I woke up in a white space. I was lying down on something but I couldn't see it. Not in the normal sense. Everything just looked like endless glowing white light. The cable was gone from around my neck and wrists. I looked around and saw Judas lying next to me. He didn't have any of the equipment from before.

"Hey, Judas! Are you alive?" I said.

"Of course not, you idiot! I've been dead for thousands of years," he said, getting up.

"Yeah, but you have a living body," I said, also getting up off the invisible ground.

"That is true. I suppose I am alive then," he said.

"It was a rhetorical question. You weren't actually supposed to answer," I said.

"Oh, whatever! Where are we?" he said.

"Purgatory, obviously, but if you meant specifically, I think we're in Limbo," I said.

"What's Limbo?" Judas asked.

"Is that a rhetorical question?" I asked. How didn't he know what Limbo was? I wouldn't have expected everyone to know, but he was in the bible.

"No," he said.

"Didn't you read the Bible?" I asked.

"No. It hadn't been released when I was alive, because it was still being written, and Lucifer wasn't a fan, so he didn't keep any copies for us to read," he said.

"Oh. Right," I said, remembering how Lucifer used to be. Shitty.

"Are you going to explain what Limbo is or am I going to have to strangle you again?" Judas asked.

"Hey! You were only able to do that because you had indestructible cable. You won't be able to do it again," I said, pointing my finger at him. "And yes, I will explain. Limbo is a sort of waiting room for souls in Purgatory. That's what my church told me, anyway."

"A waiting room for what? What are we waiting for?" he asked.

"I don't know. We never got that far," I said.

"Great. You're useless. You're the administrator of Hell and you're useless. Aren't you supposed to know things?" Judas said, crossing his arms.

I think now is a good time to describe Judas. He was a tall, dark-skinned man with shaggy black hair and a handsome face. Not Jesus handsome, but handsome. He was wearing the standard black and red Hell jumpsuit.

I was wearing gray sweatpants and a t-shirt. Hey, it's not my fault! Cain ruined my clothes, and this was all the hospital had!

"Not really. I'm just the best guy who could fill the position," I said. "Isn't that how all jobs are supposed to be filled?" I knew that wasn't how it usually worked, but that was the way it was supposed to work.

"I guess," he said.

"Gentlemen," a woman's voice said. It rang out through the white void.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Who's there?" Judas asked.

"Purgatory. I am the administrator of Purgatory itself," she said.

"Can I call you Purgy?" I asked.

"No, that sounds gross," the voice said.

"Ok, fine," I said, disappointed.

"Don't be rude," Judas said.

"What? I wasn't being rude," I said, throwing my hands up.

"Gentlemen," Purgy said, trying not to sound impatient.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Hey! Don't call me that in your head, either!" she said, completely loosing her cool.

"I can't control what my brain does," I said.

"Yes, you can," she insisted.

"Cannot," I said, putting my hands on my hips.

"Can too!" she said. I imagined she put her hands on her hips as well.

"Lady and gentleman," Judas said, a vein bulging in his forehead.

"Yes!" the woman yelled.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yes!" I copied.

"What are we doing here?" Judas asked.

"Right. That's what I was trying to address," she said, flattening out her white pantsuit. "I'm here to administrate your trials in Purgatory, so that you can ascend to Heaven, or stay here. For a very long time."

"Oh," I said, miming zipping my lips shut, locking them, and throwing away the key.

"Thank you," she said, cracking her neck. "Your first trial begins now."

Two vertical bars with protrusions jutting out of the side of them and a horizontal bar resting on two of those protrusions appeared. They formed an 'H' shape.

I narrowed my eyes at it. This seemed really familiar. Wait. "Is that?" I asked.

"Limbo," she said. "That is your first trial."

No way. I wasn't going to play Limbo with Judas in Purgatory. I imagined I was somewhere else, anywhere else, but nothing happened. What?

"You can't teleport in here," she said.

"That's disappointing," I said, sitting on the floor.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Sitting," I answered.

"Don't sit down! Begin the task!" she yelled.

"This woman is very impatient," Judas remarked.

"You're telling me," I said, slowly getting back up to my feet.

"Do the task please, gentlemen," she said.

"Fine," I said.

I walked up to the Limbo bar, bent backwards and walked under it. The horizontal bar magically moved one protrusion lower.

"What is this?" Judas asked.

"It's Limbo. It's a kids' game," I explained.

"What are the rules?" he asked.

"You have to cross under the bar, but you can't do it by bending forwards or sideways. You have to bend backwards," I further explained.

"That sounds uncomfortable," he said.

