There was an absence of reality in the void. There was no time in the void. No light, and no shadow. There was no noise, yet it couldn't be called silent. No heat, but it wasn't cold. It both was, and wasn't, everything and nothing. It felt to Ethan like he had spent lifetimes in the void, but it only seemed like seconds had passed since the voice first spoke. Ethan had no thoughts, yet he could feel the absence around him.
Then there was pain. Unbearable searing pain, like having every cell in your body being broken down and rebuilt. Like having poison invade every inch of your being, but then there was light, and Ethan's eyes opened. He felt the comfort of a bed, and the warmth of a blanket.
Ethan looked around not knowing what to think. Then he noticed someone was in the room, someone whom he had never seen before. It was a man, but he was tall. Taller than any man Ethan had ever seen before. If Ethan were to guess, he would say the man was about 10 feet tall. His skin was also extremely pale, like it had a total absence of pigment. He was also very skinny, like there wasn't a trace of fat or muscle on him, but he had very thick and sturdy looking bones. He had one large eye in the center of his face, but everything else looked like a normal person's face. He had long arms, like unproportionally long arms, and an air of might. Ethan asked shakily with a hint of fear, "Where am I?"
"You, my unfortunate friend, are in purgatory. You died, but now you get a second chance at life." the man said with a grin on his face.
Ethan had no idea what to say to this, his brain could not yet process what was happening. "How did I end up in purgatory?" Ethan asked.
"No one knows, purgatory randomly takes souls while they're passing into the afterlife, or at least that is the most commonly believed thing about the process." the man said, sitting in a chair like it was just the norm, but to Ethan it was crazy.
"What...what is purgatory?" Ethan asked, still utterly stunned. "It's everywhere, and everything kid." Ethan had a stupefied look on his face. "What the hell!" he blurted out.
"Hey, how's the kid?" a loud and boisterous voice said, as a man came through the door. "Old man, he just woke up, and don't you think you're being a little loud?" the tall man said. The old man chuckled awkwardly, while rubbing the back of his head. "My bad, sorry".
"Who are you?" Ethan asked out of curiosity.
"I'm the owner of this inn, you can call me Old Sam." Sam said with a chuckle.
"Inn?" Ethan said, slightly confused.
"Ya, you're in my inn. After we found your body 90% formed in the woods. We took you here so you could wake up in a safe environment." Old Sam replied.
"What do you mean, 90% formed?" Ethan was at a loss for what that meant.
"Well when your soul was taken in by purgatory, you didn't have a body. No one does, so purgatory creates an identical body for you, made from immateria and bonded to your soul." Old Sam explains.
Ethan was still confused, but understood some more now. He also finally realized what the unbearable pain from earlier was. It was the pain of having a new body being built.
Now Ethan had another big question. "What is immateria?".
Old Sam grinned and said "Everything, immateria is everything. It is every drop of rain, every grain of dirt, every breath of air, and every spurt of blood. It flows through, is produced by, and makes up the entirety of purgatory. It doesn't take a singular form or a limited set of qualities, rather it makes up the base of all phenomena, materials, substances, and objects. It is the very basis of all energy and things within purgatory." and again, Ethan was left stupefied.