chapter 6: The butterfly zone

"Please, enlighten me." I waved my arm at her ceremoniously.
Her eyes sparkled venemously, "nahhh... first, I want to get introduced to the rest of your alters. They seem sooo entertaining."
I smirked at her, "Good luck getting them, 'cause I ain't leaving."
This time she cackled, "oh, you ARE naive aren't you? You think you have control don't you? But you're just an alter like the rest of them. I want to meet the real person inside you, not all of these fakes, and defense mechanisms."
"You think we're not real? We are as real as you or anyone else is. It just so happens that we all happen to share a body." I retorted, dignified. No one was going to tell me that I wasn't real. That sammy, destery, chris and iggy were all figments of imagination.
"Oh, I can prove it." She took a step towards me, reaching out her hand.
I took a step backwards, "you think I'm just gonna stand here and let you try?" I angrily took a deep breath in, the taste of the cigerette still in my mouth. If I could last another hour, just another, we could escape.
She danced around me playfully, her long red hair swishing back and forth as she angelically moved around me, almost unnaturally. I matched her pace, keeping an eye on her at all times as she laughed like a demon. And then, like a canon, she hit me in the back of the head. I faltered and my eyes closed.

"The fuck--?" I yelled as I turned around on my attacker. I had just gotten back into the peaceful serenity in my head, and now I was forced to live with reality again. What was going on?
A limber and curvy ginger was prancing around me like a lune. I usually never hit girls but it seemed allright to hit this one. After all that reaaally hurt, and I was in the mood to release pent up anger. I swung.
"OoOoh, swing and a miss!" She giggled.
"That's impossible. I never miss." And then I realized I was back in the cell. But before the cluastrophobia could kick in, a thought, or a sort of murmur popped into my head. THIS PLACE ISN'T REAL the thought roared in my head. I recognized Liam's voice. I fell to my knees at the force and clutched my head. "No need to shout!" I yelled.
She pondered me for a second, "ahh, so this is the infamous chris. I'm antoinette. Pleased."
I looked up at her as if she was crazy. But, if this place wasn't real, as Liam so bluntly stated, maybe she wasn't either. Which would explain my missed punch. Damn I wished I had a cigerette.
"Where are we?" I asked standing up shakily, my head still pounding.
"The butterfly zone, of course." She laughed as she continued to prance.
I cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh, you're confused? Well this is interesting... Liam never told you about what he did as a job? No? Well, you see, his job was to help create a crystal, that allowed you to travel to purgatory, so to speak. However, the company decided to crush it into a powder, and sell it for high prices as an illegal drug. Those who inhale it are automatically transported here. Where the souls of neither good nor evil fly."
Something told me that this was ludicrous. I couldn't tell if it was liam or not, but I decided I was not going to heed anything this woman told me. I stood up. Suddenly, something fluttered in the corner of my eye. A butterfly? Id heard that in death souls took the shape of butterflies. But no, I shook my head. Remember chris. This isn't real.
But that had distracted me. Suddenly a blow from behind knocked me back into serentiy.