"It is. That's why it's a kids' game. Only kids have the flexibility to handle the stress on the spine," I said.

"I see. So we have to play this?" he said.

"It seems that way," I said. "She didn't technically say that, but what else are we supposed to do?"

"Why did the bar get lower when you went under it?" he asked.

"Oh, that's the hard part. Whenever someone passes under it, the bar lowers. If you knock the bar off the rack or you fall, you lose," I said, taking a sip from a water bottle. When did I get a water bottle?

"You seemed thirsty," she said.

"Thanks, I guess," I said, taking another sip. I was kind of thirsty.

"You're welcome," she said.

Judas jumped up and down and did some stretches. "I think I'm ready," he said.

"Ok. Go ahead," I said, gesturing towards the Limbo setup with my new water bottle.

Judas bent backwards and slowly walked under the bar. When he cleared it, the bar lowered again.

"Is it your turn now?" Judas asked.

"Yes," I said, putting down my water bottle.

I had to lean backwards and bend my knees considerably to make it under this time. The bar lowered. We went back and forth like that for several minutes, until Judas knocked the bar off and lost…Actually, that was me. I should be honest in my account, and I was the one who lost.

When I knocked the bar off and fell onto my back, the bar raised back up to the highest protrusion again, resetting the game.

What? Why did the game reset? Didn't we complete the task? "What gives?" I asked the white void.

"You haven't completed the task yet," she said, composed and patient this time.

This was within the normal realm of what she expected to encounter. She wasn't frustrated we hadn't completed the task. She didn't expect us to. It felt like she was gloating.

"Miss? If we haven't completed the task, then what is the task?" Judas asked.

"I'm not allowed to disclose that information," she said.

"Can you give us a hint or a handbook? Hell has a handbook for everything," I said.

"Yes. It's called 'The Bible'," she said.

A giant stack of papers fell out of nowhere and landed on the ground. It was in some language I didn't recognize. It must have been Aramaic. That was what I heard the Bible had originally been written in.

I looked over at Judas. "You can't, by chance, read Aramaic, can you?" I asked.

"Actually, I can," he said, cracking his knuckles.

"Start reading then," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Playing the game didn't work and I can't think of what else we can do. We need to research. Read it out loud," I said.

"Ok, here we go," Judas said. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Judas read the Bible to me for quite some time. Turns out it's not just Aramaic. It also contains Hebrew and even some Greek. I read for the Greek parts. I was skimming and listening for anything that stuck out.

I wasn't committing anything to memory as much as I was listening to the context of the words in relation to the game Limbo. So don't call me out if I don't know things in the future! I never claimed to be smart—well, actually I did, but ignore that—you put that on me.

"When I was a child, I spake {spoke} as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things," Judas said as we were reading through Corinthians.

"Hold on. I think that's it!" I said, coming out of a half daze. "Put away childish things! How do we do that though? There can't just be a thing to put the game into can there?"

Looking around, I found a large trunk near the limbo game setup. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. I got up and dismantled the setup, putting everything into the trunk and closing it.

"You have completed the first task. Very well," she said, nodding her head and gritting her teeth. She expected it to take longer. It had been several days though. How long did she want this to take?

The trunk disappeared. Then I went blind. It felt like there was something in my eye, preventing me from seeing. I felt around my face until I realized that there were solid poles of something sticking into my eyes.

I yanked them out. It hurt. A lot. But I could see. "Cast the beam out of thine own eye? Really? Was that necessary?"

"It is part of the process," she said, giggling, pleased with herself.

"Ah! What is in my eyes?" Judas yelled.

"Pull them out! Only you can!" I said.

Judas grabbed the sticks that were seemingly made of amber and pulled them out of his eyes. "Ow! What in tarnation?"

"She apparently thinks this is funny," I said.

"It's not," Judas said, wiping blood from his eyes.

"How many more tasks are there?" I asked. I was getting a little annoyed with this.

"I cannot disclose that information," she said, grinning.

"Do you know how many more tasks there are?" I asked.

"I cannot disclose that information," she said again.

"Seriously? Where are you? You've gotta be in here somewhere!" I said, walking around.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sounding afraid. "Don't do that!"

I walked around in large circles until I saw a woman standing behind a white glowing wall. She had a microphone and a control panel. She turned around and looked at me in terror.

She was wearing a black and white pantsuit, had black and white hair, and even her skin was black and white. The black and white were split down the middle. Her right side was white and her left side was black.

I walked up to her and grabbed her by the collar. "Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Keir said to stall you as long as I could! I'm just doing what I was told!" she said, panicking. She wasn't prepared for a physical confrontation.