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Purgatory is a passing intermediate state after physical death for purifying or purging a soul before entering Heaven. Though in popular imagination Purgatory is pictured as a place, it is rather than a process, through which souls achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven .
Purgatory felt hotter this time, Foolish thought. He stared back at the unblinking desert sun-- it hadn’t been this hot when he’d built the temple. Maybe global warming? It had only been a month, but it was possible. Did nukes make things hotter? Probably, right? It felt like there was always a bunch of fire and shit when bombs went off. That would make the heat HIS fault…
Whatever. He’d set off a hundred more if it meant a dead federation. Worth the sweat.
Afterall, who doesn't like to get a little sweaty? That’s what purgatory was all about! Getting cutthroat! Getting scrappy! Getting killed over and over and over-- it was fun last time! Other than. The like. You know. Other stuff that happened.
He shook his head quickly and continued up the sandy slope. There was a crate dropping in 10 minutes, and he had nothing to lose. But he had to get up there first. Maybe Dark Cucurucho could hook him up with some wings, given that he had built the whole fudging temple. Or at least a spider-backpack-- maybe his old backpack. He felt a pang of longing for his backpack. And definitely only his backpack. Once again, his own fault for starting purgatory.
The other islanders had been avoiding him. Even Tina, although that was probably more to do with the sweat than the whole “blowing up the island” thing. But, he supposed, if those were one and the same, then it really WAS everyone. Ever since he’d pressed that button, he’d had extra aura. He was so cool and mysterious and dangerous and that’s why it was fine that he had a solo base instead of a team. Like Batman.
He stopped on a ledge to aurafarm, briefly.
“Oh yeah, just like Batman,” he assured himself.
As he looked out over the barren landscape, he saw a shadow dart between the dunes. Pitch black, with a streak of red--much too fast for a mob. The nametag disappeared suddenly before he could read it-- but it couldn’t be Ewron, unless it was a clone. The shadow was close-- within earshot.
And then, Foolish remembered.
“Oh, Foolish!” Badboyhalo shouted from the bottom of the mountain. His familiar cadence was an even clearer sign than the axe in hand that Bad intended to kill.
“Get away from me you freak!” Foolish clambered desperately up the mountain.
He had known Bad was here, in this world, when the guard had announced teams-- honestly, even before that, he had felt him in the air. Like a shadow, finally sewn back to his shoes. Like a second heartbeat, drumming in his ears. Like a pile of camel poop, stinking up his whole castle. That was the one, truly, completely terrible thing to come out of the nuke, he thought.
“What kind of gear you got?” Bad taunted, swiping at his ankles.
“Is this anyway to greet an old friend?!” he shouted.
Bad stopped suddenly, letting his axe lower. Foolish looked back, and found white beads staring out from the show of Bad’s hood, right where he left them.
“Old friends?” he asked. “Oh, you wanna be friends with me?! Oh, Foolish, I thought you’d never ask! Of course I’ll be friends with you, Foolish! But, just friends. I’m not really looking for anything-- I mean-- unless you--”
“Ew, no. I don’t want to be friends--” Foolish interrupted.He turned around and continued his scramble up the mountain.
“What, you want to be more than friends?!”
“NO!!!”
“Well, I’m-- I’m flattered, Foolish, but I’m-- Well, I just feel like Purgatory isn’t the place for love to bloom--”
“That’s your only issue with this…?”
“Tell me, Foolish, do you believe love can bloom, even on the battlefield?”
This was clearly a reference to something, but Foolish wasn’t sure what. Frankly, he didn’t care. He dragged his hands down his face. Bad had forgotten about trying to kill him, thankfully, but there was no shaking him off. There was still eight minutes until the crate.
“Didn’t you die?” Foolish asked, cutting into Bad’s different renditions of the battlefield line.
“What? No, of course I didn’t--”
“I could’ve sworn you died at the end last time-- How did you even get here?”
“Well, there was this huge explosion and all this fire, and I crawled out--”
“I don’t even know why I bother asking.”
“--and everybody was screaming and crying and saying funny things like ‘please, help me’ and reaching out their hands, so I gave everybody high fives!” he said cheerfully.
“I cannot believe there are still seven minutes until this crate drops.”
“Seven minutes in heaven!”