of her face had already begun to dry due to the heat of the strange air. Her deaf ear was now ringing. Somehow, her hearing was coming back, perhaps thanks to whatever had healed her fractured spine. ‘Who… is doing this?’ She questioned weakly, wondering if she would in fact get a reply.

  At this point, Freya looked like a victim of a horrific car crash; blood coated her face, her neck, her shoulders, and stained her white t-shirt with deep red patches. The expression painted across her face was one of complete bewilderment.

  ‘Why did it stop?’ Thousands of why, who, and what questions were tearing through her weary head. Then another voice spoke in her mind. ‘You’re still alive. Good.’

  ‘What the hell…?’ Was all Freya could manage as a thought-reply, she noticed the man’s voice was still distinguishable despite the fact it was interwoven with her own cognition. The man laughed deeply with a strange quality which resonated around her head, ‘It is not an enjoyable experience is it? Sorry... That is inconsiderate. How are you feeling?’ Freya took a few seconds before she managed a weak response, ‘I’ve been better. What’s going on?’

  ‘Yes, an explanation. OK, I have to be brief, you don’t have long before you get the headache, not to mention the little time we have before they’ll be after me again. So, like I said before, I require your help. The three golden balls orbiting one another? They brought you to this place from Earth. I’ll explain more when you’re here. The-’

  ‘Hold on a second. Where am I? And where are you?’

  ‘Well I don’t know much of your other life on Earth but from what I understand, they have a place called Heaven, which is good. And very much the opposite is another place called Hell, which is bad, yes?’

  ‘Some people believe that, yes…’

  ‘Well this place is somewhere in between the two…’

  ‘Purgatory?’ Her mind remained silent for a few moments so she elaborated, ‘Purgatory, it’s effectively the waiting room between Heaven and Hell.’

  ‘That’s a suitable description. You are in Purgatory. Except there is no God. Just Lord Kae. In a way, he is a God. Not in the sense of the word you understand though.’ Freya was feeling more confused each second. She decided to just accept what was happening, put her racing thoughts on standby and sceptically believe what the voice was telling her. Gradually she was learning to ignore her mind’s bewilderment, ‘So who are you?’ Came her next question.

  ‘I am Dosus Yin.’

  ‘Dosus Yin?’

  ‘I chose the name myself, thought I could have a fresh start.’

  ‘A fresh start?’

  ‘Oh and on the subject of names, yours is not Freya.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Dia. Dia Thorpe.’

  ‘Dia Thorpe?’ The name felt instantly correct to her assaulted psyche. Of all the information Dosus had forced upon her in the past moments, her name was the only piece which felt correct. As if she had been somehow lying to herself her whole life without realising it. She was Dia Thorpe and she always had been. The name Freya was tossed aside.

  ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t got the time to explain much right now. I will tell you everything I can when you arrive.’ Having said this, Dosus went silent for a few moments. Dia wondered if whatever connection he had with her mind had been broken, but a second later he burst back into mind-speech, ‘Took too long. He must be getting faster…’ Dosus seemed almost terrified, as he had on the phone earlier, but although afraid, he gave off the impression he was completely in control. Then he spoke more hastily, ‘Quickly! You need to get moving, as do I. There is a building, North of where you know stand. Only the one. You cannot miss it. Don’t head West.’ His voice then stopped. ‘Which way is North?’ Dia asked but sensed he no longer occupied her skull. She waited several minutes in silence to be sure.

  She began to experience a powerful awareness that she was completely alone but she banished the feeling and stared in every direction. ‘Which way is North?’ There were no trees, rocks or any landmarks within sight which Dia could use as a means to knowing which compass bearing she was facing. The violet of the sky directly ahead of her seemed slightly darker than the sky to her sides and behind, though it could have been her subconscious playing tricks. She made a decision and set off in the direction of the deeper violet, her legs trembling a little at first as if she did not know how to command them as well as she once was able.

  Dia Thorpe had been alone with her own contemplations for more than an hour. Dosus Yin was staying out from the depths of her consciousness for the time being.

