The Land Of Purgatory

Chapter 1

 I wake up and with blurry vision see a digital blue and black room surrounding me. I rub my eyes quickly and look at a young girl scribbling away on a paper while she sits behind a circular desk positioned in the center of the room. I stand up shakily and she seems to take notice of me.

"Umm... Excuse me?" I ask her meekly, unsure and afraid of the situation at hand, "Where am I?"

The girl gives me an apologetic smile and then tells me cheerfully exactly where I am. "Welcome to Purgatory."

"Purgatory?" I pause momentarily, and then continue as I remember what exactly that is. "As in the Catholic belief of penance before entering Heaven?" I gaze at her in confusion, sure that this must be a dream. Why would an innocent looking little girl so cheerfully invite me to a place of punishment? That's just too strange. And besides that, I'm not dead.

"No. The name Purgatory is a misnomer," she explains with a kind of intelligence unknown to any children of her age I've ever met, "Purgatory is not a place you go to when when you die to be retributed for everything that you've done wrong. That was just a ploy from some nasty old people who's only concern was money. This is a place where people in comas reside. It gives people more time in a way, because time flows faster here. One full day here is one hour back on Earth. This is a place of second chances, not of punishment."

"Coma? When did I go into a coma?" for I brief second I'm certain that this is just an elaborate dream that I'll forget as the morning sun rises, but then all the memories come rushing back. I was driving in a car to see my friend Felix at his base in Texas and on the way there, we got news of his accident. Sarah, Felix's sister-in-law, lost it and starting driving recklessly to go see him at the hospital only to have a truck demolish our car. After that, there's nothing.

"Do you remember now?" the girl asks carefully, gazing at me like I'm some fragile object that will break at any moment.

"I remember it all.... Are the others okay? And what about Felix? I heard he's in a coma as well. Does that mean he's here? His full name is Felix Blue if you know him."

"If he's in a coma, he's in Purgatory, but it'll be nearly impossible to find him. Another thing is that when you return to Earth upon your waking, you will have no memory of your time here. It's part of keeping this place anonymous. The only way to bypass that is if you complete the most challenging task in this world. I'll elaborate on that later. In this world, you have the option to choose between two different lifestyles. The lifestyle of an Adventurer, or a normal lifestyle. This gives you the option to lead whatever kind of life you like in this world. But, both options require that you earn money so that you can live just like a life back on Earth would require. The main thing to know about adventuring is that it can certainly be life threatening, but if you die in this dimension you will become a new 'character'. If you look in the mirror you will see that your appearance is different than it was before. This is why it would be nearly impossible to find your friend. But anyhow, this is your current character."

I look down and see that my body shape has clearly changed to a thinner and more attractive form. I walk over to the mirror, slightly weary of what I may now look like. In the reflection, I see that my former shoulder length blonde hair now falls in elegant long curls to the small of my back and fades to a beautiful shade of copper red. My eyes are now a more vibrant blue and have specks of a gorgeous green that wasn't there before. My cheekbones are higher and my lips are plumper. I twirl a few times before the mirror to find that I have a much more pronounced hourglass figure and that has a tad more muscle. In fact, it seems that I only have muscle and not an ounce of unwanted fat. I look the way that I've always dreamed.