If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

Charles Spurgeon

Purgatory, Hell and Heaven, the Father and the Son with the holy Spirit; It could all be real. After these months, it would only cement the cause of the nature that has arose not just in the mortal world but in the other world as well. My world. The depravity has sunken in and as I sat in the room with people just as forgotten by the world as I was, I realized just how lucky I really am.

Eventually I go home to others, away from the insane asylum that the old world was slowly converting into. How desperately I wanted to go, to leave and not have to answer or ponder or panic to a question again. I wished for it every moment I was away.

It didn’t help that all anyone talked about was who was to blame and who was behind this- as if there was someone. By the end of the first two weeks I had all but given up on trying to resolve them of the notion. None of our kind can create these symptoms, no matter how potent or competent they were. Not now, not back then, not back to the beginning of time. To add to it all, there wasn’t much meals to have. With the level of concern, mortals stayed indoors with limited times to go out, military staff and personnel walked the streets at times. Those who were out were together and were have made a noise. Everyone was on edge.

Finally after series and series and series of questions about if I had any connections to guilds or bureaus, to agencies or councils that would know what truly was going on, I was released to go back. To leave back to the chaos that was my home, and with me desperation followed. When I reunited with the others – Ambrose, Kaylee, Jeff and Sinclair – I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Husks, shells, starving and stretched nerves stood in front of me with barely a word between them. I couldn’t say I looked my best either, but I wasn’t starving with shallow eyes and sunken in cheeks. They looked like they should be feeding, but they were just standing. Waiting.

Fortunately I had swiped some extra nutrition while no one was looking, the only advantage for having the meals come to you and not vice versa. It wasn’t much, but just enough to get some of their features to return. Jeff’s curls were still limp and too soft, but the red came back in a damp kind of way. Sinclair’s shoulder’s filled in his jacket better and the eye patch sat better on his face. Color returned to Kaylee’s eyes and she was able to finally smile at me. Ambrose was hesitant at first and still quiet afterwards, the angles returning to his face though softer than usual.

I sat them down and they revealed to me the starvation that had been going on within our city and the suburbs. How guards had been stationed and were actively harassing not only them but anyone and everyone in the area. It took a while but Ambrose finally spoke the thought on his mind: That the guard had just appeared one day and Rose had the unfortunate timing of scarring the freaks and nuisances out from the lower part of our city. The cost was brutal and what was worse was Clair had to come get him and bring him home. After that the guard knew where the house was, who was there and when they would be there. They couldn’t move, leave, or breathe. It’s been another kind of hell over here for them.

I held Kaylee for a long time after all the words had been spoken, just thinking about how everything had changed in so little time. In one moment we’re planing an extermination and in the next we become the near culled ones. The uncertainty that laid thick within the city, our home and the minds of my friends and acquaintances. While the deranged thoughts of a person being behind this all didn’t follow me home, the paranoia did.

There is nothing I can do to ease their tension, their hunger or their minds. All I can do is be here for them – I wish I could do more than that.