  She had noticed changes to her body as she advanced in the barren yet strangely pleasant environment surrounding her. On Earth, her entire physique had become much less than perfect, which, among various other things, she had blamed on her husband’s condition. Now Dia noted slow transformations in her figure; it was slowly becoming more athletic yet it kept a certain delicate beauty. Her legs were always long, but now they tapered more gracefully down to her ankles. Her waist was thinning and her stomach flattened.

  Dia’s face had become what it once was: High, perfectly formed cheek bones; huge, bright blue eyes; and celestial, fair skin. Flowing, dark brown hair softly caressed her face as it reached down to, and just beyond, her shoulders. The violet light reflected off Dia’s hair brilliantly. Overall, she now looked physically younger than a 25 year old.

  The barren, red desert was appealing to her now a little more than it had earlier and a strange feeling of comfort was creeping over her, bringing with it a warm, pleasant sensation which soothed Dia’s new body. This could not have been due to her change in appearance; that alone would not bring such a change in her outlook of the situation. She knew something was happening to her but somehow, it felt acceptable. Even pleasurable.

  After several hours of walking, Dia had gained full control of her legs. They felt more powerful now, stronger than they had ever been for as long as she could remember and her body felt lighter. It seemed as if a huge non-metaphorical weight had been lifted.

  She had decided hours ago that trying to make sense of this new world was not productive and, therefore, the many burning questions searing through her mind were left unanswered for the time being. Instead she inspected herself and the positive alterations occurring in her body. Along with the new found strength in her legs, she had discovered an increase in force her hands and arms could now deliver; clenching her fists had caused a nail on her left hand to dig into her palm, drawing blood. The pain from the accident was minimal, possibly another symptom of this adjustment: an increase in her pain threshold.

  Rocks the size of fists began to appear around Dia, few at first, then after another hour of walking she was surrounded by an abundance of the deep red, similarly sized stones. She scooped one up and, using all the strength she could summon, she launched the object at a 45 degree angle ahead of her. She did not see or hear it land. It had collided with the sand over the other side of a dune 90 metres away. She attempted to stifle a grin which easily overpowered her and spread across her face. Everything about this situation was extraordinary and in a bizarre way, she liked it; her body had changed in many ways and every metamorphosis she underwent had been a positive one. Never did it cross her mind that it could be a dream. It was not a dream; nothing had ever felt so close to reality.

  Soon Dia decided to test her stamina. She began a swift jog into the violet light. Straight away she noticed how delicate the wind whistled past her ears and stroked her hair back. Although she jogged into the soft breeze, there was much less resistance than she would have predicted. It was a bizarre feeling. The small amount of friction in the air caused her to wonder why she had not noticed this sooner, when she threw the rock for example. She lost herself in thought as she jogged onwards, finding it easy to keep up a fast pace without tiring.

  A huge shape began to appear in the distance. Dia strained her eyes to attempt
to identify it but, frustratingly, it was too faded in the violet. She could, however, judge its colossal size. It was possible she had guessed the correct direction and had in fact headed North, to the castle.

  She began to sprint towards the massive object, hope building up inside her with every step she progressed. Still it was unrecognisable, but she decided due to the size and the apparent uniformity, it must be a building.

  It loomed more menacingly the more she reduced the distance between her and the dark structure. Then it was clear enough to make out. It was obvious. She slowed to a jog, before returning to walking pace. It was a castle of sorts, but no castle Dia knew of looked like this. There was nothing she knew with which to compare such a structure.

  The monstrosity rose above Dia in a grotesque manner. The sheer size of the thing took her breath away; it was at least twice the height of the Eiffel Tower on Earth, and easily more than a quarter of a mile across. The exterior was ungainly; there were strips of some kind of black material sagging down the walls which Dia could not recognize and there were no windows or doors apparent on the side she could see. Only one side could be seen from her viewpoint, therefore the shape of the foul building would, for a time, remain a mystery.

