Escaping Purgatory

I don’t remember how we died. It just kind of happened. We were in a car I think. It happened so fast one second we were singing along to our favorite song the next we were upside down. I asked Mryin if he knew what had happened but he had no clue. Now we were in this familiar but unfamiliar place.

“Mirya, where are we?”. Mryin asked me like I knew the answer.

“I don’t know, doofus”. He punched my arm lightly and I laughed it off. Perks of being the oldest sibling I get to bully my brother but in a playful way.

“Hello”. We looked around in shock trying to locate where this sound was coming from. It came out of nowhere and seemed to be addressing us.

“Hi”, Mryin responded.

“Why would you do that?”. I swear sometimes this kid possesses absolutely no brain cells.

“I know you might be confused or maybe even scared but I’m here to help”. A tiny creature started to fly down towards us. For something so tiny it did have a booming voice. It kind of resembled the creatures from the movie Critters but cuter and less menacing. It had gray bat wings like you had tainted the color white with black. 

“How are you gonna help us?”, I asked.

“Well, for starters you guys are dead”, the thing stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

“We can’t be dead, we were alive 2 seconds ago”, I said looking at the thing then to Myrin.

“You, Mirya, died from the initial impact of the car crash, and you, Mryin, died from flipping over”.

The car we crashed that’s what happened but how did we crash?

“Wow, we couldn’t survive a car crash”, the thing laughed and so did Mryin I was too deep in thoughts to pay attention.

“Where are we?”, I asked genuinely confused.

“Purgatory”.

“What’s that”. Of course, he didn’t know what purgatory was.

“It’s the place you go right after you die, estúpido”, I shook my head but he still looked confused.

“It’s basically where you go before you go anywhere else, think of it as getting a feel for being dead. Right now you both are ghosts that can explore the ground in which you once stood. Once you guys leave purgatory you can no longer visit Earth”. The animal took over the explanation and Myrin looked as though he understood.

“Can we interact with the people, like can we move things?”.

“I’m not sure, Myrin, but you can try if you like”.

“What are you?”, I asked the thing because I wanted to refer to it as something other than it.

“I’m a nephalem but my name is Orbryn”.

None of us questioned what a nephalem was even though we were both equally confused. We didn’t want to ask Orbryn any more questions.

“How do we get out of here?”. One more question couldn’t hurt.

“That’s for you to figure out”. With that Orbryn flew away leaving us to explore and ponder.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It’s been almost a year since the two crashed and died. They spent most of their time exploring the world not really caring how to get out. They didn’t have anyone to look over so they traveled the world like they always wanted. It wasn’t exactly how they planned to do that but now it was free. Mirya thought about leaving but she didn’t want to leave her brother. Mryin had also been the adventurous type whereas Mirya had been more of a  bookworm who just wanted to stay home. They had been polar opposites that way which is probably what made them such great siblings.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“We gotta get out of here some time”, Mirya had said. 

“No, we can just stay here”, Mryin had said looking visibly upset. He didn’t like that his sister wanted to leave their new home. Just then the nephalem flew out of nowhere quietly careful not to startle the kids. They didn’t notice and continued their conversation.

“Mryin, we can’t stay here forever”.

“Yes we can who says we can’t”.

“Why do you want to stay so bad we already did everything”.

“I don’t want to die”.

“We are dead”.

“No, not really but I don’t want to die permanently”.

Orbryn decided to make his presence known and cleared his throat. The kids were startled but calmed down once they realized it was just Orbryn.

“You didn’t have to scare us, Bry”. Myrin started to call Orbryn Bry and since he didn’t mind he continued to call him that.

“I’m sorry, Rin”. He thought it only fair to give Myrin a nickname since he was given one himself.

“I heard your conversation, sorry to eavesdrop, but you can stay here as long as you want but eventually you will have to cross over to somewhere”. This caused a light to go off in Myrin’s head thinking he might be able to return to Earth. Orbryn had said cross over to somewhere he didn’t specify where he had to cross. Mirya hadn’t thought of that; she just wanted to leave purgatory and didn’t mind where she went. Orbryn had left, leaving the two alone to discuss their next steps.

Once the nephalem left the two sat in silence thinking. Myrin left to try to get himself back on the solid ground and Mirya didn’t say anything.

Myrin thought to himself, If I can inhabit a body then I might be able to get back to Earth. He wasn’t wrong but he wasn’t right either. It would be difficult to possess a human but it wasn’t impossible. Myrin didn’t understand that once he got inside of a body he would have to stay there.

Mirya picked her book back up once Myrin left. She was glad he was gone so she could read but still didn’t understand the appeal of purgatory. She planned to simply ask Orbryn to leave and if that didn’t work she thought she could stay with her brother.

Myrin began to look for a body he found one that looked similar to him and decided to try and gain control of it. His first few tries landed him through a wall. He was a ghost and ghosts don’t feel pain. He tried many 20 times before he rammed his shoulder into the same wall. He was confused at first but realized that he might be able to do this if he tried a couple more times. 5 more tries and he felt like he was viewing the world through another pair of eyes. It worked but he tried to get out to tell Mirya to join him but couldn’t.

Mirya decided to explore once again to try and find her brother. She passed the body he had inhabited but couldn’t recognize him. She gave up after an hour of searching. She concluded that he would find his way back eventually. Mirya was met by Orbryn and she asked him to let her leave. He accepted.

Just like that, they were separated.