  As she approached further, more of the details came into view. The first thing she had noticed was its colour; black. Now, getting ever closer to it, she noted it held more of a deep maroon colouration, a colour she irrationally despised as though it had done her a great wrong in the past. The walls appeared as if manufactured from thin, cylindrical strands of dark maroon coloured material which Dia estimated to be just less than a meter in diameter. The material, in an unattractive, sporadic fashion, weaved its way around the other material which made up the vertical wall in front of her.

  Spotting what looked like a darker patch in the weaving, she headed toward it, hoping for some kind of entry. Although no shadow was cast over her by the enormous construction, Dia felt cold and a shiver travelled up her back. Pacing slowly closer, she was suddenly taken aback by the retched aroma which hit her like a sudden gust of thick air. She coughed strongly to clear her lungs but the stench lingered, causing her to involuntarily cough more violently and repeatedly, each breath stimulating further choking and gasping for air. The only comparison from Earth was the reek of rotting flesh, but Dia knew without a doubt this was far more intense. She vomited.

  After several minutes, Dia had taken full control of her breathing and although the smell was thick and all about her, she suppressed the urge to wretch; throwing up had left her with little energy but she felt compelled to find an entrance to the dark fortress ahead of her.

  Dia arrived at the wall. It was a terrifying position to be in; the structure completely filled her view. She hesitated, and then reached out her slender hand to touch the terrible wall. It was rough, slightly moist and it did not feel completely solid. Slowly, she jabbed her fingers further into the thing, causing a compression on the surface of the intertwined material. Suddenly, she felt something. A movement. A convulsion. Then she felt it again and a few seconds later, a third time. It was a powerful outward force pushing against her fingers. The realisation swiftly hit Dia, ‘No…?’ She knew now what she was feeling, ‘It’s a pulse. A heartbeat.’ It was living. The monstrous architecture before her was alive.

  Snapping her hand away, she took a step back. Panic began to form inside her and the control of her breathing was beginning to deteriorate. ‘It’s not possible…’ Dia knew a hundred reasons why an organism could not naturally occur on land at this scale. She was shocked back into reality; the situation she had been hurled into, even with the return of her beauty, was grim.

  Besides the immediate horror, the Dia knew she still had only one option. She would find the entrance to this organic-building, if it was in fact a building, and if of course it had an entrance. So she tightly closed her mouth, clenched her fists and forced herself to press on, keeping a wary 5 metre gap between herself and the pulsating wall; if it did wish harm on Dia it would more than likely have attacked her already. That is, if it had the capability and if it was able to aggress, it more than likely could strike her down in a single blow from well beyond 5 metres away. Regardless, she kept the distance, as the small space between her and it helped the feeling of vulnerability dim a little.

  Ten minutes or so passed and Dia was beginning to feel more comfortable with the structure filling the left half of her vision. Ahead she could make out what she hoped to be an entrance, though at this point, she did not know whether or not entering such a terror exuding place would be the intelligent course of action.

  There was no door, only an elliptical hole between two of the foul-looking strands of what seemed to be blood vessels. Her senses were on edge as she warily peered through the hole. Inside, there were no blood red rocks or sand.

  It was a huge room she could make out. The floor involved polished, black and white checked tiles, each one seamlessly joined to its neighbour. The walls were the brightest white colour and they were not rigid; they seemed to wave leisurely from top to bottom, almost unnoticeably. Dia assumed the ceiling, if there was one, was high because she could not see it from where she stood outside the thing.

  Deciding there was little other choice, she tentatively stretched her head through the entrance and looked upwards. There was a ceiling, it was magnificently high and there were thousands of prongs pointing downwards in the shape of upside-down “V’s.” They glimmered with a silver light which flowed around the huge interior space in slow moving ripples and waves, adding quite pleasantly to the undulating walls. As far as Dia could tell, there was no furniture or objects of any kind in the huge open space.

  Again realizing there were few more reasonable options, she stepped through the opening into the expansive room.

  The second her bare foot touched the floor a warm embrace took over her leg, then her other foot followed, receiving the same welcome as the first. Dia’s whole body: bone, flesh and skin, was held tightly within the perfect comfort of the heated blanket. It overwhelmed her completely. Her mind was at ease. Nothing mattered in this state of bliss. Her mind found it impossible to conjure any negative thoughts. She did not want to think at all. The one thing worth anything and therefore everything to Dia was the euphoria clinging to every part of her.

  She was completely trapped in the paradise prison, but she was remembering things. Remembering certain aspects of the world she was now in. The memories came as feelings at first, but soon they appeared in her mind as fact. She had been there before. She had been there many times before, the most recent of which she was in a kind of danger. The thought swam through the neurons in her brain, in a circuit, over and over, until she remembered; Dia had been planning an escape the last time she was on this planet; an escape from something terrible. A man? It felt like something more than just a man. Then an image flashed in front of her; another man. He was difficult to see, as if her memory had been tampered with slightly. She knew, however, that this second man was not something terrible, nor was he more than just a man. She felt somehow attached to him or, at the very least, the idea of his existence. He had helped her, Dia was sure of it, perhaps with her escape, but definitely more than once in her past.

  The feeling in her forehead returned first, followed by her face, then neck. She desperately tried to stop her return to normality, clinging desperately to the bliss with her thoughts. A final bright flash blazed ahead of her and, as if really before her eyes, a younger, more beautiful vision of herself shimmered. While Dia gasped slightly at the bizarre phenomenon, the past version of herself spoke in a voice comparable to no human-made sound. It was perfect and unbroken as though carried through the air on softest silk. "You left this for yourself, Dia." She began softly, "I can only hope my words will not be needed. You once ruled here, within these walls." The young Dia spread her arms, her expression neutral as she explained, "The beauty of this palace was unmatched anywhere across the universes. I will tell you only the
essentials; no doubt you felt negative feelings towards the man in the vision. You must fear him. You must respect his power. He is known as Ssus and is a creature of twisted morals and logic," her voice quivered very slightly on the name, "His mix of morality and logic create a being who is dangerous to everything living anywhere in all of existence. Ssus has no human emotion as such but can show the opposite flawlessly. His knowledge and intelligence are unmatched and his level of skill in any combat style is absolute. He has very rarely made errors in all the time he's existed; the scale of such an amount of time is inexplicable.

  “Ssus has one curious characteristic, hopefully one we can use to our advantage; an unfair act is impossible for him to commit without sufficient reason. He cannot slit an unknowing man's throat or murder a child, although the most combat-ready species is as much of a fair fight against Ssus as a new born baby. That is, he cannot commit such atrocities unless his mind believes them to have valid cause.

  “He has a purpose; to erase suffering from all of space and time. The only way this is possible would be to destroy every living species which has a conscious mind, and therefore the ability to intentionally cause any level of suffering to another.

  "He sees things in black and white as a machine uses ones and zeros. Ssus sees evil in all creatures, including himself, in the form of past sins. When he has taken every other life, he will take his own.

  "Although Ssus is the ultimate threat, he bred a "sinless" army of perfect, ‘soul-less’ soldiers, how many is unfathomable. Each quarter of the unquestioning warriors is led by his lords and dames, dedicated to serving Ssus' cause. Two are known well and feared by most. The remaining two I have no knowledge of.

  "Lord Kae purges this universe and will be close to impossible to stop. Dame Helis controls the inescapable "prison" universe used by Ssus to contain those who are impossible to kill. Of course, in helping Ssus take lives, the lords, dames and soldiers become sinful themselves and will be ended by the ultimate sinner: Ssus himself-" The beautiful, youthful appearance of the other Dia's face fell into darkness as her head stared at the floor for a moment then, tears welling in her shining eyes, looked back in the direction of the real Dia. Her voice faded as she spoke her final words in a whisper,

  "-He will make a martyr of us all."

 

  CHAPTER 5

  Kant and Daniel